Maria Austria was here
- Date
- 19 February 2026 until 2 January 2027
- Location
- Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the arrival of some 3,000 Moluccans, soldiers of the KNIL (Royal Dutch East Indies Army) and their families at Camp Westerbork. They were told this was to be a temporary stay. The name of the transit camp had been changed to Woonoord (residential camp) Schattenberg.
On 21 March 1951, the first Moluccans arrived in the Netherlands; upon arrival, all soldiers were discharged. On 22 March, several hundred of them arrived at Schattenberg. In total, around 13,000 Moluccans came to our country. A return to the Moluccas never materialised.
Maria Austria
In April 1952, the Jewish photographer Maria Austria (1915–1975) visited Schattenberg to photograph the Moluccan orchestra. Her sister, mother and brother had been imprisoned in the huts where Moluccans now lived. Her mother, brother and his wife did not survive the war.
Austria had fled from Vienna to Amsterdam in 1937. In 1942 she went into hiding: ‘They’ll have to come and get me; I’ll never go behind bars or barbed wire of my own free will.’ From her hiding place, she forged identity papers and carried out courier services. Almost immediately after the liberation, she photographed the return of Jewish prisoners from Westerbork and the aftermath of the Hunger Winter in Amsterdam.
Maria Austria in Schattenberg
In Schattenberg, Austria took 31 photographs. As well as the orchestra, she photographed children who were eager to have their picture taken. In one of the photographs, we see one-year-old Otto (dressed in white) and his brother Willem Wairata. Otto died in Schattenberg at the age of eight.
In the exhibition 'Maria Austria was hier', photographs from her work are presented: the Schattenberg photographs, photographs from the Second World War and its aftermath, and music and theatre photographs.
In addition, projections tell the story of two families: the Jewish Oestreicher family, with Maria Austria as the central figure, and the Moluccan Wairata family, with Otto as the central figure.
The exhibition ‘Maria Austria was here – In Schattenberg, formerly Camp Westerbork’ has been on display at the Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre since 19 February 2026.