Work at the main camp centered around brick production for the first half of the war. This included the construction of a canal on the small offshoot of the Elbe river located at the campsite in order to transport raw materials from Hamburg. Inmates were forced to excavate the heavy, peaty soil with inadequate tools, regardless of weather conditions or the state of their health. Once the prisoners finished building the new brick factory in 1942, one of the most populated assignment was working in the clay pit, extracting and transporting clay from the main camp for brick production. Constructing the canal, digging the clay, and transporting the soil were known as the three “death commandos”. Skilled labour was almost always given to prisoners on upper rungs of the Aryan hierarchy.