Camp Westerbork (, ,
Drents: ''Börker Kamp; Kamp Westerbörk''), also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
transit camp in the
province
A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
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 Jan ...
in the Northeastern
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.
It was located in the
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
of
Westerbork, 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 (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Sinti
The Sinti (masc. sing. ''Sinto''; fem. sing. ''Sintetsa, Sinta'') are a subgroup of the Romani people. They are found mostly in Germany, France, Italy and Central Europe, numbering some 200,000 people. They were traditionally Itinerant groups i ...
and
Roma
Roma or ROMA may refer to:
People, characters, figures, names
* Roma or Romani people, an ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas.
* Roma called Roy, ancient Egyptian High Priest of Amun
* Roma (footballer, born 1979), born ''Paul ...
to
concentration camps
A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
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
Germans
Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
and
Austrians
Austrians (, ) are the citizens and Nationality, nationals of Austria. The English term ''Austrians'' was applied to the population of Archduchy of Austria, Habsburg Austria from the 17th or 18th century. Subsequently, during the 19th century, ...
(German and Austrian Jews in particular), who had fled to the Netherlands to escape
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
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 in area, the camp was not built for the purpose of industrial murder as were Nazi
extermination camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...
s. Westerbork was considered by
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
standards as "humane".
Jewish, Sinti and Roma 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 buildings used to accommodate military personnel and quasi-military personnel such as police. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word 'soldier's tent', but today barracks ar ...
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, Sinti and Roma were deported during the period.
Jewish, Sinti and Roma inmates were deported in waves to
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
(65 train-loads totaling 60,330 people),
Sobibór
Sobibor ( ; ) 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 exte ...
(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 c ...
and
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen (), or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in Northern Germany, northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen, Lower Saxony, Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, ...
(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 can refer to:
* General Government
* Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
* Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)
* Prussian Partition
The Prussian Partition (), or Prussian Poland, is the former territories of the Polish� ...
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 or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...
and other cultural activities.
A special, separate work cadre of 2,000 "permanent" Jewish, Sinti and Roma inmates were used as a camp labour force.
Within this group was a subgroup constituting a camp
police force
The police are a constituted body of people empowered by a state with the aim of enforcing the law and protecting the public order as well as the public itself. This commonly includes ensuring the safety, health, and possessions of citizen ...
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 Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)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 li ...
, who was transported to Camp Westerbork on 8 August 1944,
as well as
Etty Hillesum, 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 or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
policies. She took a job with
Judenrat
A ''Judenrat'' (, ) was an administrative body, established in any zone of German-occupied Europe during World War II, purporting to represent its Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities. The Germans required Jews to form ''J ...
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 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 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''.
Maurice Frankenhuis chronicled his family's experiences while interned in Westerbork and in 1948 conducted an interview with its Commander Albert Konrad Gemmeker while Gemmeker awaited 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 or Nederlands commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
** Dutch people as an ethnic group ()
** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship ()
** Dutch language ()
* In specific terms, i ...
clarinet
The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell.
Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...
ist and
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...
, before he was sent to the
Auschwitz III camp.
On 16 May 2024, a memorial was erected to remember the famous Sinti families
Weiss (Tata Mirando) and Meinhardt, who lost some 200 members of their families to the Holocaust, transported from Westerbork camp to
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
.
Leadership within the Camp
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 when Schol was replaced by a German commander.
Deportations began under the orders of
Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...
sub-Department IV-B4, which was headed by
Adolf Eichmann
Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...
.
Gestapo officer Albert Konrad Gemmeker had overall command of the camp and was responsible for sending up to 100,000 Jews to the death camps. After the war, Gemmeker was sentenced to just ten years in prison. His light sentence was apparently due to his defense claim that he had no idea what would happen to the Jews after they were transported out of Westerbork. Within the confines of the camp, German SS members were in charge of inmates, but squads of Jewish police and security under
Kurt Schlesinger 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
Pre-trial detention, also known as jail, preventive detention, provisional detention, or remand, 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 ...
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 (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
(
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
).
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 Westerbork transit camp, camp Westerbork, north of the village of Westerbork (villag ...
, a large
radio telescope
A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), 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 r ...
, 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 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.
Holding place for Moluccan soldiers
In 1949, when the Dutch left their over
300 year occupation of Indonesia,
native Indonesians
Native Indonesians, also known as ''Pribumi'' () are Indonesians whose ancestral roots lie mainly in the archipelago and consist of various ethnic groups, predominantly of Austronesian and Melanesian descent. In contrast are Indonesians of know ...
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 Melanesian-Austronesian and Papuan-speaking ethnic groups indigenous to the Maluku Islands (also called the Moluccas). The region was historically known as the Spice Islands, and today consists of two Indonesian provinces of ...
KNIL
The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (; KNIL, ; ) was the military force maintained by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its Dutch colonial empire, colony of the Dutch East Indies, in areas that are now part of Indonesia. The KNIL's air arm ...
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 Duke 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 (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
's
Memory of the World
UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...
Register.
See also
*
Herzogenbusch concentration camp
Herzogenbusch (; ) was a Nazi concentration camp located in Vught near the city of 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. The camp was opened in 1943 and held 31,000 prisoners. 749 prisoners died in the camp, and the others were transferred to othe ...
*
Amersfoort concentration camp
Kamp 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 Transit Camp. 47,000 prisoners were held there between ...
*
Camp Barneveld
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.
External links
Memorial Center Camp Westerbork official website
Cabaret Behind Barbed Wire: Max Ehrlich & the Westerbork Theater GroupHolocaust Encyclopaedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Westerbork transit camp
1939 establishments in the Netherlands
Buildings and structures in Drenthe
History of Drenthe
Midden-Drenthe
Museums in Drenthe
Westerbork transit camp
World War II museums in the Netherlands
Internment camps in the Netherlands
20th-century architecture in the Netherlands