Hans-Joachim and Jürgen Timm yesterday presented the memorial's archive with a collection of papers their father made during his one-year internment in Neuengamme.

At the site of the former Neuengamme concentration camp, the British occupation authorities set up an internment camp from 1945 to 1948. Among others, NSDAP functionaries and members of the SS and Gestapo were held here until their individual guilt could be investigated.

The memorial archive has now received some impressive new documents from this period. The brothers Hans-Joachim and Jürgen Timm presented a collection of papers made by their father during his one-year internment in Neuengamme. Hans Timm, born in 1922 in Marne/Dithmarschen, had learned typography in the internment camp and subsequently produced a large number of programme slips and event posters.

The documents provide a detailed insight into the cultural and educational life in the internment camp: concerts, cabaret programmes, lectures, Bible studies, seminars and language courses are announced; an agricultural school and an adult education centre also existed in the camp. Hans Timm drafted all the handwritten documents himself - accurately in pen and ink.

What exactly the father was accused of by the British is still unclear. In the documents found so far he appeared to have been a simple soldier, but the sons want to investigate further.