Youth Concentration Camp Moringen

In 1939 and 1940, the Nazis established three concentration camps to “re-educate” wayward young people who deviated from the official racist doctrine of the state – at Moringen and Litzmannstadt for boys, and at Uckermark for girls. One example of a crime that led to the incarceration of so-called “Swingboys” was a fondness for jazz music, which the Nazis disparaged as “niggerjazz.” Moringen was very small, with a capacity for 400 prisoners. Opened in April 1933 as a regular concentration camp for men, it became the first women’s concentration camp in September 1933. In August 1940, the first youth arrived when it was redesignated Jugendschutzlager Moringen, also known as Konzentrationslager für Jugendliche.