The prisoners worked on the construction of the camp and the brickworks, regulating the flow of the Dove-Elbe river and the building of a branch canal, as well as the mining of clay. The number of prisoners increased dramatically in only a few months. In 1940, the population of the camp was 2,000 prisoners. Between 1940 and 1945 more than 95,000 prisoners were incarcerated at Neuengamme. On April 10, 1945, the number of prisoners in the camp itself was 13,500. More than 2,000 men and 10,300 women were working in different subcamps depending on the Neuengamme SS administration.
From the very beginning of its existence to its liberation, Neuengamme was a deadly hell for it's prisoners. Despite the nearly nonexistent food rations, the prisoners had to preform hard labor in all kinds of weather along with constant beatings from the SS guards. Very soon, the mortality rate reached an incredible level. Starvation, physical abuse, and total lack of hygiene and medical care soon killed hundreds of prisoners.
During the war, tens of thousands of people were deported as concentration camp prisoners from Neuengamme all over occupied Europe by the Nazi's. In most cases they were incarcerated for having resisted German occupation, having refused to perform forced labor or simply as victoms of racial persecution. From 80% in 1940 the proportion of Germans among the inmates dropped to approximately 10%.
From 1942 onward, the prisoners were forced to work in Nazi armament production. Initially the work was preformed in the workshops of the camp but soon it was decided to move prisoners to the armament factories located in the surrounding areas. At the end of the war, the external kommandos of Neuengamme spread all over northern Germany. Because of the Allied advance, hundreds of prisoners were forced to dig anti-tank ditches. In many large north German cities, prisoners cleared rubble and removed corpses in the wake of bombing raids.
All in all, there were 96 subcamps, with 20 subcamps for women. In the early spring of 1945, more than 45,000 prisoners were working for the Nazi industry, with a third of them being women. At this time, the internal population of Neuengamme was 13,500 and the camp was completely overcrowded.
The stimated number of victoms of Neuengamme is approximately 56,000. Thousands of prisoners were hung, shot, gassed, killed by lethal injection, or transferred to the death camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek. In the last weeks of the war, the SS decided to evacuate Neuengamme. This was the start of one of the worst death marches of the war. During these death marches, approximately 10,000 prisoners died from starvation and shootings.
The destination of one of these marches was Neustadt, a German haven were prisoners had to be transported on a liner transformed into a military freighter: the "Cap Arcona". On April 27, 1945, another freighter the "Athen", arrived in Neustadt with 2,500 prisoners from the Dora concentration camp. They were immediately transferred to the "Cap Arcona". Another ship, the "Thielbeck", arrived later with 2,500 prisoners from other camps. On May 3, 1945, 3:00 pm, three "Typhoon" fighters from the RAF attacked the ships. There were 7,500 prisoners on board, only 500 survived.
