Horserød camp

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Danish Prisons
Statsfængslet ved Horserød
Location: Horserød, Elsinore
Status: Operational
Classification: Prison
Capacity: 221
Opened: 1916-17
Closed:
Managed by: Correctional Service of Denmark

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Horserød Prison is an open state prison at Horserød, located in North Zealand, approximately seven kilometers from Helsingør. In local parlance it is still referred as Horserød camp.

Establishment and before World War II

Russian prisoners of war at Horserød camp

The camp originally consisted of approximately 75 wooden barracks and was built in 1917 to confine Russian prisoners of war who were transferred from Germany and the Eastern front during the First World War. After the war the camp then housed various kinds of refugees, and at one point was converted to a summer camp for school children from the slums of Copenhagen.[1]

World War II

Between 19 April 1940 and 2 August 1941, 80 German immigrants were detained in groups in Horserød camp before being sent back to Germany. A court in Hamburg later sentenced 14 of them to capital punishment, while the rest were interned in Nazi concentration camps.[2][3]

On 22 June 1941, Danish communists were arrested by the Danish police without charge and first put into Vestre Prison in Copenhagen, before being deported to the Horserød camp. Communists had long been surveilled and perceived as a threat to national security by the political establishment, and on 22 August 1941, the Danish parliament adopted the Anti-Communist Act with retroactive effect.[2] The 29 August 1943, the Germans took over the camp and in the event, 95 prisoners managed to escape, while the rest were subsequently deported to the German Stutthof concentration camp. From around September that year, the German Gestapo began using Horserød to detain various Danish resistance members and Jews. Although Horserød camp was not officially described as a concentration camp, it had the same functions, but unlike the German concentration camps, it was not administered by the SS.[2]

In 1944, when the Danish government created Frøslev Prison Camp, the inmates from Horserød were moved there. From April 1945, the Germans used Horserød camp as a military hospital for wounded German soldiers.[2]

Post-war

From 15 August 1945 the camp was used for the internment of Danish traitors who had collaborated with Nazi Germany. The last of these was released in 1956. The Danish prison services took over Horserød camp in 1947.[2][4]

The 22 June is now an annual day of remembrance held at a monument at the camp, commemorating the arresting and detention of Danish communists in 1941.[2]

References

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External links