Hamburg-Eidelstedt to Bergen Belsen

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 Hamburg-Eidelstedt subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp.

As the camps were evacuated 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.

In early April, the SS evacuated the camp and transported the women to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They went without food for several days and arrived half-starved. In Bergen-Belsen they were liberated together with thousands of other prisoners by British troops on 15 April 1945.

On 20/21 April 1945, several hundred more women who had been evacuated to Hamburg from the Helmstedt-Beendorf satellite camp arrived at Eidelstedt. In early May, more prisoners came to Eidelstedt from the Langenhorn/Ochsenzoll and Wandsbek satellite camps for women in Hamburg. These prisoners were liberated by British soldiers on 5 May 1945.