Today in Dutch WWII History : Concentration-Camps 3

  

Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort

Compared with other concentration camps, Camp Amersfoort was a small and makeshift camp. In operation from 1941 until the end of the war, it was run not by the military but by the German police the Sipo / SD. Neglect, starvation, maltreatment and murder marked the lives of over 35,000 prisoners who, in the course of two separate periods of the war, were held here for a brief or extended time.
The history of Camp Amersfoort can be divided into two periods.

First Period 1941 - 1943

In August 1941 the SS took the former shed camp for Dutch soldiers in use as a camp. Camp Amersfoort was a small, provisional camp. By the central, outlying position and poor control, the camp, in the period up to 1943, could develop into a cruel, disorderly, in itself turned community. Even to German standards.
The main feature of the prisoners population in Camp Amersfoort was the diversity.There were significantly more differences than similarities.There was difference in age, gender, background, education, religion, political orientation, reason for arrest, position and treatment in the camp, trial, sentence and length of confinement.
Forced labor, beatings, starvation and disease made staying at Camp Amersfoort a struggle for survival. There was no solidarity among the prisoners.
In the camp there were also 101 Russians. The German camp administration had them
registered as "Kriegsgefangene. They were exposed to abuse and neglect. The 77 survivors were murdered on April 9, 1942. On March 18, 1946, they were reburied at the general cemetery Rusthof in Leusden.
There were also approximately 120 American citizens, in the camp. The effect of the German declaration of war against the United States was that U.S. citizens, in the German occupied territories, were arrested. They were not considered prisoners, but as civilian internees. For them was the Geneva convention. They were treated different then the other prisoners. They did not have to perform forced labor and were not mistreated. But like the other prisoners they experienced, food shortages, uncertainty about their fate and the limited freedom of movement.
End 1942, beginning 1943 the camp was cleared. The prisoners were brought to the new camp in Vught. The existence of camp Amersfoort was uncertain. In this first period which lasted up to 8 March 1943, a total of 8,522 prisoners stayed in camp Amersfoort.

Second Period 1943 - 1945

Enlarging the capacity and afterwards reopening of camp Amersfoort appeared necessary. The reality of war, the growth in the number of detainees, retrieved the plans for Camp Amersfoort. On May 17, 1943, with the arrival of the first 2 new groups of prisoners, the camp, now with a new name 'Erweitertes Polizeigefängnis', reopened. The name pointed out that the camp fell under the responsibility of the local police force authorities.The capacity was, in comparison with the first period, drastically increased.
In this second period, as a result of the "arbeitseinsatz" the run through of prisoners became much larger.
In spite of the extension the camp remained, in comparison with ' official' German camps, disorderlily and negligent.
As a result, among other things, of the increasing allied threat on April 19 1945 camp Amersfoort was officially transferred to the Dutch Red Cross. 475 à 500 present prisoners no longer fell under the responsibility of the German occupancy power. On April 20 the German camp control left the camp.

Reconstruction of a copy of a stereographic drawing found in 1945 in the Camp commander's office.

Aerial picture August 1944

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Photo's: Nationaal Monument Kamp Amersfoort