Camp Westerbork ( nl, Kamp Westerbork, german: Durchgangslager Westerbork, Drents: ''Börker Kamp; Kamp Westerbörk'' ), also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a
Nazi
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 ...
transit camp in the
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
of
Drenthe
Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nov ...
in the Northeastern
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 ...
, during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. It was located in the
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
of
Westerbork
Camp Westerbork ( nl, Kamp Westerbork, german: Durchgangslager Westerbork, Drents: ''Börker Kamp; Kamp Westerbörk'' ), also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the province of Drenthe in the Northeastern Netherlands, ...
, current-day
Midden-Drenthe
Midden-Drenthe () is a municipality in the northeastern Netherlands. The municipality was created in 1998, in a merger of the former municipalities of Beilen, Smilde, and Westerbork. Between 1998 and 2000, the name of the municipality was Middenve ...
. Camp Westerbork was used as a staging location for sending
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
to
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
elsewhere.
Purpose of Camp Westerbork
The camp location was established by the Government of the Netherlands in the summer of 1939 to serve as a refugee camp for
(German and Austrian Jews in particular), who had fled to the Netherlands to escape
Nazi
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 ...
persecution.
However, after the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, that original purpose no longer existed. By 1942, Camp Westerbork was repurposed as a staging ground for the deportation of Jews. Only one-half square kilometre (119 acres) in area, the camp was not built for the purpose of industrial murder as were Nazi
extermination camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
s. Westerbork was considered by
Nazi
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 ...
standards as "humane". Jewish inmates with families were housed in 200 interconnected cottages that contained two rooms, a toilet, a hot plate for cooking, as well as a small yard. Single inmates were placed in oblong
barracks
Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...
which contained a bathroom for each sex.
Transport trains arrived at Westerbork every Tuesday from July 1942 to September 1944; an estimated 97,776 Jews were deported during the period. Jewish inmates were deported in waves to
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
(65 train-loads totaling 60,330 people),
Sobibór
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 ...
(19 train-loads; 34,313 people),
Theresienstadt ghetto
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 cam ...
and
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concent ...
(9 train-loads; 4,894 people). Almost all of the 94,643 persons deported to Auschwitz and Sobibór in
German-occupied Poland
German-occupied Poland during World War II consisted of two major parts with different types of administration.
The Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the ...
were killed upon arrival.
Camp Westerbork also had a school, orchestra, hairdresser and even restaurants designed by SS officials to give inmates a false sense of hope for survival and to aid in avoiding problems during transportation. Cultural activities provided by the Nazis for designated deportees included metalwork, jobs in
health services
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wiktionary:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physical and menta ...
and other cultural activities.
A special, separate work cadre of 2,000 "permanent" Jewish inmates was used as a camp labour force. Within this group was a subgroup constituting a camp
police force
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
which was required to assist with transports and keep order. The SS had little involvement with selecting transferees; this job fell to another class of inmates. Most of these 2,000 "permanent" inmates were eventually sent to concentration or death camps themselves.
Notable prisoners
Notable prisoners in Westerbork included
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...
, who was transported to Camp Westerbork on 4 August 1944, as well as
Etty Hillesum
Esther (Etty) Hillesum (15 January 1914 – 30 November 1943) was the Dutch author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. I ...
, each of whom wrote of their experiences in diaries discovered after the war. Frank remained at the camp in a small hut until 3 September, when she was deported to Auschwitz.
Hillesum was able to avoid the Nazi dragnet that identified Jews until April 1942. Even after being labeled a Jew, she began to report on
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
policies. She took a job with
Judenrat
A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...
for two weeks and then volunteered to accompany the first group of Jews sent to Westerbork. Hillesum stayed at Westerbork until 7 September 1943, when she was deported to Auschwitz, where she was killed three months later.
Camp Westerbork also housed German film actress and cabaret singer
Dora Gerson
Dora Gerson (born Dorothea Gerson; 23 March 1899 – 14 February 1943) was a German cabaret singer and stage and motion picture actress of the silent film era who was murdered with her family at Auschwitz concentration camp.
Life and career
Born ...
who was interned there with her family before being sent to Auschwitz and Professor Sir
William Asscher
Sir Adolf William Asscher (1930 – 20 July 2014) was a Dutch-born British consultant nephrologist.
Asscher was born in the Netherlands. His family was of Jewish heritage; they were thus deported to Westerbork transit camp, from where his mothe ...
who survived the camp when his mother secured his family's release by fabricating English ancestry.
Jona Oberski
Jona Eliëser Joseph Oberski (20 March 1938) is a Dutch writer, and a nuclear physicist.
A year before his birth, his parents escaped from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands, and settled in Amsterdam. But when World War II broke out, the country wa ...
wrote of his experience as a small child at Westerbork in his book, ''Kinderjaren'' ("Childhood"), published in the Netherlands in 1978 and later made into the film, ''
Jonah Who Lived in the Whale
''Jonah Who Lived in the Whale'' ( it, Jona che visse nella balena), in the United States released as (''Look to the Sky'') is a 1993 Italian-French drama film directed by Roberto Faenza, based on the autobiographical novel by the writer Jona Ob ...
''.
Maurice Frankenhuis
Maurice Frankenhuis (February 24, 1894 – September 22, 1969) was a Jewish Dutch businessman, historian, researcher, author, collector, numismatist, Holocaust survivor, and philanthropist. He documented the history of World War I and World Wa ...
chronicled his family's experiences while interned in Westerbork and in 1948 conducted an interview with its Commander while awaiting trial. The published interview in Dutch and English became the basis for a docudrama created in September 2019. The film features colorization of original video of transports from Westerbork by photographer Rudolf Breslauer.
Another prisoner at Camp Westerbork from 9 March 1944 to 23 March 1944 was Hans Mossel (1905–1944), a Jewish-
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
ist and
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...
Jacques Schol, a Dutchman, was commander of the camp from 16 July 1940 and until January 1943. Certain accounts report he was known for his brutality against Jewish inmates, allegedly kicking inmates to death. Other accounts state on the contrary that "although strict and organised, Schol was never cruel or violent". Furthermore, "Schol, who was anti-German, understood that a strict organisation of the camp was the best way to keep the Germans from taking over the camp". In 1941, German authorities understood that "Schol was too lenient and because of this attitude, the Jews felt too comfortable in the camp".
German authorities took control of Westerbork from the Government of the Netherlands on 1 July 1942 before Schol was replaced by a German commander. Deportations began under the orders of
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
Within the confines of the camp, German SS commanders were in charge of inmates, but squads of Jewish police and security under
Kurt Schlesinger
Kurt Schlesinger (17 December 1902 – 3 August 1963) was a German Jewish administrative director of Westerbork transit camp during World War II.
Early life
Kurt Schlesinger lived in his hometown Schmalkalden until 1939. He married Thea F ...
were used to keep order and aid in transport.
Liberation
Transports came to a halt at Camp Westerbork in September 1944.Allied troops neared Westerbork in early April 1945 after German officials abandoned the camp. Westerbork was liberated by Canadian forces on 12 April 1945. A total of 876 inmates were found. The War Diary of the South Saskatchewan Regiment referenced the camp in its entry for 12 April 1945:
:At 0930 hrs Lt-Col V Stott, DSO, accompanied by the I(ntelligence)O(fficer), Lt JD Cade, visited the Jewish Concentration Camp at (map reference) 2480. It was a rather startling sight as you approached the camp to see what is normally the appearance of a penitentiary. It was completely surrounded with barbed wire and had four lookout towers. Approximately 900 people were being held in this camp. The CO visited the officers kitchens and medical room and found the food and medical supplies to be in fairly good condition. While in the kitchen a number of A Co(mpan)y boys were observed helping the girls peel potatoes. It's surprising the influence girls, especially pretty ones, have with soldiers. It's a pity our cooks are unable to apply the same methods. Visiting a camp like this brings home to us the reality of what we are fighting for. It makes the average Canadian indignant and he asks "Who do the Germans think they are that they enclose other humans behind barbed wire simply because they are born Jews!"
Post World War II
Following the war, Westerbork was first used as a
remand prison
Remand, also known as pre-trial detention, preventive detention, or provisional detention, is the process of detaining a person until their trial after they have been arrested and charged with an offence. A person who is on remand is held i ...
for alleged and accused Nazi collaborators. It housed later Dutch nationals who fled the former
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
(
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
).
Westerbork was completely disassembled in the 1960s by the Government of the Netherlands. Later, the Dutch built the
Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope
The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) is an aperture synthesis interferometer built on the site of the former World War II Nazi detention and transit camp Westerbork, north of the village of Westerbork, Midden-Drenthe, in the northea ...
, a large
radio telescope
A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...
, on the site. Only the former camp commander’s house has been preserved, in a glass container.
Historiography
In 1950, the government appointed Jewish historian
Jacques Presser
Jacob (Jacques) Presser (24 February 1899 in Amsterdam – 30 April 1970 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch historian, writer and poet who is known for his book ''Ashes in the Wind (The Destruction of the Dutch Jews)'' on the history of the persecutio ...
to investigate the events connected with the mass deportation of Dutch Jewry and the extent of the collaboration by the non-Jewish Dutch population. The results were published fifteen years later in ''The Catastrophe'' (''De Ondergang''). Presser also published a novel, ''The Night of the Girondins'', which was set in Westerbork.
native Indonesians
Native Indonesians, also known as ''Pribumi'' (), are Indonesians whose ancestral roots lie mainly in the archipelago, distinguished from Indonesians of known (partial) foreign descent, like Chinese Indonesians (Tionghoa), Arab Indonesians, India ...
were left in political unrest. Some people who had worked with French, Algerian and Dutch militaries were evacuated, because they were the subject of anger by the other indigenous people who had resisted colonisation and felt betrayed at the Moluccan peoples siding with their colonisers. The peoples were promised a quick return to their homeland. However, from 1951 to 1971, former indigenous
Moluccan
Moluccans are the Austronesian-speaking and Papuan-speaking ethnic groups indigenous to the Maluku Islands (also called the Moluccas), Indonesia. The region was historically known as the Spice Islands, and today consists of two Indonesian provin ...
KNIL
The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army ( nl, Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger; KNIL, ) was the military force maintained by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its colony of the Dutch East Indies, in areas that are now part of Indonesia. The ...
soldiers and their families were made to stay in the camp. During this time, the camp was renamed ''Kamp Schattenberg'' (Camp Schattenberg).
Memorials
A museum was created two miles from Westerbork to keep the memories of those imprisoned in the camp alive. As a tribute to those inmates who were killed after deportation, a memorial was commissioned; it consists of 102,000 stones, representing each person who was deported from Westerbork and never returned.
The National Westerbork Memorial was unveiled at the site by Queen
Juliana of the Netherlands
Juliana (; Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina; 30 April 1909 – 20 March 2004) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1948 until her abdication in 1980.
Juliana was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Sh ...
on 4 May 1970. Also, a monument of a broken railroad track torn from the ground is displayed near the camp to symbolize the destruction the camp, as well as others, wrought on the European Jewish population, and the determination that the tracks would never again carry people to their deaths.
In 2017, films commissioned by the German camp commander Albert Gemmeker from a Jewish prisoner, Rudolf Breslauer, to document everyday life in the Westerbork transit camp, were submitted by the Netherlands and included in the
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
's
Memory of the World
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
Register.
See also
*', 1944 film shot in transit camp Westerbork directed by Rudolf Breslauer
*
Herzogenbusch concentration camp
, , german: Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch
, location map = Netherlands
, map alt =
, map caption = Location of the camp in the Netherlands
, coordinates =
, known for =
, location = Vught, Netherlands
, built by = N ...
*
Amersfoort concentration camp
Kamp Amersfoort ( nl, Kamp Amersfoort, german: Durchgangslager Amersfoort) was a Nazi concentration camp near the city of Amersfoort, the Netherlands. The official name was "Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort", P.D.A. or Amersfoort Police T ...
*
Camp Barneveld
Camp Barneveld was an internment camp consisting of two buildings for Dutch Jews near the town of Barneveld, the Netherlands during the German occupation in World War II. Dutch civil servant Karel Frederiks had made an arrangement, later cal ...
References
*Herbstrith, W. (1983). ''Edith Stein: A biography'' (5th rev. ed.) (Trans. B. Bonowitz). San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers.
Further reading
* Jonathan Gardiner: ''One-Way Ticket from Westerbork''. Oegstgeest, The Netherlands: Amsterdam Publishers, 2021,
* Hans-Dieter Arntz: ''Der letzte Judenälteste von Bergen-Belsen. Josef Weiss - würdig in einer unwürdigen Umgebung''. Aachen 2012.
* Jacob Boas, ''Boulevard des Misères: the Story of the Transit Camp Westerbork''. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1985
* Etty Hillesum, ''Letters from Westerbork''. New York: Pantheon, 1986 (originally published in the Netherlands as ''Het denkende hart van de barak'', 1982)
* Cecil Law, ''Kamp Westerbork, transit camp to eternity : the liberation story''. Clementsport, N.S. : Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 2000
* Harry Mulisch, ''The Discovery of Heaven''. Penguin Press, 1992,
* Jacob Presser, ''The Destruction of the Dutch Jews'' New York: Dutton, 1969, translated by A. Pomerans.