In the summer of 2022, the Hansen family took a special suitcase with them on their journey from Denmark to Hamburg. It contained historical documents and drawings by three Danish artists, Thorvald C. Hansen, Preben Holm Hansen, and Ib Holm Hansen. This special collection can now be found in the archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial.

Thorvald C. Hansen, Preben Holm Hansen, and Ib Holm Hansen, a father and two sons, were all imprisoned in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp. Only Preben Hansen survived his imprisonment and was able to return home to his mother.

The men of the Hansen family were deported from the Frøslev Internment Camp to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp on 20 October 1944. The father, Thorvald Hansen, died on 16 February 1945 at Neuengamme’s main camp at the age of 50. On 10 March 1945, his wife, Emma Hansen, received the news of his death. She wrote in a letter to her son Preben: "I want to do everything I can for you, my dear Preben, everything I can, I must have my two boys back home, I must. We all want to help each other, my dears, we want to be with each other for the rest of our lives. [...] The difficult time we have to go through now should make us stronger, and we want to strengthen each other and continue to work together as your dear father always wanted."

Less than a week after Emma Hansen wrote this letter, her youngest son, Ib, also died from the conditions of the concentration camp. Ib Holm Hansen died on 15 March 1945 in the Hannover Stöcken satellite camp. He was 16 years old.

Preben Hansen returned to his mother in Arhus on 17 May 1945.

His extensive collection contains several boxes full of letters from his imprisonment and the post-war period, as well as letters from his brother and father, which they sent to Emma Hansen, their mother and wife, respectively, before they died. The documents also bear witness to Emma Hansen's futile efforts to release her family from their imprisonment. The newspaper articles about the artistic family's exhibitions are also lovingly glued into the albums. A considerable collection of sketches by Preben Hansen are also now kept in the archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial.

We hope that we will be able to learn even more about the touching history of this family in the future through the continued transcription and translation of these letters and documents. We would like to thank the Hansen family for entrusting us with their precious memories.