Kamp Westerbork

About

In 1939, the Dutch government built a refugee camp to help Jews fleeing Germany. However, in 1942, the Nazi regime took control of the camp and transformed it into a staging area to transport Jews to other concentration and death camps. Here, people they were treated humanely by Nazi standards, with inmates living in cottages, and the camp providing amenities like a school, orchestra, hairdresser, and even restaurants, in order to give the 100,000 people who passed through here, including Anne Frank, a false hope for survival and to keep them placated during transportation. Today, only camp serves as a museum and memorial to remember the horrors this camp facilitated. Visitors can see the remains of the train track that transported people to the death camps, a moving stone memorial for the camp victims, the SS officer’s cottages, and in the museum, a collection of photographs, artefacts, and testimonies that tell the camp’s sinister story.