The city, as the owner of the site and the plaques, immediately filed a police report against persons unknown.

Where four prisoner barracks once stood, there is now a municipal parking lot. Between the fall of 1944 and April 1945, an average of about 500 women were imprisoned here. They were put to work in arms production a few kilometers away from the camp. A large number of them had to walk to what was then the AG für Bergbau- und Hüttenbedarf; others were driven by truck to the Kleineisenwerk at Gittertor. Working in three shifts, they produced grenade parts and accessories for military equipment. The SS camp was located directly adjacent to the prisoners’ quarters.

In 1994, a boulder with a commemorative plaque was placed on the edge of the former camp grounds in memory of the victims of the Salzgitter-Bad concentration camp. Since 2018, the two signs have provided more detailed information about the concentration camp satellite camp. The texts were compiled with the support of the city archives, and the memorial site is regularly maintained by dedicated citizens.

The fact that informational signs have disappeared from this historic site of all places has caused consternation not only among city officials but also among the City History Working Group. The group has made it its mission to provide well-researched educational and political awareness work regarding local Nazi history and oversees the memorial sites in Salzgitter.

Such memorial sites depend on history remaining visible and on people being able to engage with it. When information disappears from a former concentration camp, it affects a place that is of particular significance not only for the memory of those who were persecuted and murdered, but also for their relatives and descendants.

“We will not be deterred from continuing to provide information about the crimes of National Socialism and from advocating for dignified remembrance,” said Jeannette Hentschel, chairwoman of the City History Working Group.

The City of Salzgitter and the City History Working Group hope that the circumstances surrounding the disappearance will be clarified and that the plaques will be recovered. Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the information plaques is asked to contact one of the police stations in Salzgitter.