Camp Westerbork

Camp Westerbork (Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Westerbork) located near Hooghalen has become known as a transit camp. From here, 107,000 Jews and Roma and Sinti were deported to German concentration camps. Only 5,000 of these survived the war, most in Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen or by liberation in Westerbork itself.
Among the victims were household names. Etty Hillesum was detained in Westerbork before she was deported, and Anne Frank and her family were put on one of the last transport trains from Camp Westerbork to Auschwitz. The Sinti girl Settela Steinbach was also deported via Westerbork. The journalist, for the Algemeen Handelsblad, Philip Mechanicus was deported to Westerbork on 7 November 1942 and transported to Bergen-Belsen on 8 March 1944; on 9 October 1944 he was taken with a punishment transport of 120 men to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was shot 3 days later.