The memoral site

Right up to 1980s the history of the concentration camps in the Salzgitter region was largely ignored or forgotten. It was not until the publication of Gerd Wysocki’s book “Zwangsarbeit im Stahlkonzern” (Slave labour in the steel corporation) and the programme of events on the theme of “Salzgitter under National Socialism” held in 1982 to mark the city’s 40th anniversary that a public debate first got underway.

In 1983 a circle of concerned individuals founded the “Arbeitskreis Stadtgeschichte e.V.” (a non-profit association called “the study group for city history”). In collaboration with the industrial union IG Metall and the workers’ council of the steelworks, the association relentlessly pressed to have a memorial site established within the actual historical buildings of the former Drütte concentration camp that had been located on the premises of the Stahlwerke Peine-Salzgitter AG. Finally, on 11 April 1985, the worker’s council organized the first memorial service on the site, a commemorative ceremony that has since then been held each year on the former camp’s parade ground to mark the anniversary of the camp’s liberation.

The fight to set up a memorial centre succeeded in 1992 when an agreement was eventually reached between the management board and the workers’ council of the Peine-Salzgitter AG stipulating that the corporation would make one of the four accommodation barracks beneath the flyover available as premises for a memorial centre. Responsibility for the design and maintenance of this historically preserved building was assumed by the “Arbeitskreis Stadtgeschichte” (Study group for city history). On 11 April 1994 the Drütte concentration camp memorial site and documentation centre was finally opened.