Members of the Boys were held in Nazi labour and concentration camps and used as slave labourers.
From 1933-1945 Nazi Germany operated over 1,000 concentration camps and subcamps in its own territory and across German occupied Europe. Among them was the Braunschweig subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp.
As the camps were dissolved thousands of people, among them members of the Boys, endured horrific evacuations from the camps on foot, in freight wagons and open top trains, as well as perilous journeys across the Baltic Sea.
The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.
When the camp was dissolved on 26 March 1945, the prisoners were marched 20km to the Watenstedt subcamp of Neuengamme. Those who could not keep up were shot by the SS. Some of them including members of the Boys were taken by train. For those who had endured the evacuation of Auschwitz, as had the members of the Boys, the nightmare began again.
The halt at Watenstedt did not last long. On 7 April, they were moved by train with over 1000 other prisoners in open-topped wagons to Ravensbrück arriving on 14 April 1945.
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