Breendonk Transit Camp

Scope and content

The collection, comprised of three sub-collections, contains documentation concerning the Breendonk Transit Camp including war-time reports; correspondence; decrees as well as post war documentation; lists; personal documentation and index cards. The collection contains original documentation as well as copies from various archives.

History of the transit camp Breendonk 1940-1944:
Fort Breendonk was established in1906 as part of the a line of defense around Antwerp. At the start of WWI it sustained severe destruction; in the time between the two World Wars it was used as a fortress of the Belgian Army. Just a few months after Belgium’s capitulation on 28 May 1940 the fortress was given the function of prison and absorption camp, where, until liberation in September 1944, a total of approx. 3,000 to 3,600 prisoners passed through. The majority of the prisoners were comprised of members of communist resistance groups and other political opponents as well as citizens of the Soviet Union who were in Belgium at that time. Many of them were murdered in the camp by way of torture, execution and the harsh living conditions or were sent to other concentration camps – for example to Buchenwald and Neuengamme. The first incarceration of Jewish prisoners followed in September 1940. Up until 1942 they were separated from the other inmates and then sent first to the assembly camp in Mechelen (frz.: Malines). From there they were deported to Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. With the Allied troops approaching, Breendonk was “evacuated” by the German guard units in August 1944. The remaining prisoners were sent to the assembly camp in Mechelen, from where they were deported to Germany and Poland.
Source: http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/106/Nationale-Gedenkstätte-Fort-Breendonk [Latest access 2012-08-01] and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005423 [Latest access 2012-08-01].