KL-Herzogenbusch - The Jewish Children's Transport
Article about: KL-HERZOGENBUSCH - The Jewish Children's Transport A major concentration camp located within the Netherlands, Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch was established at Vught, near the Dutch city
KL-Herzogenbusch - The Jewish Children's Transport
KL-HERZOGENBUSCH - The Jewish Children's Transport
A major concentration camp located within the Netherlands, Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch was established at Vught, near the Dutch city of 's-Hertogenbosch. Of the various dark chapters throughout the existence of the camp, the story of the Kindertransport ranks among the saddest.
On Saturday June 5th 1943, the SS announced that all Jewish children were to be transported from Herzogenbusch to a special camp. The next day, the children aged 0-3 years were transported along with their mothers to Westerbork Durchgangslager (transit camp), with older children - aged from 4 to 16 years of age following with either their mother or father on the 7th June. In total, 1,296 children are known to have been murdered in Sobibor or died at Westerbork awaiting transfer to the death camp in the east.
The memorial pictured below, created by sculptor Teus van den Berg-Been, bears the names of the 1,296 children who perished. The transports are commemorated annually in early June.
IMAGES:
1. A view of the memorial at Kamp Vught, the National Memorial Museum.
2. This small section of the memorial shows 29 names - 16 of whom were 7 years of age or younger. The eldest was just 16, the youngest only 1 year old.
Below is another image taken at the museum. To the right, the damaged commemorative stones from the execution site memorial can be seen. The site is addressed in this link KL-Herzogenbusch - Execution Site " Fusilladeplaats"
Recently, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of this, the only major Konzentrationslager on occupied Dutch soil, took place. As the Allied forces advanced, the camp authorities made plans to evacuate the site and transported several thousand male prisoners to Sachsenhausen, whilst hundreds of female inmates were sent to f.KL-Ravensbrück (Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück / Women's Concentration Camp Ravensbrück). Once the vast majority of prisoners had left the site, the remaining inmates were either released or sent North to Amersfoort, the police Durchgangslager (Transit Camp) near Utrecht. The facility was then under the administration of the Wehrmacht, who used the site to hold POWs for a short time until the camp was handed over to the Red Cross in late October 1944.
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