Leo and Richard patiently waiting for the ladies!
We stopped and had lunch before we headed to
Kamp Westerbork.
Kamp Westerbork was a concentration
camp in the Netherlands during WW II.
The Nazi occupying forces deported
more than 100,000 Jews via this transit camp.
The camp was originally built in 1939 by the
Dutch government as a Central Refugee Camp
for Jews fleeing Germany.
In 1942, it became a transit camp headed
by the SS. From July of that year,
the Dutch Jews, German refugees,
245 Sinti and Roma and dozens of resistance
fighters were deported from this
'hell's gate' to death camps such as
Auschwitz and Sobibor.
A total of 93 transports left the camp,
and only 5,000 of those deported
returned alive.
The National Westerbork Memorial symbolises
the destruction. And the former
roll-call site, the 102,000 stones have been placed.
A stone for EVERY murdered man,
woman and child.
(a camp within the camp)
One of the victims was Anne Frank. Her father Otto
was among the few survivors. They were sent
to Kamp Westerbork after the arrest in their
secret hiding in Amsterdam. In the camp,
they were sent to the punishment blocks where
they were to stay for several weeks. In
these punishment blocks, the Nazi's detained not only
people who had been arrested while in hiding,
but also camp prisoners who were being punished.
Their fate was to be put on punishment transport
as soon as possible.
On 3 September 1944, one of the last trains left
Kamp Westerbrok. Anne Frank was among
the 1,019 deportees on that train, as
were her sister Margot, her parents, Otto and
Edith Frank, and the others wo had been
hiding with them.
(original tracks)
The signs at Westerbork remind us of the destinations
of the trains that left Westerbork: Auschwitz,
Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen, Theresienstadt, and
Mauthausen.
In the heart of Kamp Westerbork, visitors
will find the Jerusalem Stone, unveiled
by the President of Israel.
The camp was demolished in 1970 - only memorials
stand today along with a musuem.
"Let us never forget!"
