Kamp Amersfoort ( nl, Kamp Amersfoort, german: Durchgangslager Amersfoort) was a Nazi concentration camp near the city of

Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a city and municipality in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands, about 20 km from the city of Utrecht and 40 km south east of Amsterdam. As of 1 December 2021, the municipality had a population of 158,531, making it the second- ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The official name was "Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort", P.D.A. or Amersfoort Police Transit Camp. 37,000 prisoners were held there between 1941 to 1945. The camp was situated in the northern part of the municipality of

Leusden Leusden () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht. It is located about 3 kilometres southeast of Amersfoort. The western part of the municipality lies on the slopes of the Utrecht Hill Ridge and is largely co ...

, on the municipal boundary between Leusden and Amersfoort in the central Netherlands.

Early history

In 1939, Kamp Amersfoort was still a complex of barracks that supported army artillery exercises on the nearby Leusderheide. From 1941 onwards, it did not merely function as a transit camp, as the name suggests. The terms "penal camp" or "work camp" would also be fitting. During the existence of the camp, many prisoners were put to work in work units. In total, around 37,000 prisoners were registered at Amersfoort. To get to the camp, prisoners had to walk from the railway sidings through the town and through residential neighborhoods:

Visible in the windows, above and below, of most residences and behind closed lace curtains, were numerous silhouettes, especially those of children. Usually, the silhouettes did not move. Sometimes, feebly and furtively, they waved. Children who waved were very quickly pulled back. It was a farewell from the inhabited world – now a realm of shades.

1941–1943

The history of the camp can be separated into two periods. The first period began on August 18, 1941, and ended in March 1943. In March 1943 all but eight of the surviving first prisoners in Amersfoort were transferred to Kamp Vught concentration camp. The prisoner transfer to Kamp Vught allowed for the completion of an expansion of Kamp Amersfoort. Maintaining the camp, despite Kamp Vught becoming operational in January 1943, still appeared necessary to the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

. Following the invasion of the USSR in June 1941, the camp held

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

prisoners of war. These included 101 Uzbek prisoners brought to display to the Dutch for propaganda purposes, all either dying in the winter of 1941 or executed in woods near the camp in April 1942. 865 Soviet prisoners are buried in nearby Rusthof cemetery. Amersfoort was a transit camp, whence prisoners were sent to places like

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

Mauthausen Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regu ...

and

Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

s. It was on July 15, 1942, that the Germans began deporting Dutch Jews from Amersfoort, Vught, and Westerbork to concentration camps and death camps such as Auschwitz,

Sobibor Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As an ...

and

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...

1943 to 1945

The remaining watchtower, as can be seen on the memorial, was built around April/May 1943, when the expansion of Kamp Amersfoort was completed and prisoners could be held there again. In many ways, Kamp Amersfoort had changed relative to the first period. The most important changes were the much larger 'housing capacity', and the faster 'turnover'. What stayed the same, were the anarchy, the lack of hygiene, the lack of food, lack of medical attention, and the cruelty of the guards. A point of light for the prisoners was the presence of the Dutch Red Cross. The second period ended on April 19, 1945, when control of the camp was transferred to

Loes van Overeem Loes may refer to: Places *Loes Hundred, a Suffolk county division *Loes River, a river in East Timor Given name A Dutch feminine given name (pronounced ), a short form of Louise.