Westerbork Assembly and Transit Camp

Scope and content

The collection contains among others:

Transport lists, lists of arrivals, deportation lists from Camp Westerbork to various other camps, correspondence, Red Cross Correspondence, alphabetical registry of prisoners who died in the camp, prisoners lists, death lists, lists of survivors, print "Documentation on the fate of the Jewish population during NS Rule"

History of the Assembly and Transit Camp Westerbork 1940-1945:

Camp Westerbork in Drenthe province was originally set up in 1939 by the Dutch authorities as a central refugee camp, in order to manage the flood of refugees coming from Germany. Many Jews and political persecutees from Germany were looking for refuge in their neighboring country. When the German Wehrmacht attacked the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, there were around 700 people in the camp. The camp remained under the surveillance of the Dutch administration, until, two years later, the occupation authorities determined Westerbork as transit camp for deportations of Jews. In addition to the already existing infrastructure, the geographical proximity to the German Reich was the main reason for this decision. This was located approx. 40 km from the German border. The camp was expanded, connected with the railway network and on 1 July 1942 placed in the hands of the Security Police and the Security Service as „Police transit camp for Jews “. At that point in time there were 1,527 prisoners interned in Westerbork. The deportations began that same month. With the help of the local police, Jews were rounded up and forcibly sent to Westerbork, from where, usually after a very short time, they were deported further eastward by the SS. The first transport left for Auschwitz on 15 July 1942 carrying 1,135 persons. Until 13 September 1944 there were an additional 93 deportation trains heading to Auschwitz, Sobibor, Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen. Many Jews stayed for a longer time in the camp, where the prisoners were feigned a normal day to day life. In the camp the prisoners had a kind of self-administration, schools as well as diverse cultural and sports events. This tactic of conscious deception led to the victims not recognizing the impending danger, remaining calm even during the deportations. A total of more than 100,000 people lived either briefly or for longer periods of time in the camp, which had already been overcrowded when only 10,000 prisoners were there. When Canadian troops liberated Camp Westerbork in April 1945, they found only 876 inmates remaining.

Source: Romijn, Peter: Westerbork, in: Lexikon des Holocaust, ed.by Wolfgang Benz, München 2002, p. 253 and http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/66/Erinnerungszentrum-Lager-Westerbork [Latest access: 2012-08-06].