📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
'Dora' was founded at the end of August 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. The concentration camp inmates were forced to reconstruct a big tunnel system into a new underground rocket factory in Kohnstein Mountain near Nordhausen so that the Nazis could relocate their rocket armament to the Southern Harz mountains. Concentration camp inmates were housed in underground facilities for months. It was not until spring 1944 that an above-ground barrack camp was built to accommodate them.
Between 1943 and 1945, some 60,000 persons from nearly all countries of Europe were deported to the Harz Mountains as concentration camp inmates. One out of three died while being forced to work for the German armament industry.
💼 What the programme involves
Work at the area of the former inmates’ camp; uncover the foundations of a former barrack (work with stones, cut bushes, paint trees)
🏠 Accommodation on site
Youth hostel of the Protestant Church of Nordhausen-Salza (by bike approximately 10-15 min from the memorial); self-catering (supermarkets are nearby); WIFI is only available at the memorial site
📍 About the location
Nordhausen is located at the southern edge of Harz mountains in Thuringia, about 110 km east of Kassel.
⚠️ Requirements
Interest in the history of concentration camps; good knowledge of English language; _to be able to ride a bike in the road traffic is a serious requirement!!!_
ℹ️ Additional information
Public open-air pool 10 min from the hostel!
Trips to the Harz mountains and Kyffhäuser Memorial are possible; bicycles are
available.