Westerbork Memorial Centre

Westerbork was built in 1939 as a refugee camp but soon became a transit camp, a Durchgangslager. In the period 1942-1945, a hundred thousand Jews and a few dozen resistance fighters passed through here on their way to death. On the last of the 93 trains that departed for the extermination camps in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor and Bergen-Belsen, there was also a certain Anne Frank. In her well-known diary Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) she writes about Westerbork: "Our many Jewish acquaintances were rounded up in groups. The Gestapo did not treat these people with leniency, they were simply taken in cattle trucks to Westerbork, the large Jewish camp in Drenthe. (...) Westerbork must be terrible. The people get almost nothing to eat, let alone drink. There is only water for an hour a day and a toilet and a sink for a few thousand people. (...) If it is so bad in Holland, how will they live in the distant and barbarous regions to which they are sent? We assume that most of them are murdered. (...)
Westerbork was a world of extremes. Its only function was deportation. To feed the false illusion, there were schools for the children and a large hospital. There were sports and games, yes even concerts and cabaret. A remarkable amount has been preserved, including unique film fragments from 1944, hundreds of photographs, drawings, letters, diaries and all kinds of personal belongings. All these things can be seen in the Camp Westerbork Remembrance Centre.

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