De Kruishoeve

National Monument Camp Vught

by 36waterfalls

"To Never Forget"

During WWII Camp Vught was a SS Concentration Camp; everyone in the Netherlands going against the Germans could be taken prisoner and put in this camp. During the 1940's more and more prisoners were brought here, when the Transportationcamps of Westerbork and Amersfoort were getting full. Camp Vught held political prisoners, people who joined the resistance, gays, gypsies, criminals and jews. There was a special barrack for woman. There were no gaschambers; prisoners were simply put on tasks that starved them. The SS commandors were all Dutch collaborators. Between January 1943 and September 1944 over 31.000 men, woman and children were prisoner in Camp Vught. Among them were over 12.000 Jews taken to Camp Westerbork for transportation to the destruction camps in Germany and Poland (like Auschwitz and Sobibor).
At least 750 people died in Vught, due to illness and torture.
In September 1944 the Camp was emptied by the Germans, since the Allied Forces moved in closer. Prisoners were put on trains to camps in Germany. Others were shot at the Execution Area, which is just outside the campgrounds and also a National Monument today.
Camp Vught was officially liberated on 26 October 1944, by then already empty. After the war it was turned into a prison for warcriminals and collaborators. From the 1950's it has been emergency housing for a while.
Today most of the barracks have been demolished, but a fraction of the area has been kept alive; it's a National Monument, free to visit and to never forget the horrors that went on here.
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