Lager Norderney

Lager Norderney was a Nazi concentration camp on Alderney, in the Channel Islands, named after the East Frisian island of Norderney.

The Germans built three labour camps and one Nazi Concentration camp on the island, subcamps of the Neuengamme concentration camp (located in Hamburg, Germany). Each subcamp was named after one of the Frisian Islands: Lager Norderney located at Saye, Lager Borkum at Platte Saline, Lager Sylt near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère and Lager Helgoland, situated in the northwest corner of the island. 700 people died in the Alderney concentration camps (out of a total inmate population of about 6,000). These were the only Nazi concentration camps on British soil.

Some of the structures of Lager Norderney still remain, and the site is now a camping site for tourists. Close by is a tunnel from the camp to the beach, which is it is claimed was used by the Nazis as a shelter, or possibly as a killing site

It was organised by the Schutzstaffel - SS-Baubrigade I&mdash;which was first under supervision of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp; and since mid-February 1943 ran under the Neuengamme camp in northern Germany. It was used by the Nazi Organisation Todt, a forced labour programme, to build bunkers, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters and other concrete fortifications.

Norderney camp housed European (usually Eastern but including Spaniard) and Russian enforced labourers. The prisoners in Lager Norderney and Lager Sylt were slave labourers forced to build the many military fortifications and installations throughout Alderney. Sylt camp held Jewish enforced labourers and was a death camp. The Borkum and Helgoland camps were "volunteer" (Hilfswillige) labour camps and the labourers in those camps were treated harshly but marginally better than the inmates at the Sylt and Norderney camps. Lager Borkum was used for German technicians and volunteers from different countries of Europe. Lager Helgoland was filled with Russian Organisation Todt workers. (For further information on Alderney concentration camps, see Appendix F: Concentration Camps: Endlösung – The Final Solution; Alderney, a Nazi concentration camp on an island Anglo-Norman ).

In 1942, Lager Norderney, containing Russian and Polish POWs, and Lager Sylt, holding Jews, were placed under the control of the SS Hauptsturmführer Max List. Over 700 of the inmates lost their lives before the camps were closed and the remaining inmates transferred to Germany in 1944.