In one day we visited the Amersfoort cemetery in Leusden and camp Amersfoort. Both locations, the camp and the cemetery, lie only 5 kilometers apart.
Right beside the car park, just before the documentation centre, stands a lonely watchtower. Originally there were eight of these towers placed around the camp. One on each corner and one watchtower at the middle of each side.
Military Camp
In 1939 the Dutch Government commissioned the construction of an army compound, complete with barracks and training grounds. The intention was to house a Dutch artillery unit. From 18 August 1941 on, after the occupation of the Netherlands, the camp was used by the German police. They transformed it to a “Polizeiliches Durchgangslager”; a political transit camp. From this day the amry compound was tranformed into a Concentration Camp named Amersfoort, like the nearby town. The barracks, originally intended for the Dutch soldiers, were used as housing for the prisoners.
Transit Camp for Political Prisoners
From the first beginning of the camp, on 18th of August 1941, they received 200 prisoners. A group of communists, transferred from Concentration Camp Schoorl, another camp in the Netherlands. The camp was under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Walter Heinrich. He was a policeman who had little or no experience with the leadership in a camp. Two experienced executioners from the notorious Concentration Camp Dachau were at his diposal.
Concentration camp Amersfoort was, because two executioners, a notorious camp on its own. In addition to the SS butcher Kötalla they used “Kapo’s” in the camp. Kapo’s are prisoners which worked for the Germans, they took charge of a section of prisoners. In return they were offered a better treatment or more food. Unfortunately they didn’t shy cruelties on their fellow inmates.
Forced Labour
The daily jobs of the prisoner were exhausting. The “Forrest-crew” had to attend hard labour in the woods, such as the grubbing-up of trees and chop them into pieces. The nutrition provided to do this kind of work failed causing malnutrition, disease and even death.
In total, there are around 35000 registered prisoners in the camp archives. 14000 of them were put on transport to labour camps in Germany, 5000 to other types of camps. More than 15000 were released, fled or were executed or killed. 650 prisoners are killed by violence from the two executrioners, Kapo’s or other SS staff memebers alone in camp Amersfoort.
The Firing Range
The 320-metre-long firing range was manually excavated by the prisoners. This location was also used by the camp guards as an executing site. Directly after the war a mass grave was discovered at the end of the firing range containing 49 bodies. The statue of the “Stone man” marks the exact execution spot.
The House of the Dead
Next to the shooting range are the foundations of a house, a morque, were they brought the dead.
In this house they were covered with quicklime. After the war, another mass grave near the house was discovered. Most of the remains from the victims were lost, long gone due to the use of this quicklime.
The Russian Cemetery
Behind the camp they found another, a third, mass grave, with 77 Russian victims. The group is murdered in 1945 at this precise location. From the original 101 member of the Russian unit, 24 of them died to the hardships of the camp. The 77 surviving prisoners were murdered on 9 April 1942. The Koedriest, or Russian monument is a silent reminder of this sad day.
VISIT
Camp Amersfoort offers a small documentation centre and some remains of the original camp itself. Many of the objects are outdoors and reachable through forest paths.
You can check the current opening hours on the Concentration camp Amersfoort website.