Westerbork
Camp situated in the northeastern Netherlands, near the town of that name. From 1942-1944, Westerbork served as a transit camp for Jews who were being deported to the East. The camp was set up in October 1939 by the Dutch government to house Jewish refugees who had entered the country illegally. When the Germans invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, there were 750 refugees in the camp. Refugees from other camps were moved to Westerbork after the fall of the Netherlands, and in 1941 it had a population of 1,100.
The Transition to a Transfer Camp
At the end of 1941, the German administration decided to use Westerbork as a transit camp for Jews who were being deported to the East. A barbed-wire fence was put up around the camp and twenty-four large wooden barracks were constructed. In the first six months of 1942, some four hundred German Jews were transferred to Westerbork. On July 1, 1942, the German Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) took over control of the camp. Erich Deppner was appointed commandant. It was he who handled the first transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz and caused a riot when, in order to fill the required quota of 1,000 deportees, he included in the transport children without their parents and women who happened to be standing on line for admittance into the camp. On September 1, 1942, Deppner was replaced by an SS officer, Josef Hugo Dischner. On October 12, Dischner was succeeded by SS-Obersturmfuehrer Albert Konrad Gemmeker. Gemmeker left the day-to-day operation of the camp in the hands of the German Jews, who had been in charge of it from the beginning.
Deportations from Westerbork
The systematic transfer to Westerbork of Jews from all over the Netherlands began on July 14, 1942, and on the following day, their deportation to Auschwitz was set in motion. A total of almost 100,000 Jews were deported from Westerbork: nearly 55,000 to Auschwitz; over 34,000 to Sobibor; almost 5,000 to Theresienstadt; and, nearly 4,000 to Bergen-Belsen. The timetable, size and destination of the transports were determined by Adolf Eichmann's office. The responsibility of compiling the lists of those to be deported was left by Gemmeker in the hands of the Jewish camp leadership. Certain camp inmates -- Jews of foreign nationality and the veteran inmates, numbering 2,000, - were exempt. Thus, the Westerbork camp led a double life. There were inmates who remained for a considerable length of time, and there were the masses who were brought into the camp from time to time, stayed there for a week or two and were then dispatched to the east.
Administration
The camp administration consisted of ten subdivisions. On August 12, 1943, Kurt Schlesinger was appointed head of the principal subdivision, which was also in charge of the main card index - the key instrument for the compilation of the lists of persons to be deported. Another subdivision was the Jewish police (Juedischer Ordnungsdienst). It was employed in arranging the transports and maintaining order inside the camp. The camp inmates were supposed to work for the war effort, but the will to work was very low. Westerbork had a hospital. The camp commandant also encouraged cultural activities. The Dutch administration provided the camp with a regular supply of commodities.
Liberation and Aftermath
On April 12, 1945, Gemmeker officially handed the camp over to Schlesinger. On that day, the camp had 876 inmates, of whom 569 were Dutch nationals; the rest belonged to various other nationalities or were stateless. After the war, a Dutch court sentenced Gemmeker to ten years in prison. A memorial and a permanent exhibition were set up on the site of the Westerbork camp.
