Horserød camp

Horserød Prison is an open state prison at Horserød, located in North Zealand, approximately seven kilometers from Helsingør. In local parlance it is still referred as Horserød camp.

Establishment and before World War II
The camp originally consisted of approximately 75 wooden barracks and was built in 1917 to confine Russian prisoners of war who were transferred from Germany and the Eastern front during the First World War. After the war the camp then housed various kinds of refugees, and at one point was converted to a summer camp for school children from the slums of Copenhagen.

World War II
Between 19 April 1940 and 2 August 1941, 80 German immigrants were detained in groups in Horserød camp before being sent back to Germany. A court in Hamburg later sentenced 14 of them to capital punishment, while the rest were interned in Nazi concentration camps.

In 1941 Danish communists were arrested and first put into Vestre Prison in Copenhagen before being moved on 22 June 1941 to Horserød camp, as a result of the adoption of the Anti-Communist Act by the Danish parliament on 22 August 1941. Beginning around September 1943, the Germans then used Horserød camp to detain various Danish resistance members and Jews. Although it was not described as a concentration camp, it had the same functions, but unlike the German concentration camps it not under the SS.

In 1944, when the Danish government created Frøslev Prison Camp, the inmates from Horserød were moved there. From April 1945, the Germans used Horserød camp as a military hospital for wounded German soldiers.

Post-war
From 15 August 1945 the camp was used for the internment of Danish traitors who had collaborated with Nazi Germany. The last of these was released in 1956. The Danish prison services took over Horserød camp in 1947.