Imagine a place where the air smells of pine needles and nostalgia, where a giant steel barrel once stood guard over the laughter of thousands of children. Today, the "Gabriel Péri" Young Pioneer camp in the Harz Mountains is a ghost of its former self—but its story is far from silent.
Nestled in Neudorf, Saxony-Anhalt’s most water-rich village, this former GDR tourist hotspot is now a hauntingly beautiful "Lost Place." While the wooden barracks slowly surrender to moss and birch trees grow through the shower floors, the memories of legendary summers remain vivid for those who spent their childhoods here. From Campfire Songs to Quiet Echoes: The "Barrel" Holiday Camp of Neudorf.
The small Harz village of Neudorf was a tourist hotspot during the GDR era. Two large children's holiday camps brought hustle and bustle to Saxony-Anhalt's most water-rich municipality. To this day, slowly decaying barracks serve as reminders of this former children's paradise.
The proud steel pipe entrance gate has remained almost untouched by the decades. The inscription "Dessau Brewery" still peeks proudly out from the undergrowth along the Silberhütte artificial canal – part of the listed Lower Harz Water Management System, which once supplied the surrounding mine shafts.
However, the Dessau Brewery didn't have a branch here in Neudorf, a village between Wippra and Harzgerode, to quench the miners' thirst. Behind the gate stand the remains of one of the two large holiday camps that transformed the small village of Neudorf into a popular vacation destination until 30 years ago. Besides the Dessau Beverage Combine, the Mansfeld Combine also maintained a Young Pioneer camp in Neudorf.
A Paradise for Generations
What remains of the holiday paradise, once frequented by generations of children of brewery workers not only from Dessau, but also from Halle, Weißenfels, and Naumburg, is not an imposing ruin with bold architecture, crumbling picturesquely.
The large barrel, where the camp guards—comprised of holidaying children—used to ensure no one arrived or left unannounced, has survived the years. But little else remains of the internationalist camp, named after the French anti-fascist Gabriel Péri.
The table inside the barrel, where cards were once played, is still there. The simple wooden barracks are also still standing, weathered and moss-covered. But they are merely sad ruins. The sanitary block no longer has a roof. Many of the simple barracks are slowly succumbing to their fate.
Nostalgia among former campers
Few "lost places" enthusiasts, seeking spectacular architecture with a post-apocalyptic charm, venture here. And yet, the Neudorf summer camp ruins have their fans: Former campers like Köthen photographer Daniel Weihmann view the ruins with a touch of melancholy.
"It was a great time," recalls the online marketing specialist, who, as a child, spent two weeks every summer in the seemingly distant Harz Mountains.
Fresh air, the forest, the other children, table tennis and soccer, discos, hikes, and swimming in the Birnbaumteich pond – like Weihmann, former campers remember "Gabriel Péri" as much bigger, more beautiful, and more adventurous than the remaining remnants would suggest today.
The accommodations are half-collapsed. A sign next to a door still reads "Dining Room." Faded garlands hang in the windows, the paths are overgrown, and the fences have collapsed.
From Decay to Reinvention
A sense of decay hangs over the site at an altitude of 440 meters, which was closed after the Treuhandanstalt (the agency responsible for privatizing East German state-owned enterprises) sold the beverage conglomerate to a Bavarian brewing dynasty.
Shortly afterward, the main plant followed suit, where, after years of neglect, a private initiative endeavored to preserve the historic buildings—a project that ended in bankruptcy and a stalemate that has persisted ever since.
In Neudorf itself, however, this is not currently being discussed. The village has reinvented itself in recent years as a vacation destination for families. With a water surface area of 421 square meters per inhabitant (thanks to the Birnbaum, Gondel, Fürsten, Enten, and Teufelsteich ponds), it is considered the most water-rich place in Saxony-Anhalt. There is a holiday park, bicycle rentals, mini-golf, pony rides, and restaurants.
Beyond the fence of the "Barrel Holiday Camp," however, where children from the Soviet Union and France also vacationed during the GDR era, only the wind rustles in the trees. In the ruined sanitary facilities, the beams creak, birch trees grow in the showers, and a sink clings to a wall that is gradually collapsing.
However, it's not entirely empty: Since a country club temporarily found a home here, most of the group rooms and communal facilities have been used as stables and haylofts.
