Hannover - Bothfeld, Jüdischer Friedhof

According to the information available to us, a total of 469 victims of National Socialist tyranny rest in a cemetery in the middle of the cemetery behind the main entrance. Almost all of the dead buried here were concentration camp prisoners from the Ahlem subcamp - Jewish prisoners from the dissolved Lodz ghetto who were taken from the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 for "work assignments" at the Continental company and the Hanover metal works. Continental and the Hanover metal works, first to Stöcken and then in November 1944 to Ahlem, to prepare existing former asphalt tunnels for the underground production of gas masks and aircraft tires. Around 750 prisoners in the Ahlem subcamp died of hunger, cold, epidemics, torture, inhumane working conditions or were murdered. On April 6, 1945, while fleeing from the Americans, the SS forced most of the prisoners on a "death march" to Bergen-Belsen north of Celle, which most of them did not survive. Only 200 sick prisoners remained behind, whom the American soldiers found in a pitiful condition on April 10, 1945. They and other surviving concentration camp prisoners from other camps were taken to the "Heidehaus" hospital, where many died of illness and exhaustion shortly afterwards. These dead and 319 urns bearing the names and ashes of Polish Jewish prisoners found in the former Ahlem camp in 1948 were buried in the Bothfeld Jewish cemetery. Photos: Volker Fleig 2014