There were 4 camps, #3137, #32/137, over 7,300 residents, Land Niedersachsen
(British zone), mostly Poles 7,500, UNRRA team 65.
The NRW archive has research all about their towns; it was said they have something about Lahde, too. See http://www.archive.nrw.de/
There is a book in German about workers' camp in Lahde: Arbeitserziehungslager Lahde 1943-1945. Ein Buch gegen das Vergessen Stadt
Petershagen (Herausgeber), zusammengestellt von Bernhzard Marowsky, Ideen
und Druck, Lübbecke, Petershagen, 1995
Landeskirchliches Archiv -- is the Protestant church archives and they have something about Lahde in their archives, too. I donīt know if they have anything about DPs, but it might be worth a try. Their archives are said to be good.
Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche von Westfalen
Altstädter Kirchplatz 5
Postfach 10 10 51 (The street address is Ritterstrasse 19)
D-33602 Bielefeld
Tel: 0521 594-296
Fax: 0521 594-129
E-mail: archiv@lka.ekvw.de
2/3/07 Hi Olga
I have only recently found your wonderful site filled with so much information
and wonder if you can help me. I am trying to reseach some information
on my dad, Josef Jarema, from Polish Ukraine, whose address of last residence
outside UK shown on his PWX/DP identity card is UNRRA team 65 Lahde which
I believe was absorbed into the newly created UNRRA Area Team 911 located
in Minden/Westfalen and my Mum, Helena Skorek (? Skoryk) from Russia Ukraine.
Mum and Dad met and married in their time in the camps but what I am trying
to find out is where and when they got married and if records would have
had to have been kept and if so where. If you are able to tell me where
I would be able to get this information I would be very grateful. With
very best wishes.
Margaret Tansey m.tansey@ntlworld.com
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9/26/10 Dear
Mrs. Kaczmar,
My name is Hermann Kleinebenne.
I am the local mayor of the village Petershagen at the
river Weser in NW Germany. In 2008 I published a documentation “Die
Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar”.
It deals with the
incidents in the Petershagen-Lahde area at the end of WW II where an education
camp had been established by the Gestapo in 1943 and where a DP camp of UNRRA
team 65 was established from 1945 – 1949. If there should be any
questions about this camp I would like to help you. Best regards,
Hermann
Kleinebenne Hermann_Kleinebenne@web.de
Short History of the Displaced Persons Assembly Centre Lahde
at the Weser River, NW Germany
by Hermann Kleinebenne
In May 1945, after the capitulation of the German “Reich”,
the 3rd (UK) Infantry Division took over the Westphalian area securing the
rear area of 21st Army Group. The division changed from the fighting role
to its new occupational role. In the Petershagen-Lahde area, the 2nd
Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment officially established the DPAC Lahde
on the eastern banks of the Weser river.
Many former slave workers and POWs had been assembled by 2 RWR at this natural
catch line, when they fled westwards from the combat zone in the Hannover
and Lüneburg area.
The DPAC 32 Lahde consisted of different elements.
- The first thousand Displaced
Persons could be billeted in a former SS-work education camp
and a slave workers camp north of Lahde. Some weeks later, seven
villages were totally or partly evacuated from the inhabitants,
and the DPs were billeted and supplied there. The various nationalities
lived in the villages of Lahde, Frille, Wietersheim, Raderhorst,
Bierde, Päpinghausen, Cammer, Steinhude,
Hagenburg and Loccum Heath. Most of them were Poles and Russians.
- The Russians mainly
lived in Bierde, from where they were repatriated to Russia in
1945. The vacant houses were filled up with Poles from different DPACs
in Westphalia. The repatriation station of the DPAC 32 Lahde was Porta Westfalica.
- A special
element of the DPAC 32 Lahde was the “Camp Netherland”. The Dutch
people lived on their ships between 1945 and 1949 in the vicinity of Lahde.
The
total number of DPs in this area is estimated between 12,000
and 17,000.
Every village, now called “Camp”, had its own society and structure
(UNRRA administration, mayor, police, workers in different professions, hospital,
welfare). The mass of the DPs behaved in a normal manner in those years.
They worked, married, children were born, and the people who died were buried
on the local cemeteries. On the other side, there were a lot of criminal
incidents (looting, assault, rape) which caused trouble between some groups
of DPs and the Germans civil population in the area outside the camps between
1945 and 1949.
On September 8th, 1949, the last DPAC (Lahde) was closed, and the last former
inhabitants were allowed by the Military Government to return into their
houses.
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