Kamp Westerbork

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!"