Historic site

The National Monument Westerbork is one of the most striking and poignant of the thousands of war memorials in the Netherlands. Designed by camp survivor Ralph Prins, the monument keeps the memory of Camp Westerbork alive.

At the end of the ninety-metre-long track, Ralph Prins sought to show, using as few resources as possible, that something terrible had happened at this spot. The curled-up rails express despair; they have been treated to look as if they have been shot at. The sleepers show the destruction. The closer to the end, the more shattered they are. The track rests on 93 sleepers, referring to the number of transports that departed from Camp Westerbork. Four sleepers lying separate from the track symbolise four transports that departed from elsewhere to Eastern Europe*.

From a distance, the wall of boulders from Drenthe resembles a pile of skulls. In front of it stands the buffer stop, close to the spot where, during the war, the railway line from Hooghalen to the camp also reached its terminus. Ralph Prins deliberately chose not to use the authentic buffer stop that still lies behind the wall. This applies, incidentally, to all the materials used in the monument: nothing comes from the camp itself, not even the rails. The two marble slabs bear the biblical text Lamentations 4:18.

*This figure is based on the historical record of deportations from 1970. We now know that there were more than 100 deportations.

Between 15 July 1942 and 13 September 1944, more than 100 trains departed from Camp Westerbork. In addition, four trains departed for Auschwitz and Theresienstadt from other locations in the Netherlands. A transport list was drawn up for each transport. These lists have been preserved. They contain the names of 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands. There is also a list of 245 Roma and Sinti who were put on transport on 19 May 1944.

All their names are read out, 365 days a year, across the grounds of Camp Westerbork, from a reconstructed railway carriage near ‘the Rampe’, the spot in the camp from which the trains departed for the East. The monument ‘The Spoken Names’ features recordings by reporters and presenters from the (Dutch national broadcast station) NOS. On the same day that a transport departed during the war years, the transport list for that day from 1942, 1943 or 1944 will be read out loud. This will continue until the next date on which another transport departed at that time.

In the spring of 1942, when the German occupiers had decided to turn the Westerbork refugee camp into a transit camp for Jews, the camp was expanded with 24 large barracks, including barrack 56. They were delivered as prefabricated units. A wooden floor was laid on the brick foundations and the roof structure was secured to a number of posts. The double-walled structures were made of pine or spruce and were filled with glass wool. The number of the barrack was painted in white on the front of the building, which faced the main road.

Barrack 56 served many purposes. Initially, it was a residential barrack, mainly for Jewish prisoners who were only staying in the camp for a short time. In September 1943, this barrack became an industrial barrack, where penal prisoners were forced to dismantle batteries, for example. Once the last transport had departed on 13 September 1944, the barrack became a storage facility for looted goods, particularly radios.

After the liberation, Camp Westerbork served as an internment camp for of people suspected of being members of the NSB and the SS for almost three years. They too were put to work in the scrapyard, which had once again been set up in barrack 56. After the departure of the NSB and SS members, Camp Westerbork became a residential area, initially for Dutch Indonesians and, from 1951, for Moluccans. Barrack 56 also became a residential barrack again, now converted internally into small flats and supplemented by two small buildings that served as kitchens. The barracks stood empty when the Moluccans left the camp in the early 1960s. Some barracks were demolished, others were sold to farmers.

After serving for almost half a century as a farm shed in Zelhem, Gelderland, Barrack 56 was donated by the owner to the Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre in 2010. During the reconstruction in Zelhem at the time, not the entire barrack was used and its original dimensions were adapted to the new purpose. Consequently, the dismantling did not yield a complete barrack but rather sections of the barrack.