Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch or Kamp Vught in Dutch was one of three concentration camps built west of the German Reich. Nacht und Nebel Concentration Camp Natzwiller in France, and Concentration camp Beendonk in Belgium were the other two camps set up after the SS camps in Germany.
In the Netherlands during the Second World War there were five major concentration camps, Concentration Camp Herzogenbusch (Camp Vught), Camp Ommen, Camp Westerbork, Camp Schoorl, Camp Amersfoort.
History of the Herzogenbusch Concentration Camp
Herzogenbusch concentration camp was built in 1942 and the cost of 15 million guilders was mainly covered by confiscated Jewish property. The concentration camp was one kilometer long and 350 meters wide. The first prisoners came from the Amersfoort transit camp and had to build the camp themselves.
There were 35 barracks of 85 meters long and 12.87 meters wide, each barrack sleeping 140 to 190 people. They were given a liter of soup and a few crackers to eat per day, hygiene was very poor, the women did not receive sanitary towels until the end of January 1944.
The camp commander, camp guard and office staff were built to the south-east in the shape of the German Beam Cross, which can still be seen today.
The Camp opened on January 5, 1943. It was a prison camp for Jews, Roma, homosexuals, resistance fighters, and other “anti-socials”. Collectively, 31,000 people were locked up in the camp during the war. They had to do forced labor outside and inside the camp, including for the Philips factory.
Even though it was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz Birkenau, there were executions and an incinerator. There was no room for children in the camp, and 1,269 of them were taken by train to the Westerbork transit concentration camp. From here they were transported to Sobibor Concentration Camp and murdered, not a single child survived.
There is a situation in which one of the women passed on information to the German camp guards. After the other women found out about this, the informant was shaved. Security found out about this and imprisoned one of the women. The group rioted and protested against this action, after which all 89 women were detained. In one cell of 9.5 square meters, 74 women were forcibly squeezed until it was packed. The other 15 women were locked up in the cell next door. The women had to spend the entire night in the inhumanely overcrowded cell, without ventilation. When the cell was opened in the morning, 10 had died due to lack of oxygen and fear.
After this action, the camp commander SS-Hauptsturmführer Adam Grünewald was replaced because a riot broke out in the Netherlands. The new camp commander SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Hüttig arrived in February 1944 and had 329 prisoners murdered between July and September.
Liberation on Camp Vught and use after WW2
When the Allies approached Herzogenbusch Concentration Camp, it was evacuated on September 5 and 6, 1944. The prisoners were transferred to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. The Germans then transferred the camp to the Red Cross on September 22, 1944. Vught camp fell into the hands of the Canadian 4th Armored Division on October 27, 1944.
A total of more than 750 people died in Herzogenbusch concentration camp. Mass executions, as in other camps in Germany, did not occur, but there is an execution site.
The Vught camp in Allied and Dutch hands
Shortly after the Allied takeover, the camp was used to imprison Germans. For example, the citizens of the German cities of Gangel and Selfkant were detained here because the Allies were afraid of German collaborators. From mid-November, 6,000 to 7,000 Germans were imprisoned in Camp Vught, together with 3,000 Dutch Collaborators.
After the Indonesian victory in the War of Independence with the Netherlands, numerous Moluccan soldiers who fought in the Royal Netherlands Indies Legion (KNIL) were housed in the former concentration camp. After the Indonesian victory in 1949, they were considered collaborators and had to be evacuated from the former Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands along with their families to protect them from acts of revenge. A large proportion of the demobilized Moluccan KNIL members were housed in Camp Vught.
Visit
Today, on the site next to the “National Monument” Kamp Vught there is a prison, and the Moluccan settlement “Lunetten” and two barracks . Check out the Museum’s website for opening times.
