The history of the Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort (PDA) 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. The prisoner transfer to 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. Following the invasion of the USSR in June 1941, the camp held Soviet 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.

Origin of the camp

After the First World War, Europe was characterized by social unrest. Due to the tensions surrounding Nazi Germany, the general mobilization of the Dutch army was called on August 28, 1939. Several army camps were built near the garrison town of Amersfoort: Camp Zonnebloemstraat, Camp Bokkeduinen, Camp Amsvorde, Camp Waterloo, Camp Heihuis and Camp Austerlitz. On the southern edge of Amersfoort, in the wooded area of the municipality of Leusden and on the corner of Laan 1914 and Appelweg, a camp with six wooden barracks, including a canteen and an office, was set up on a military sports field. It was intended to house several hundred soldiers who constructed the Grebbe Line and practiced on the adjacent Leusderheide: the Barakkenkamp Appelweg.

After the surrender of the Dutch army on May 15, 1940, the camp on the Appelweg was put into use as a recovery center for German soldiers after service at the front and at the end of 1940 as a regular army camp. In 1941, the adjacent Camp Amsvorde became the training center for the SS Guard Kommando Nord-West, where Germans living in the Netherlands and later Dutch SS men were trained as guard units of airfields and prison camps such as the adjacent Camp Amersfoort.

Camp Amersfoort

The Camp was tightly organized. When the prisoners entered the camp, they were registered. They no longer had a name, but were given a number and the mark that they had to wear on their clothing, so that it was clear to which group they belonged according to the camp leadership. From that moment on, the number was the title of address for the prisoners. Everyone was given a soldier's shirt, soldier's underpants, soldier's trousers, a pair of foot flaps, a tunic and in winter an overcoat and leg wraps, and they walked in clogs. All this clothing consisted of old soldier uniforms and the size was not considered. The uniforms were worn by several prisoners one after the other and they were not washed in between. It often happened that the blood or dirt of the previous prisoners was still in the clothing.

Roll calls

Tthe roll calls were the most notorious. The prisoners had to line up in rows at the sandy roll call site. Then the aiming started, which meant that the rows had to be exactly straight. The guards took their time for this. Then all kinds of German commandos followed such as: Hats, hats off, heads on the left, heads on the right. Punishment exercises were also part of the daily routine. That meant that prisoners had to lie down in the mud and do squats.

During the roll-calls, the prisoners who had "misbehaved" during the day were punished even more. In the context of discipline, physical violence was a regular part of the regime in the camp. There was no system for the torture, it was based purely on the arbitrariness of the camp management. Since no one had to be accountable to the outside for what happened in the camp, the leadership could go ahead. A common punishment in the PDA was the Am Tor Stehen. Das Tor was the inner gate between the security and prison sections of the PDA. Initially it was a simple barbed wire fence. In the second period of the camp it became a stone inner gate with a guard house. Next to the inner gate was an area of ​​3 by 50 meters, which was demarcated with a double row of barbed wire. This was called 'The rose garden' by the prisoners and was used as a place of punishment. People had to stand here for hours, sometimes days. Standing still and nothing else. In any weather condition. Other punishments included withholding food or beating with a cane. Those caning were administered in front of other prisoners. More severely punished people ended up in the bunker. This was a concrete barrack with cells. A prisoner was chained with hands and feet to iron chains.

Work commandos

In addition to the torture and violence, hard work was another means the camp leaders used to instill in the prisoners the required discipline. The prisoners were divided into work commands. In the first period of the Camp, the activities of these commandos were dominated by the expansion of the Camp. Groups of prisoners occupied themselves with the barbed wire fence, fetching wood, cooking, peeling potatoes, etc. In a "favorable" command, prisoners were less hunted and mistreated. Many prisoners tried to squeeze themselves and "organize" something edible out of sheer survival. The Jewish prisoners were generally assigned to the heavy commands. With every slip or suspected slip, the prisoner could count on a beating. All work commandos together fell under the leadership of the Arbeitsdienstführer, a Camp SS officer. Each work command had its own leadership and they were the Vormänner. These were themselves prisoners in charge of a group of workers.

Firing range and execution area

A firing range was constructed outside the PDA, across the road. A long straight trench was dug at the foot of the Amersfoortse Berg. The sand, that was dug out from the hills by the prisoners,  was initially used for the construction of the stone barracks (second half of 1942).

Malnutrition and starvation

Not only was the work very hard in the first period of the camp; it was also a camp with bad food for the prisoners. The PDA was a hunger camp from August 1941 to March 1943. The prisoners received a quarter of a sandwich a day, a small piece of margarine, a tiny piece of cheese and sometimes some jam. Very occasionally they got a piece of sausage. Lunch consisted of about half a liter of poor quality cabbage soup. These meals gave the prisoners about 1300 to 1400 calories, while a normal adult needs about 2500 calories. The lack of food and hard labor caused the prisoners to lose weight, reduce resistance, numbness and depression. Hunger led to many food thefts. People stole from the kitchen, but certainly also from each other. Hungry, the prisoners became thieves, fighters and attempted to escape. As a result of poor hygiene and food, many inmates suffered from starvation edemas, infections, poorly healing wounds, dysentery and general debility. At the end of January 1942, thirty percent of the prisoners had starvation edema. The camp management made no attempt to improve the situation in the camp. In the first phase of the camp, many were sent to other camps, such as Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Natzweiler, Neuengamme and Sachsenhausen.

Temporary closure March 1943

 In March 1943 the camp was temporarily closed for a new expansion with seven barracks. Until then more than 8.500 people had been imprisoned.

Reopening May 1943 second period of the camp

When it was reopened in May 1943, Camp Amersfoort was officially called 'Erweitertes Polizeigefängnis Amersfoort'. At the same time, the Nazis introduced compulsory forced labor for the German war industry, first applying to Dutch men between the ages of 18 and 35: the Arbeitseinsatz. The camp played a central role as a collection and transit camp.

The massive ignoring of calls led to manhunts for the evaders, while tens of thousands of Dutch men were arrested in raids. Many ended up in the German war industry via Camp Amersfoort; In mid-1944, a separate fence was placed in the prisoner's section to regulate the flow of forced laborers. A number of 3.566 prisoners were recorded in one day.

In total, more than 800 transports were organized from Camp Amersfoort to other camps (as far as Berlin and Vienna), including 200 of 10 men or more. For example, on September 26, 1944, a group of more than 1.000 prisoners from Camp Amersfoort were sent to Zwolle to build defenses at the IJssel. They were housed in the Outdoor Society, with the only facilities being straw on the ground, three toilets and three water taps. At the initiative of the Zwolle citizens, the prisoners were provided with food for weeks. The largest transport took place on October 11, 1944, more than 1.400 Dutch men to Neuengamme. Among them were 601 men from Putten, arrested after a raid in reprisal for an attack on German officers. Only 48 of them would eventually return to their village on the Veluwe. The chaotic and brutal evacuation of Neuengamme led to the worst shipping disaster of all time, the Cap Arcona, in which at least 300 Dutch prisoners died.

During these two years, Karl Berg was the commander of Camp Amersfoort. The no less infamous Joseph Kotalla acted as his deputy and seriously injured a hundred prisoners during the New Year's roll call of 1945.

Loes van Overeem

Thanks to the efforts of several wealthy ladies and the representative of the Red Cross, Loes van Overeem, they slowly managed to improve the food supply and living conditions in Camp Amersfoort. On June 30, 1944, trucks with food and medicine arrived for the first time. Van Overeem's perseverance was rewarded and on April 19, 1945 she was transferred management of Camp Amersfoort. The Nazi guards destroyed the administration, fled to The Hague with dozens of hostages.

Liberation of the camp

Camp Amersfoort was offically liberated on May 7, 1945, when two armored cars of the "Humber" type  of a British reconnaissance unit from the British 49th "Polar Bear" Infantry Division (part of the 1st Canadian Army Corps) entered the camp.

In the following years, in this hilly area, the Besthmenerberg, small wooden houses and large wooden barracks were built as accommodation for the administration, kitchen, warehouses, toilets and washrooms. Krishnamurti left, but the meetings continued until 1939; in 1940 the meeting was postponed due to the threat of war.

At the end of 1940, the camp was not liquidated, as is usual with undesirable organisations, but transferred in its entirety to the head of the executive body Referat 'Internationale Organisationen' of the Generalkommissariat zur besonderen Verwendung, Werner Schwier. This Generalkommissariat was headed by Fritz Schmidt. As a result, the future Erika camp did not fall under the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (at that time Wilhelm Harster), like the other concentration camps in the Netherlands, and occupied a unique position.

In this position, Schwier was charged with the dissolution of all organizations that opposed the National Socialist philosophy. According to Regulation No. 33 of 6 July 1940, the assets of these institutions were confiscated by the Sicherheitsdienst in collaboration with the Dutch police.

Schwier, born in 1907 in Germany, who liked to incorrectly call himself Doktor, also fulfilled other duties within the NSDAP, such as Gauredner (regional speaker for the NSDAP) and Lehrer und Bereitschaftsführer der Ordensburgen (teacher of racial science and unknown function within the training within the framework of the NSDAP). In addition, Schwier was chairman of the 'Westland Publisher' Foundation; this publishing house, which was founded with the assets seized by the Referat 'International Organisations' of the Generalkommisariatz.b. V., had set himself the goal of spreading National Socialist ideas. The publisher's treasurer, Anthony van Eist, was also responsible for the final inspection of the premises of Camp Erika.

Schwier took on Karel Lodewijk Diepgrond, a former police officer and NSB member. At that time, he was an interpreter for the SD in Amsterdam and was charged with the task of recruiting personnel. With the arrival of Diepgrond and 48 staff members, the furnishing of the camp was started on 13 June 1941. The group of men were mostly unemployed men from Amsterdam .

Camp Erika would become either a training camp for a 'colony' in Ukraine or a 'Jewish camp'. For the last destination there were two options: a Durchgangslager or an Arbeitslager.
It soon became clear that the plan for the 'Eastern deployment' was not going ahead and it seemed that Erika would become a 'Jewish camp'. This also changed the character of the deployment of the recruited personnel; instead of 'colonizers in the East', they would carry out guard duties. German ranks were introduced; Diepgrond was made Lagerführer, there was a German name for the security team, KK (Kontroll Kommando), and a German name for the camp: 'Arbeitseinsatzlager Erika'. Although the exact destination is still
was unclear, a start was made on furnishing the barracks, trees were felled and fences were placed. There were also drills led by a Dutch SS man and two former marines, including Lieutenant Jan de Jong who eventually received the German rank of Hauptzugführer. The uniforms came from the Dutch army, trimmed with buttons ordered from the SS, collar tabs with KK, field caps with the skull and a black band over the left sleeve with KK stitched on it.

In March 1942 she finally signed off a clear and concrete plan for Erika: the Generalkommisariatz.b. V. saw possibilities for a prison camp for men who had been convicted by the Dutch judiciary, especially economic offenders (bon fraudsters, illegal butchers, black marketers, etc.). The plan was converted into an assignment by Arthur Seyss-Inquart on June 5, 1942: Erika became a Justizlager where the prisoners would perform heavy physical labor. The minimum sentence to end up in Erika at the time of this decision was 3 months and was later reduced to 2 months. The thinned out KK was then replenished, this time also with a number of men from the NSB-department in Assen. Their number rose to 250 men. It was also decided that future prisoners would also be put to work in Germany.

Time table of Camp Erika

June 1942 - 31 May 1943
Penal camp or 'Justizlager' in German.
May 1943 - September 1944
Re-education and Transit Camp. Mostly for people who tried to avoid the Arbeitseinsatz in Germany and people who, for example, had an illegal radio in their possession.
September 1944 - April 1945
Penal camp or 'Justizlager' in German.
April 1945 - 31 December 1946
Detention camp for collaborators, which largely consisted of former NSB members.

Converted to a penal camp

The first inmates of the Justizlager arrived on June 19, 1942. At that time, it had a capacity of 800 'delinquents' and work was underway to expand to 1.300 inmates. On 1 July 1942 there were 368 prisoners in Erika and 1380 on August 1 of that year. In the meantime, in addition to economic delinquents, the camp also included prisoners with more serious crimes and at least four persons who had been convicted under Regulation 81/40: the prohibition of all homosexual acts. In addition, at least eight Jewish people, three of whom were not judicially, have been imprisoned in Erika.

As a result of the ever-growing pressure to take in more 'delinquents', capacity was expanded to accommodate 1,500 inmates and 500 men were employed in Germany. On November 30, 1942, Erika, together with its annexes in Junne (the former Junne Labor Camp, three kilometers away) and, among others, Heerte (near Braunschweig), Wesseling/Siegburg and Cologne in Germany (the guards went with them) held 2013 prisoners and 251 guards housed.

Prisoners arrived at the station in Ommen under the guard of the military police, marched the three kilometers to the gate and were handed over to the guards there. There began a dark period for the prisoners of Justizlager Erika. There was swearing, yelling and beatings and anyone who dared to say anything was beaten to blood. The prisoners were then registered, whereby the 'knackers' (lice, unworthy, parasites) had to stand at attention for hours. If they didn't, then they introduced them to the popular punishment "seals": the prisoner had to move along the ground with his elbows, body stretched, chin up and toes outstretched. If this did not work, more was beaten. The prisoners were shaved bald upon or shortly after entry. Constant bullying, beatings and intimidation were daily practice, including when eating. Piping hot soup or mashed potatoes had to be eaten between the first and second whistle, and there was never more than five minutes between the two whistles.

Prisoner treatment

The prisoners went to work in groups of ten or twenty men, G.J. Krijgsman wrote about his stay in camp Erika. Trees had to be hauled, which were so heavy that five men would have had a nice load of them. to have. However, we had to carry such a tree with two men about 2 km away. Others had to pull plows and harrows. We did this with five men. The harrows were weighted down with a block, on which a guard sat down. "Pull or don't eat today!" the guard hollored! So it went day in, day out. When I was once very ill, I had to cooperate and we were so close to despair. How many blows and beatings I got is beyond counting. I was not fed all day, while in the evening I was placed in criminal company. It is impossible to describe how terrible this is.

From the middle of 1942 a small number of Jewish men also stayed in the camp. The first of them arrived on June 21, when the camp was inaugurated. Five men had been convicted by the Dutch court and had to serve their sentences in camp Erika. Three men came from a Jewish Labor Camp and were transferred to camp Erika as a punitive measure. The Jewish prisoners were placed in the so-called Judenkommando and separated from the other prisoners. The task assigned to them was to clean the latrines. After they had performed this task, this was checked and if they had not done this well enough in the eyes of the guards, they were forced to lick the toilet bowls completely with their tongues. After they had done their work they had to go to their old army tent. This was their residence, even in winter. As an anti-Semite, camp commander Schwier hated the Jews for personally seeing how the Jewish prisoners should be treated, or rather mistreated. The Jewish prisoners were thus abused as 'distraction and entertainment' for the guards.

"A favorite practice of torture among camp guards was turning a gramophone record. A hole was made in the sand for the inmate to put his finger in. He had to spin around his own finger for hours like a gramophone record, until he fell down. Then the guards beat him with clubs or kicked him in the back. But most of the prisoners died due to malnutrition."

Smashed guns

Then there was the SK or Punishment Company, which contained an average of ten to twenty prisoners and they were mistreated even more systematically. Even the toughest jobs
were allocated to the SK; felling and moving trees. These prisoners were beaten and kicked a lot, especially in the genitals, which in many cases swelled as a result. A number of prisoners died as a result of this, due to internal bleeding. The Jews imprisoned in Erika suffered the same fate, they were also housed separately in a tent on the grounds of the camp. In the evenings, the Jewish prisoners had to hand in their clothes and sleep naked in the cold. These Jewish prisoners were given even less food and were systematically humiliated and mistreated. In a number of cases Diepgrond asked for new rifles. Prisoners were regularly beaten with clubs and rifle butts. Sometimes so that the rifle butts simply broke off.

The concentration camp system of the Lagerpolizei, introduced by the camp leadership, in which prisoners were used as guards (Kapo, called 'Kaputt' or 'kaput' in Erika by the prisoners), also led to horrific abuses. The Kapos were tasked with supervising other inmates and were responsible for supervising the work done by the inmates and its results. These Kapos were not inferior to the guards in ferocity; they used physical intimidation and violence to incite the inmates to higher results. In particular, Oberkapo Rien de Rijke stood out. In several cases, it was simply brutal murder that occurred in the Erika deaths.

Alarming messages

More than half of the three thousand prisoners in Ommen were sent to the German labor camps. One of these labor camps, in Heerte, was possibly even worse than Erika. About 150 more people died in these places. The miserable treatment of the prisoners did not go unnoticed by the outside world. After alarming reports in the illegal magazine Parool, Dutch judges conducted a startling investigation into the situation in Ommen. The judiciary then refused to sentence more people to "service sentences". Seyss-Inquart then decided to abolish Erika as a justice camp.

Work- and Transitcamp

The first temporary residents of the renamed camp were students who - under duress - had heeded the call to the Arbeitseinsatz and stayed there for several weeks under good conditions; the food was good and there was no work involved. After plans for the deployment of the students in Finland and as SS Frontarbeiter in the north of the Soviet Union were rejected by the Reichscommissarriat, the students eventually traveled to workplaces in Germany. Again Schwier came up with his plan for the deployment of his guards Am Osten'. They should establish a colony in Ukraine under his leadership; apparently he liked the idea of running such a colony. It could perhaps satisfy his thirst for power and influence more. Both the Generalkommissar zur besondere Verwendung Willi Ritterbusch (Schwier's new boss) and Seyss-Inquart agreed, but the plan was rejected by the executives in Germany.

Again a penal camp

The AKD was dissolved in September 1944 and its members went over to the Ordnungspolizei. The men now wore the green uniforms of the infamous 'Griine Polizei'. In addition, new ranks were introduced. For example, Diepgrond was now given the rank Hauptmann. The men of the KK went to the OrPo, but in particular to the Polizei Freiwilliger Bataillon Niederlande or they resigned. As a result of coming under the Ordnungspolizei, the camp was no longer a Durchgangs- und Arbeitseinsatzlager, but a penal camp. The prisoners, about 450, now consisted of people in hiding, suspects of illegal activities and violators of the distribution laws. The sentences of these prisoners were determined with complete arbitrariness.

Members of the SD regularly stayed in Erika. Together with members of the Wachgruppe Ommen, who therefore came under the Ordnungspolizei, so-called thugs were formed under the leadership of Schwier. These consisted of approximately 15 selected guards. Day and night these thugs were looking for offenders and people in hiding in the wide area surrounding Erika. Violence and intimidation were not shunned. Valuable or useful household effects were seized from those arrested, the rest was destroyed. Houses were also set on fire. The detainees themselves were almost always severely beaten, during interrogation or on their way to Erika.

The most important participants in these trips were from officer cadre Schwier, Diepgrond and De Jong. From the original Kontroll Kommando Jaap de Jonge, Freek Kermer, Toon Soetebier and Herbertus Bikker. The latter is one of the Waffen SS veterans who fought on the Eastern Front. There he was wounded several times and after his recovery in 1943 he ended up in Ommen. At least 10 deaths are known in the last 4 months of 1944 as a result of executions by members of the vigilante group.

From the end of December 1944, the treatment of the prisoners by the guards became somewhat less severe, although excesses continued to occur. There was still 1 death to be regretted in this last period as a result of an execution. Furthermore, 3 were killed and 29 injured in an Allied air raid on January 14, 1945. From February 1945, fewer and fewer guards returned from leave or simply ran off. From March 22, 1945, Schwier even had them locked up in the sleeping barracks to prevent them from leaving.

Executioner of Ommen

The camp was soon redesignated as a prison for "asocials", people of all kinds from, for example, the disciplinary colony of Veenhuizen, and those who refused or fled the compulsory employment in Germany. The groups lived in Erika strictly separated from each other. The regime was slightly more lenient than before, but abuse was still the order of the day. In 1944, the guards of Ommen were also instructed to actively track down the so-called Arbeitseinsatz dodgers and contract breakers, as well as other illegal immigrants. Erika's feared vigilante group carried out searches and raids for miles around. Herbertus Bikker made a name for himself as "the Executioner of Ommen". He shot resistance fighter Jan Houtman (from Ommen) in cold blood. After the war, Bikker managed to escape to Germany, where he lived as a German citizen until his death in 2008.

After the war

Immediately after the liberation on April 11, 1945, Penalty Camp Erika was given a different function and name: Detention Camp Erica. The Dutch were held here who had sided with the Germans during the war or NSB people. It continued in this position until December 31, 1946. Former Lagerführer Diepgrond, Bikker and other guards of Erika were imprisoned here.

Relatively few sources are available about the post-war period and there is little literature describing this period of the camp. In total, about 2.000 prisoners are said to have been held in Detention Camp Erica pending trial. For the first four months, until August 1945, the exterior security was carried out by the Homeland Forces, with the help of a number of Amsterdam police officers who had been detained in Erika during the last months of the war. This task was then taken over by the Commander's Forces under the Ministry of War. The internal surveillance was carried out until January 1, 1946 by the Military Authority and then by the Ministry of Justice. The commander of detention Camp Erica was Wemer Hermans from April 13, 1945 to April 1946 and from then until December 1946 this was P.E. Veldhuizen.

Holiday park

The camp site is now used as a holiday park. A modest monument has been erected in memory of this hell on earth.

Conclusion

Camp Erika is not a well-known camp and it has even been argued that what happened here was marginal, because it was thought that mainly lawbreakers, tried by Dutch judges, were imprisoned and not victims of persecution by the German occupier. The problem with this claim, however, is that it concerned convicts who had been tried under not pure Dutch law and under the responsibility of the German occupier. This at a time when Jews and people in hiding were also condemned as criminals and human rights were being trampled underfoot. Until September 1942, Dutch judges had no idea where to send the men they sentenced. Furthermore, it was not just about violators of Dutch law; Jews, people in hiding, suspects of illegal activities, evaders of the Arbeitseinsatz and so-called 'antisocials' also ended up in this camp in large numbers without any form of trial.

In addition, it is unique in the Netherlands that a camp functioned under the German system that was run by Dutch guards. It was Dutch guards who made the prisoners suffer under all that suffering. One of the prisoners who also experienced the infamous camps in Poland and Germany stated about Erika:

"Nowhere have I been physically abused so systematically, namely every day, as in Ommen." Many men have suffered greatly and have died needlessly at the hands of their sadistic guards. Died from beatings, executions, poor living conditions, malnutrition and heavy work. Many of them were men who worked for the victims of the German occupiers or who offered resistance to the occupier, they were innocent or the treatment was simply disproportionate to the punishment imposed.

Text translated from research by Stichting oudommen.nl

We now know that this small, relatively unknown camp, even if there were no deaths here and it functioned only briefly, was an indispensable and ominous link in the National Socialist policy aimed at the destruction of the Jews and Jewish life in Europe. and of those who resisted the German occupier. Keeping the memory of Camp Schoorl alive is therefore simultaneously keeping the memory of the Second World War alive. Kamp Schoorl admonishes us to be alert to the threat of war, to discrimination and anti-Semitism.

Kamp Schoorl was built by the Dutch army in the late summer of 1939, at the start of the general mobilization on August 28 and set up as an army camp on the site where the current ‘Buitencentrum’ of ‘Staatsbosbeheer’ is located. During construction, the soldiers were stationed in the nearby ‘Doopsgezind Broederschapshuis’, with the result that the approximately 60 Protestant Jewish-German refugees housed there suddenly had to be moved elsewhere on 25 August. Entered service on 25 November 1939.

Camp Schoorl was the first prisoner camp that the Germans set up in the Netherlands. It was closed in that capacity at the end of October 1941, probably because it was too small, too close to the coast and also too far from a railway

Camp Schoorl served as an army camp, an internment camp, a concentration camp and most recently after the war as a conference center. It’s history of use is the following.

Dutch army camp

From November 25, 1939 to May 1940, it housed six companies of reserve troops of the 21st Depot Battalion VIII Infantry. During the May days, the unit stationed in Schoorl did not take part in the combat actions.

German army camp

After the capitulation of the Netherlands on 15 May 1940, the camp was used for a month by a part of the Wehrmacht.

German Internment Camp

Citizens from countries which were at war with Germany, were interned in Schoorl in the course of June 1940: French and Belgian men, also English men and women. The boys under the age of eighteen were immediately released, so was a group of Alsatians who showed affection towards the Germans. The French and Belgians were released after about two months. On 3 September 1940, the British were transported to the civilian internment camp Ilag VIII in Tost (Toszek) in Poland. In December 1940, forty English women were interned; some of them were taken to Liebenau in February 1941, others to Vittel in the Vosges in France.

German Transitcamp

On February 23, 1941, the first group of prisoners, Jewish young men, arrived and the then empty camp was used as a concentration camp (Durchgangslager), until that function was transferred to Kamp Amersfoort on October 26, 1941. It is especially during this period that the name of the camp must join the others where the Germans acted criminally.

German Army Camp

Until the end of the war, units of the Wehrmacht and the Organization Todt were stationed in the camp, including the 787th Turkestan Infantry Battalion consisting of Turkmenian prisoners of war who had entered German military service, the so-called “Osttruppen”.

Dutch Detention Camp

After the liberation in 1945, the camp, as one of the 32 camps in North Holland, was used until the end of 1946 for the internment of SS, NSB, Youth Stormers and other collaborators. Among them many NSB mayors. In total there were about 2000 prisoners. The guards were mainly conscripted Dutch soldiers.

Dutch army camp

From the end of 1946 to September 1947, the camp served as an army camp for the Dutch army. Because a thorough improvement of the barracks and sanitary facilities was necessary first, the first soldiers of the IIIe Regiment of Equipment Troops could not be housed there until the spring of 1947. In August and September Schoorl served as a training camp for soldiers who were to be deployed during the Second Police Action in the former Ned. india. After that it was empty. Click here for a collection of photos from the estate of Piet Binkhorst, who was stationed in Schoorl in 1947.

Demolished and reuse

In early 1949 the camp was closed and demolished. One of the barracks was then set up in the village of ‘t Veld as a club room.

Prisoners

In the almost one and a half years that camp Schoorl was used by the Germans, first as an internment camp and then eight months as a concentration camp in the function of “Polizeiliches Durchgangslager”, about 1,900 people were imprisoned in Schoorl. For about 1000 of them, the camp became a “ vestibule of death”.

Of the two groups of Jewish prisoners, a total of 689 men were sent to foreign concentration camps and all but two were murdered there. Of the political prisoners, almost all members of a communist organization, more than 250 were killed in Germany, mainly in concentration camps, never more than 750 prisoners. As far as is known, not one prisoner died in Camp Schoorl.

First Group of Jewish Prisoners

On Sunday, February 23, 1941, 425 detainees arrived in camp Schoorl, brought in by trucks. The temperature was just above freezing. In the afternoon of Saturday and in the course of that Sunday, the Jewish men had been arbitrarily arrested on the street by the “Grüne Polizei” during a manhunt in the hermetically closed Jewish quarter in Amsterdam, herded together, beaten and beaten and taken to Schoorl.

The reason for this raid was disturbances in the Jewish quarter provoked by the WA members. At the end of 1940, beginning of 1941, WA members had started anti-Jewish actions. At cafes and other entertainment venues on Rembrandtplein-Thorbeckeplein they put up unsolicited signs: ‘Jews not wanted’. Moreover, they terrorized the residents of the old Jewish neighborhood on the other side of the Amstel.

Since the beginning of the occupation, the WA, the ‘Weer Afdeling’ of the NSB, has already aroused a lot of aversion in Amsterdam because of its provocative attitude of ‘the street is ours’. Fighting teams of Jewish and non-Jewish Amsterdam men acted against the WA. There were heavy blows to and fro. On 11 February 1941, WA man Koot was mortally wounded in such a fight.

The Germans immediately reacted to this with a series of measures:

1. The Jewish quarter was closed for a few days and arrests were made;
2. Several prominent Jews had to act as ‘Jewish council’ to urge the local residents to calm down. This happened on February 13, when the diamond merchant A. Asscher gave a speech in the Diamantbeurs on Weesperplein;
3. The Jews had to ‘hand in their weapons to the police’ (there were hardly any weapons), and d) the WA had to get out of the stay away from the neighbourhood. An ominous atmosphere now descended on the Jewish neighborhood. That atmosphere of tension and violence remained in Amsterdam. On February 19, 1941, some men forced their way into the Jewish Koco Ice Cream Parlor in Van Woustraat. The shop was closed and protected with wooden panels. The defenders of Koco, who believed they were dealing with WA men, opened a cylinder of ammonia gas as a defense against the invaders. But these intruders were not from the WA, but from the German police. It couldn’t get any worse. The German authorities shouted that an ‘attack’ had been carried out on their staff.

Penal expedition against the Jews

On Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 February 1941, the ‘Grüne Polizei’ (Ordnungspolizei, German security forces dressed in green uniforms) carried out large raids in the area. The Germans called this a ‘punitive expedition against the Jews’. The Amsterdam police had to cooperate in the raids. Jewish boys and men were arbitrarily arrested, herded together on the Jonas Daniel Meyerplein, mistreated and taken to Schoorl in a long line of army trucks.

In the following four days, some of them were sent away for medical reasons. The rest, 389 in total, were deported to Buchenwald concentration camp.

On May 22, 1941, 342 Buchenwald survivors were deported to Mauthausen concentration camp, where they were treated very cruelly in the quarry. Within a few weeks they all perished. They were murdered or committed suicide; the latter even happened collectively several times by jumping hand in hand into the quarry.

Second group of Jewish prisoners

On June 11, 1941, another raid took place in Amsterdam-South. The occupier used sabotage actions to motivate this action. For fear of reactions like in February, Willy Lages, head of the SD in North Holland, decided not to organize street raids but to collect the victims from home. Under false pretenses, he asked the Jewish Council for the list of names and addresses of the students of the Jewish Werkdorp in the Wieringermeer, who had been summoned in March 1941 to come to Amsterdam. They should now be allowed to return. Because many students did not trust the case and went into hiding, too few people were collected and raids still took place in cafes and Jewish sports clubs.

In the night of Wednesday 11 June and in the early morning of 12 June this group arrived in Schoorl. A total of 310 young men. Presumably they had to be healthy men because after a few days nine names were called out of men who were then sent out of the camp for health reasons. Fourteen days later, the detainees were deported by train to Mauthausen concentration camp, of which 96 were later sent to euthanasia center Schoss Hartheim.

Out of a total of 689 Jewish young men from these two groups who were deported, only two survived the concentration camps

“Socialist” prisoners

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, mass arrests were made in the Netherlands of communists and people with left-wing, “socialist” sympathies. After the invasion of the Netherlands, the CPN and the NSAP were banned on July 20, 1940, because they had already strongly opposed national socialism and fascism in the 1930’s. The detainees were on long lists drawn up by the local police intelligence services before the war.

The Germans had specified numbers of communists to be arrested, the police made a choice of who should be arrested and, on June 25 and 26, 1941, often arrested more people than the Germans had asked for. In those days, 420 members of the CPN were brought to Schoorl, another 21 members from the Alkmaar area, from the Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (RSAP) including many from the “Sneevlietgroep” and 13 Trotskyites. As a result of arrests, another 175 were added to this group of political prisoners in August. The treatment of the Jewish communists was very bad; as a “punitive measure” they often had to experience the roll call squatted down.

On August 18, 1941, a group of nearly two hundred communists was transferred to Kamp Amersfoort, followed by another 250 prisoners. From there they were taken to the German concentration camps. The 25 women among the prisoners, mainly members of the Communist Party, went through one of the Amsterdam ‘Huis van Bewaring’ to the infamous Ravensbrück camp. “It’s not as pleasant there as it is here,” said Berg, the Lagerkommandant, to one of the women. Almost all communists ended up in the Neuengamme concentration camp. Most of them were killed by gassing in the Bernburg extermination institute, by typhoid fever, by medical experiments, by exhaustion in other concentration camps or later by the sinking of the cruise ship Cap Arcona in the Baltic Sea on 3 May 1945.

Types of prisoners

There were all kinds of prisoners at Kamp Schoorl. Men, women and youth above the age of 18. There were political hostages, Allied pilots and airmen. On May 14, 1941, a large number of officers and others of the 1st Aviation Regiment were imprisoned because they were suspected of having collaborated with three pilots, who had worked with two Fokkers. G-1s had escaped to England. They were sentenced to six weeks in detention and released on June 19, 1941. Also German minded were incarcerated. In July 1941, 21 WA members and four ‘Youth Storm’ were imprisoned for two weeks for beating the mayor of Zandvoort.

The end of Kamp Schoorl

On October 26, 1941 it was reported that ‘Das Lager Schoorl ist aufgelöst’. At that time 238 prisoners were still present, 43 of them were released, while the remaining 195 were transferred to Kamp Amersfoort with commander Berg. The camp was closed probably because it was too small, too close to the coast and also too far from a railway station.

Kamp regime

The camp was surrounded by a double barbed wire fence with four watchtowers. The regime was not strict, unlike what most would later experience in other Nazi camps. Prisoners were allowed to receive mail and parcels, did not have to do any hard labor and were given the same food as the guards. On the other hand, Communists and Jews in particular, were often mistreated and harassed, although the treatment here intended more to humiliate than to hurt.

For example, they had to clean a stone swastika placed on the ground on their knees , with their toothbrush. These prisoners were maltreated in an unbearable way with so called ‘exercises’. Nevertheless, the acting Secretary-General of Justice, J.P. Hooykaas (not an NSB member) of the Jews transferred to Schoorl in February 1941 said: ‘These boys had a good time there’.

A big thank you

A big thank you to Albert Boer and Hans Teijgeler for their work and research that offer a wealth of information about the camp.

Schoorl commemoration

The annual Kamp Schoorl commemoration on 11 June, the day on which the monument was unveiled in 1991, is organized by the municipality of Bergen, the Circle of Friends Mauthausen and the Committee Kamp Schoorl.

During World War II, Nazi Germany occupied Netherlands from 1940 to 1945. In 1942, the Nazis transported Jewish and other prisoners from the Netherlands via the transit camps Amersfoort and Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp, except for 850 prisoners sent to Mauthausen concentration camp. When Amersfoort and Westerbork proved to be too small to handle the large number of prisoners, the Schutzstaffel (SS) decided to build a concentration camp in Vught, near the town of 's-Hertogenbosch or Den Bosch.

The building of the camp at Herzogenbusch, the German name for 's-Hertogenbosch, started in 1942. The camp was modelled on concentration camps in Germany. The first prisoners, who arrived in 1943, had to finish the construction of the camp, which was in use from January 1943 until September 1944. During that period, it held around 32.000 prisoners: Jews, political prisoners, resistance fighters, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homeless people, black market traders, criminals, and hostages.

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The bunker drama at Kamp Vught

In the night of 15 to 16 January 1944, the bunker drama took place in 'de Bunker' of Kamp Vught. There on Saturday January 15, 1944, in retaliation, 74 female prisoners were locked in one 9 square metres small room without ventilation. Ten women would not survive.

Prelude

In June 1943 Agnes Jedzini (born in Flensburg, Germany on January 6th, 1903) is imprisoned in the Frauenlager of Kamp Vught for insulting Hitler. Hoping for early release, she betrays fellow inmates. When her fellow inmates find out, they decide that Jedzini's braid should be cut off as punishment. Non Verstegen, a prisoner with communist sympathies and great charisma, uses a pair of scissors to do this.

Jedzini complains to Adam Grünewald the new Kamp Vught Commandant. He calls prisoner Verstegen to account. Non Verstegen takes the blame and is locked up in a cell of the Bunker prison complex within Kamp Vught. When this news reaches the other women, 91 of them decide to declare their solidarity with Non Verstegen by writing down their names. That Saturday, January 15, 1944, the 91 women on the list are also taken to the bunker.

In cell 115, just a 9 square metres prison room, 74 women are incarcerated. Another 17 women are locked up in cell 117. There is only a small hole to supply the women with fresh air but too little oxygen enters the room. The women who faint remain upright because there is no room to fall.

The next morning

The cell door was probably opened by an Aufsherin shortly arounf sven or eight o'clock the next Sunday morning. Startled by the sight and the smell, she immediately reshuts the door. A little later the door is opened again by the Oberaufseherin, she even beats one of the women to keep them in the cell. However, the women tumble over each other out of the room. About 34 bodies remain in a heap in the center of the cell. Tineke, one of the youngest female prisoners, went back into the cell to drag some women into the hallway. Meanwhile Grünewald has arrived together with the camp doctor, Doctor Wolters. Grünewald, cursing and yelling, orders Wolters to take all the women out of the cell. Together with some guards, Wolters puts the women in the hallway and tries to train some of the women. Wolters ensures that the women are given food and drink and that they are not locked in the same cell again. Instead, the women are divided into groups of five among the empty cells and given mattresses and blankets. All this against the wishes of Grünewald. Cell 117 is not opened until around one o'clock in the afternoon, then these prisoners only get an idea of what happened in cell 115.

Aftermath

It will take until that evening for all prisoners to be removed from their cells. They are then led before Grünewald and charged with mutiny. The women are forced to sign a statement taking the blame for the incident and are then returned to their barracks. Non Verstegen also has to answer for Grünewald. She refuses to sign and is put back in jail. On the advice of some fellow inmates, she still signs the next day and also mentions the name of Thea, who was partly responsible for cutting Jedzini's hair. Grünewald is not satisfied with this and locks Non up again, she would not be released until a month and a half later. This incident never had any consequences for Thea, she was released according to plan the day after cutting Jedzini's hair.

Agnes Jedzini dies in the camp on January 22, 1944. Her death certificate read that she died of lung abscesses as a result of a lung penetration.

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The end of Kamp Vught

Due to hunger, sickness, and abuse, at least 749 men, women and children died in Herzogenbusch. Of those, 329 were murdered at the execution site just outside the camp. As allied forces approached Herzogenbusch, the camp was evacuated and the prisoners were transferred to concentration camps further east. By 4 – 5 September 1944, the women inmates had been sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp and the men to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

On 26 October 1944 Allied forces liberate the camp after fighting a rear guard of SS personnel left to defend the nearly evacuated facility. There were around 500 - 600 prisoners left alive, who were due to be executed that afternoon, and whose lives were saved by the arrival of the liberating forces the 5th Battalion, Queens Own Cameron Highlanders . About 500 inmates were also discovered dead in piles near the gates, having been executed the very morning of the day the camp was liberated.

Internment camp (1944 to 1949)

After the last prisoners have to be transported to Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück in September, the camp is left vacant. From October 1944, the first suspects of collaboration, NSB members and Reichsdeutsche, end up in internment camp Vught. A total of 7.000 Dutch collaborators were imprisoned in Vught.  The internment camp is closed in mid-January 1949.

German civilian evacuees (1944 to 1945)

Partly in the same period, the site will be used as a reception camp for German civilian evacuees from the border area near Sittard. After the Allies conquered the south of The Netherlands, these civilians found themselves in the front line. They are evacuated to Vught, this happened in the period between mid November 1944 to mid May 1945.

Former German SS

Former Waffen SS men were also interned in the former concentration camp Vught. The approximately 300 Waffen SS men wore the stripe suits previously worn by the concentration camp inmates. While waiting for their trial, they had to clear away German landmines. Disciplinary measures were the order of the day in the camp. Not infrequently, these degenerated into humiliation and mistreatment of the prisoners. The main reason for this was that the camp personnel were very hostile to the collaborators and former German soldiers.

 

The Westerbork transit camp was considered by Nazi standards as “humane”. Jewish inmates with families were housed in 200 interconnected cottages that contained two rooms, a toilet, a hot plate for cooking, and a small yard. Single inmates were placed in oblong barracks which contained a bathroom for each sex.

Train waggons were used at Westerbork from July 1942 to September 1944 which deported around 105.000 Jews during the period. Jewish inmates were deported in waves to Auschwitz concentration camp (65 waggons of 60.330 people), Sobibor (19 waggons of 34.313 people), Theresienstadt ghetto and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (9 waggons of 4.894 people). Almost all of the 94.643 people deported to the Auschwitz complex and Sobibor in German-occupied Poland were killed upon arrival.

The Westerbork transit camp 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, and other cultural activities. A special, separate work cadre of 2.000 “permanent” Jewish inmates was used as a camp labor force. Within this group was a sub-group constituting a camp police force which was required to assist with transports and keep order. The SS actually had very little to do with selecting transferees; this job fell to another class of inmates that made up a sort of security service. Most of these 2.000 "permanent" inmates were eventually sent to concentration or death camps themselves.

Notable prisoners in the transit camp Westerbork included Anne Frank, who was transported to Camp Westerbork on August 4, 1944 and Etty Hillesum, each of whom wrote of their experiences in diaries discovered after the war. Anne remained at the camp in a small hut until September 3, when she was deported to Auschwitz.

Etty Hillesum was able to avoid the Nazi dragnet that identified Jews until April 1942. Even after being labeled a Jew, Hillesum began to report on antisemitic policies. She took a job with Judenrat for two weeks and then volunteered to accompany the first group of Jews sent to Westerbork. Hillesum stayed at Westerbork until September 7, 1943, when she was deported to Auschwitz. She died there 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, 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.

Jacques Schol, a Dutchman, was commander of the camp from July 16 1940 and until January 1943. He was known for his brutality against Jewish inmates, kicking inmates to death.

German authorities took control of Westerbork from the Dutch government on July 1, 1942. Deportations began under the orders of Gestapo sub-Department IV-B4, which was headed by Adolf Eichmann. Within the confines of the camp, German SS commanders were in charge of inmates, but squads of Jewish police and security were used to keep order and aid in transport, as noted above.

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 April 12, 1945. A total of 876 inmates were found. The War Diary of the South Saskatchewan Regiment referenced the camp in its entry for April 12, 1945.

Camp Geesbrug (Nieuweroord) was located just west of the village of Geesbrug, on the road to Hoogeveen and the Hoogeveense Vaart. About the origins of the labor camp little is known. Probably the camp was built  in early 1941. Neither is clear when the first Jewish forced laborers arrived. Geesbrug
had a capacity of 240 people, and at the begining of 1942 about 210 Jewish men imprisoned.

Camp life

The Jewish forced laborers were subdued others used for mining and agricultural construction work. The so-called 'concrete crew' laid the concrete shelter in a drainage ditch of the Coevorden-Zwinderen canal, the Miljoenensloot on the Vossebelt.

The days in the camp started with an early rise. Every day was the same. Followed by marching in rows for about 25 minutes till the prisoners arrived at their work location. They had to dig trenches. Two meters deep and two meters wide. Watched and controlled by our supervisor, mister de Vries, who had a large German Shepperd dog at his side.

Prisoner Joseph Pronkhorst

On May 20, 1942, Joseph Pronkhorst, who worked as a putter, wrote: 'There is no question of leave for the time being, although we have been here for almost 7 weeks.' He did receive visitors in the following days and he was allowed to call his mother once.

On Thursday, June 25, 1942, Joseph wrote another letter: 'I have not seen a potato in the camp since Monday. However, we make sure that we do have something to eat. The farmers are very cooperative. Simon, as you write, there is a chance that you will also have to be examined. I just hope that's not the case. Although I already know that about 40 people from The Hague and Rotterdam will come to our camp.'

Deportation

In the night of 2 to 3 October 1942, the Jewish men were transported by train to camp Westerbork and from there to German extermination camps. Few survived these deportations. Less than a week later, most of them were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz - Birkenau and Sobibor.

Other functions of the camp

After the departure of the group of Jewish forced labourers, the camp served as a shelter for evacuees, who had had to leave their homes because of the construction of the Atlantic Wall. Subsequently, the camp was used as accommodation for workers from the Labor Service.

Hitlerjugend

Also the Hitlerjugend, stayed in the Geesbrug camp and were trained as soldiers. These so called 'Wehrertüchtigungslager' or defense training camps (WE camps for short), also Reich training camps, were Hitler Youth facilities for pre-military training and indoctrination during WW2. Within the Reich Youth Leadership of the Hitler Youth there was an office for physical training. From 1939 onwards, this organized several weeks of training courses in camps for military training, in which young people were to be prepared “pre-military” for use in the war.

After the war

After the war, the camp served as a shelter for a group of soldiers who helped with harvesting activities, as a holiday colony and as accommodation for conscientious objectors. The last inhabitants were Moluccans and Ambonese people . The camp became vacant and was put up for sale. A pig farmer later demolished the barracks and built new barns for his pigs on the foundations.

Monument

A monument now stands ate the site where the camp was. The placement of the monument was an initiative of the working group Jewish Monument Geesbrug. The monument was unveiled on 2 October 2008 by chief rabbi Binjomin Jacobs and Maurits Buitekant, who managed to escape the Geesbrug camp and go into hiding in The Hague. In the presence of relatives of the Jewish men who were in the labor camp at the time.

A big thank you to: Gemeentearchief Oosterhesselen 1920-1997 for their coorperation.