Vught Concentration Camp - Vught (Holland)

Historical information

Introduction

During WW2 Camp Vught was the only SS concentration camp outside of Nazi Germany (except Natzwiller in France). Unlike other Dutch camps, Camp Vught was modelled after the camps in Germany and was placed under the command of the SS Headquarters in Berlin. The camp in Vught was “necessary because the camps in Amersfoort and Westerbork could not accommodate the increasing number of prisoners”.

Camp statistics

The construction of the “Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch”, as camp Vught officially was called, began in 1942. Construction of the camp was not finished at the end of 1942 when the first famished and beaten prisoners arrived. Several hundred prisoners died the first six months due to miserable conditions.
Approximately a total of 31.000 persons were imprisoned in the camp for short or longer periods between January 1943 and September 1944. In addition to 12.000 Jews, the camp held amongst other political prisoners, resistance fighters, hostages, Sinti and Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah’s witnesses, homosexuals, black marketers and criminals. Of these more than 750 children, women and men died of hunger, sickness and abuse, or they were executed at the execution area just outside of the camp.

Bunker tragedy

When one of the women from Barracks 23B was imprisoned in the “Bunker” (the prison within the camp), some of the other women protested. In order to punish the women, Commandant Grünewald of Camp Vught ordered 74 women to be put into confinement in cell 115, an area of 9 square meters (97 suqare feet). When the door was opened the next morning, ten women had suffocated to death.

Children's transports

Approximately 12.000 Jews were transported from Vught to the extermination camps. Notorious are the “two children’s transports” on June 6th and 7th 1943. In total 1.269 Jewish children were deported from Camp Vught via Westerbork to Sobibor in Poland. They were put into the gas chambers shortly after their arrival.

The official website of the museum stands here.
Official Authorities of the museum can be contacted there

Location information

The camp was evacuated in September 1944. A new function was given to the grounds almost immediately after the liberation of Southern Holland. Thousands of persons were temporarily housed: evacuated Germans, suspected Dutch collaborators and war criminals. Currently a prison, the Molukken residential area, two barracks of the Dutch army and National monument Vught are located on the former camp area (surface area 350.000 square meters). All the barracks used in the Molukken residential area in the 1950s were taken down in 1992 in order to make way for new housing.

On highway A2 take exit A65/N65 in the direction of Tilburg. On the N65 take exit Cromvoirt/Ijzeren. Thereafter turn right on the third street called Lunetenlaan. At the end of the road you reach the front entrance of the "National Monument Kamp Vught".

Personal note

The crematorium is in its nearby authentic state.
The historically reconstructed prisoners’ barracks and a number of watchtowers are there. Is also present the reconstructed cell 15 where the “bunker tragedy” took place.
The Memorial center is accessible for wheelchairs.