The Westerbork police transit camp

("Kamp Westerbork")

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this article you will learn about the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands. I'll try to explain to you what happened there. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Many years ago in the Netherlands ("Holland") there was a huge prison in which people were mainly imprisoned who had a different faith - unbelievable, right?

Maybe you know that many years ago there was a terrible war - the Second World War. There was fighting in almost all of Europe, but also in Africa - very far away. This terrible war arose because strange people were in charge in Germany: the Nazis. Their boss was Adolf Hitler. The Nazis didn't care about other people - people who believed differently (Jews, for example), thought differently, complained about the Nazis. Or people who belonged to other groups of the German population, for example Sinti and Roma.

Hitler and his Nazis wanted war to make Germany bigger. Due to a previous war (First World War), Germany had to give up territories to other countries. Many Germans were also not doing well when Hitler came to power: there were many unemployed people. There were also other countries where Jews were not popular or where people were not well off. But nowhere else did people think of such terrible things as in Nazi Germany.

One after another, Germany under the Nazis attacked its neighbors and took the country or parts of it. For example Poland, but also Belgium, France and the Netherlands, and later also parts of today's Russia. Many German Jews fled to the Netherlands because things were so bad in Germany. But there were also many Dutch Jews there. The Nazis took everything away from the Jews and tortured them. The Nazis wanted the Jews to disappear from Germany, including from other countries such as the Netherlands.

 

Not all Germans were Nazis; there was also resistance. People hid Jews or helped them escape. There were also people among the Dutch who helped - but also some who were on the Nazi side.

The Nazis scared people. Many people were simply afraid to say something or defend themselves because then they would end up in prison or other punishments. But those who participated well were often rewarded with good jobs or other gifts.

 

The Westerbork camp existed before the Nazis attacked the Netherlands. The Dutch had housed the refugee German Jews there. But the camp was not a youth hostel or a hotel; it was in the middle of nowhere and people slept in cramped barracks.

When the Nazis took over the camp, things got even worse. Some time after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, they wanted to lock all Jews from the country in the Westerbork camp - regardless of whether they were German or Dutch. The Nazis were up to something terrible. They wanted to take all the Jews far away by train and murder most of them there. Maybe you know the word concentration camp or the name Auschwitz. For the Nazis, Jews were not real people, but like trash. Can you imagine that people think so evilly? Unfortunately, it was that way because Hitler and his people wanted it that way.

Every week a long train with people in it left the Westerbork camp. The prisoners in the camp called this “going on transport.” That sounds harmless, right? The Jews and the other prisoners did not know what would happen at the destination. They couldn't imagine, at least at first, that the Nazis could be so evil to other people. But the people who were taken away from the Westerbork camp, the vast majority were murdered - over 100,000 humans beings like you and me. Jews, Sinti and Roma and resistance fighters. Grandmas and grandpas, parents, children, babies. The Nazis didn't care at all.

Imagine a huge, full football stadium - all the people in that stadium wouldn't be enough to fill the trains that left Westerbork.

Shortly before the end of the war, the Nazis fled Westerbork because they were afraid of the soldiers from other countries. But far too many people were already dead at that point - every single one was a person like you and me.

Today there is a museum in Westerbork. Here you can see how the people lived in the camp and what happened there. There are people there who will explain everything to you in more detail than I can here.

You can find further information for you, your parents or teachers on this website.

Information for  school