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Fallersleben (Women)
In August 1944, a women's satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp was established in Fallersleben for armaments production at the Volkswagen plant. The female Jewish prisoners, most of whom were from Hungary, arrived at the camp on three transports. 500 Jewish women were taken from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Fallersleben probably in August 1944. Additional women were brought to Fallersleben on two transports in November 1944 and January 1945 from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The women were housed on the factory grounds in a converted shower room in factory hall 1 and had to produce anti-tank mines and rocket launchers at the plant.
On 8 April 1945, as the front moved closer, the SS moved the women to the Salzwedel satellite camp
The name of the Fallersleben camp commander is not known.
Period
August 1944 to 8 April 1945
Number of Prisoners
650 Female Prisoners
Kind of Work
Armaments production
Labor on Behalf of
Volkswagen
Location
Directions
Memorial to the Victims of National-Socialist Tyranny: Wolfsburg, Werderstraße/Ecke Schulenburgallee, 38448 Wolfsburg, Germany (from the central bus station on Porschestraße, take bus 1 to the "Waldfriedhof" stop).
Documentation on the Victims of National-Socialist Tyranny: Stadtmuseum im M2K, Schlossremise, Schlossstraße 8, 38448 Wolfsburg, Germany (from the central bus station on Porschestraße, take bus 1 to the "Schloss" stop).
Opening hours: Tue.–Fri. 10:00 AM-5:00 PM, Sat. 1:00 PM-6:00 PM, Sun. 11:00 AM-6:00 PM
Memorial to Forced Labour: VW "Autostadt" on the Mittellandkanal (extensively signposted).
Opening hours: Upon arrangement at history@volkswagen.de
Memorial
Between 1983 and 1986, various initiatives in Wolfsburg instituted a process of historical elucidation. In 1985 and 1986, the "foreigners' cemetery", which holds the graves not only of slave labourers whom the Nazis had classified as "racially inferior" but also of concentration camp prisoners, was renamed the "Memorial to the Victims of National-Socialist Tyranny". A new commemorative plaque was also installed which recalls the fate of the concentration camp prisoners.
An exhibition entitled "Documentation on the Victims of National-Socialist Tyranny" opened in the Stadtmuseum Schloss Wolfsburg in 1990 and was extensively reworked in 2000. One section of the exhibition on the second floor is dedicated to the history of prisoner labour at Volkswagen. This part of the exhibition focuses on labour in 1942 at the Arbeitsdorf concentration camp, which held some prisoners from Neuengamme concentration camp. It also addresses everyday life in the men's and women's satellite camps at Fallersleben in 1944/45.
When the history of forced labour at Volkswagen became a topic of discussion in Wolfsburg in the mid-1980s, Volkswagen AG began to confront its own history by commissioning a research paper on slave labourers at VW and providing funds for humanitarian projects and reparations, among other things. In December 1999, Volkswagen AG set up a "Memorial to Forced Labour" in a former bunker on its factory grounds. One of the six sections of this memorial deals extensively with the situation of the concentration camp prisoners used as labourers at Volkswagen.
Opening hours:
Memorial to Forced Labour: The exhibition can be visited after registering at the VW company archive.
Contact
Stadtmuseum im M2K
Remisen
Schlossstraße 8
38448 Wolfsburg
Tel.: 05361 – 28 1040
Email: stadtmuseum@stadt.wolfsburg.de
Volkswagen Kommunikation
38436 Wolfsburg
Tel.: 05361 – 9 77 173
Email: history@volkswagen.de
