Porta Westfalica-Hausberge (Women)
From mid-February 1945, around 1,000 female concentration camp prisoners, mostly Jews from Hungary and the Netherlands, were forced to work for Philips at the Hausberge camp in Porta Westfalica. These prisoners had come from Auschwitz; from the Horneburg camp for women, a satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp; and from the Reichenbach camp for women, a satellite camp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. From early October 1944, Philips had equipped the upper tunnels in the Jakobsberg hill with machines and production equipment for manufacturing communications devices for the Wehrmacht. The women were taken to the camp in two groups and forced to produce radio valves and light bulbs in the Jakobsberg facilities.
The camp was evacuated on 1 April 1945 and the prisoners were transported north for several days. Some of the women reached the Salzwedel satellite camp and were liberated by American troops on 14 April, while others were taken via the Fallersleben and Helmstedt-Beendorf satellite camps to Hamburg, where they were liberated in late April or early May 1945.
According to survivors, the commander of the camp was SS-Unterscharführer Brose.
Period
Mid-February 1945 to 1 April 1945
Number of prisoners
1,000 women
Kind of work
Production of radio valves and light bulbs
Slave labour on behalf of
Philips-Valvo
