CAMP WESTERBORK

Camp Westerbork (officially: Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Westerbork) was located on the Drenthe heath near Hooghalen and named after the then municipality of Westerbork in which the camp was located. Camp Westerbork has become known as the gateway to the extermination camps. From Westerbork, more than 107,000 people were deported to extermination camps in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. Only 5,000 people who were deported from camp Westerbork survived the Second World War.
A train departed from camp Westerbork 93 times, often to Auschwitz, but also to Sobibor, Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen. Of the nearly 107,000 people deported from camp Westerbork, only 5,000 survived the Second World War.
On April 12, 1945, the Canadians liberated 876 prisoners in camp Westerbork. Of them, 500 had seen the last train leave, the rest had been arrested in the last months of the war.
Camp life was dominated by the carefully directed illusion that there would be no 'Final Solution'. But almost every week there was the train, which turned hope into despair.

Pictured: The train leaves the camp (drawing by Werner Löwenhardt)

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