Dirk Mulder: Transitscamp Westerbork (NL)

Introduction

Camp Westerbork was situated in the north of the Netherlands, 30 kilometres south of Groningen and 40 kilometres east of the frontier with Germany.

Between 15 July, 1942 and 13 September, 1944 ninety-three trains deported more than a hundred-thousand people to the concentration- and extermination camps in Eastern-Europe. This was the sessence of Westerbork: the gateway to death for all the Jews, and also Gipsy’s in the Netherlands.

The camp has a disturbing history.

It was not built by the Nazis, but on the order of the Dutch government even before the war. Its original function was to provide temporary shelter for Jewish refugees from Germany after the Reichskristallnacht in November 1938.

In 1942 the camp was taken over by the SS who used it as a transit camp from which they could deport Jews.

And after the liberation the camp still being exists and used. Immediately following liberation, Camp Westerbork served as an internment camp for collaborators (1945-1948). And after that were other inhabitants. So, under the name Schattenberg, the camp served its longest period as accommodation for South Moluccans: people from the former Dutch colony Indonesia (1951-1971).

In 1971, the barracks were evacuated and dismantled. On 12 April, 1983 Queen Beatrix officially opened the Museum Camp Westerbork.

Transit camp

From 1942 to 1944 ninety-three trains carried the majority of the Jews living in the Netherlands from camp Westerbork to the extermination camps in Eastern-Europe.

Westerbork itself was not an extermination camp. No prisoners here succumbed to exhausting labour. Here there were no bellowing and murdering SS-guards nor were there any gas chambers.

On the contrary, the food was reasonable and the work endurable. Children went to school. There were opportunities for recreation and entertainment. Soccer games and boxing competitions were organised. There were musical and theatrical performances. Due to artists as Max Ehrlich, Willy Rosen and Kurt Gerron, Camp Westerbork had the best cabaret of Europe. And in the well-equipped and well-staffed hospital all possible effort was put into healing the sick.

In order to keep the extermination machine running everything had to run smoothly and quietly in this – by Nazi standards- ‘humane camp’, and Westerbork had to play its part in this. Almost every week a train left which would take men, women, children and elderly people to an unknown destination.

The absolute ruler of this camp was the SS-commander Gemmeker, but he hardly interfered with the daily routine. His primary concern was to meet the weekly target of Jewish deportees.. He left the organisation of this in the hands of the prisoners. In the days of the refugee camp a camporganisation had already been set up by German Jews. Many of them had been prisoners in German concentration camps and they knew that life in a camp was more pleasant if one took care of things oneself instead of leaving it to the Nazi’s. When the camp was turned into a transit camp they still had the upper hand in the organisation of the camp.

As long as the Jewish campstaff met the target of deportees as prescribed by Gemmeker, they had absolute power over fellow prisoners because of they decided about the deportationlists.

This organisation worked very well indeed. Thanks to the refined and crafty system of divide and rule few Nazis were needed to organize the deportations of the Jews.

In spite of all the hopes that were being raised, camp Westerbork remained a deportation machine. In the end, the deportations came to dominate daily life. Almost every week people were faced with the agonizing thought of who was going to be on it this time. On 15 July, 1942 the first deportation train left. That day and the next day 2,030 people were transported, including orphans. By 12 October, 1942 twenty-four trains had left and 23,700 Jews had been deported. They had all stayed in Westerbork for a short period of time, some of them only to be registered.

From early February 1943 it became a regular pattern: every Tuesday a train left with on average one thousand persons on board. Most of the time cattle trucks were used for this.

Their destination was Auschwitz. Or, for a few months in 1943, Sobibor. In a few cases Theresienstadt or Bergen Belsen.

On 3 September, 1944 one of the last large transports departed. Anne Frank and her family were among them. On 13 September, 1944 the last train left. On it were, among others, 77 children who had gone into hiding and had been caught.

All in all more than one hundred thousand people were deported by 93 trains from camp Westerbork, 245 gypsies among them.

The transport of the Gypsies on 19 May, 1944 has been filmed. This is a unique document.

When the camp was liberated on 12 April, 1945 876 prisoners were left. Thanks to a combination of luck, their privileged position and the way the war had gone they had escaped deportation.