Category: Netherlands, Spring 2023

On our way from Zwolle to our next stop, Groningen, we visited Camp Westerbork.  This site was built by the Dutch in 1939 to accommodate Jewish refugees who had fled from Germany and Austria to escape Nazi persecution.  After the Nazis invaded and occupied the Netherlands, the camp became known as “The Gateway to Hell”, as the Nazis repurposed it as a transit camp for the transport of Jews, Sinti, and Roma from the Netherlands to concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Sobibor, Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen.

There is a museum to visit, and then you can either walk or take a bus to the site, which is about 1.5 miles from the museum.  The museum was good, but not enough of it was in English.  Google Translate is your friend!  The below is a depiction of the camp at it’s largest during WWII.

This is a sign from one of the train-cars that carried the Jews to Auschwitz.  Below Westerbork-Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Westerbork it reads “Don’t Uncouple Any Wagons” and “Train Must Return Complete to Westerbork”.

The below display is about Camp Commander Albert Gemmeker, who ran the camp from 1942 to 1945.  After the war he insisted he never knew what happened to the Jews after they left Westerbork.  He received a mild sentence of 10 years, of which he served 6, due to the fact that there was no evidence he had knowledge of the mass murders, and the fact that the prisoners at Westerbork were treated well, for the most part.  He even had some of the former Jewish prisoners who had survived the war testify on his behalf.

It was a nice day, so we decided to walk to the Westerbork site.  If you plan to visit the site make sure you pick up an audio guide from the museum.

Along the way are two “whispering” dishes, aligned with each other.  With one person at each dish, you could whisper into the dish and the person 50 yards away could hear you from the reflections in their dish.  This was an educational tool regarding radio astronomy.

The reason for this educational tool is there is a large radio telescope array directly adjacent to the Westerbork site.

At the entrance to the site you can see the last remaining building, the Commanders’s House.  In order to preserve the house they built this large glass structure around it.

There are no tours of the house, but photos at the museum showed the interior is in pretty bad shape.

This is the entrance to an SS air raid bunker.  You can actually walk inside the bunker, but it’s just one dank room.   It was also used to store Allied ammunition that was air-dropped for Dutch resistance fighters, but discovered by the Nazis.

These are typical boxcars of the type that were used to transport the Jews from Westerbork.

They rebuilt part of one of the barracks at the site.  During the years after the war a local farmer had purchased one of the barracks and moved it to his farm as a barn and feed storage building.  The museum purchased it back and rebuilt it to give you a feel for the size of the barracks.

The raised areas throughout the site indicate former building footprints.

This area is called “102,000 Stones”, and represents the Jews, Sinti and Roma from the Netherlands who were murdered by the Nazis.

Most of the stones have the Star of David on top.  There are also various photos left by loved ones.

There are 213 stones which have a flame to symbolize the Sinti and Roma who were murdered.  A few dozen have no symbol, and these stones commemorate resistance fighters who were imprisoned in Camp Westerbork, then sent to the concentration camps to never return.

I pulled this photo off the internet.  The stones are laid out in the shape of the Netherlands.

The National Monument of Westerbork is at the far end of the site. The monument was designed by camp survivor Ralph Prins.  The curled up rails express despair, like the raising up of arms.  There are 93 railroad ties (which the Dutch call “sleepers”), each one symbolizing a transport that left Westerbork.  The 4 railroad ties not in contact with the rail symbolize 4 transports that left for concentration camps from elsewhere in the Netherlands.

This monument may be the only one that has been unveiled twice.  The official unveiling on May 4, 1970 was only attended by a select group of dignitaries and members of the press, but not the people that really matter, the survivors and families of the victims.  Because of this oversight, there was a second unveiling in September 1970, where 150 survivors were in attendance with their families.  Every year there is a memorial on May 4th, which is usually attended by thousands.

Anne Frank and her family came through this site, and on September 3, 1944, they left on the final transport to ever leave Westerbork.

Next up, we visit the city of Groningen, Netherlands.

Since we saw the bulk of Zwolle in two days, we decided to take a couple of day trips.  First up was the village of Giethoorn, which looks like something straight out of a Disney theme park.

Giethoorn gets over a million visitors a year, which is amazing since it’s out in the middle of nowhere.  The number one thing to do here is take a boat ride, but book a day or two out, as we saw people turned away from the ride we had scheduled.  By the way, every boat here is mandated to be electric, so the ride is whisper quiet…unless of course there is a crying baby on board.  The damn thing didn’t fall asleep until about three minutes before the tour ended!  Sorry, no photos of the crying baby.

The canals are (supposed to be) one-way and run throughout all of these old homes with mostly thatched roofs.  The lakes adjacent to Giethoorn were originally covered in thick layers of peat, which were cut out to use as fuel in winter.  After two large floods in 1776 and 1825, the water filled in the former peat excavations and never left, leaving large lakes in the area with an average depth of 6 feet.

The canals around the homes were dug primarily to transport the peat and other supplies, as there are no roads among the homes.

There are little bridges over the canal that lead to peoples homes as well as some businesses.

If you watch The Amazing Race you may recognize the location, as it was featured in Season 31, Episode 10.  Once we got on the boat and into the main canal, I definitely recognized it, as we watch the show religiously.  There’s Phil in the canal.

Giethoorn has the nickname “Venice of the Netherlands”.

Our tour guide on the boat pointed out this house, known as the Dog House because of the distinctive shape of the front.

The next day we took the train to the medieval city of Kampen.  This site has been inhabited since 1150.  It’s location along a strong trade route made it one of the most successful cities in the 14th century.   There are three gates for the former walled city, and they are all in excellent condition.

From the mid 1400’s on, the town started to decline in power as the river adjacent to the city started to silt up, blocking trade.  This was depicted by a rather funny video in the Stedelijk Museum, one of our destinations for the day.

The bridge below was originally built in 1448.  The idea was that this bridge would open up alternative trade routes since the waterway was silting up.  This was apparently not very successful.  Maritime is the way to go!

From a Port perspective, it’s of particular interest to me that they tried dredging the channel, but it was too expensive and could not be maintained without dredging again every few years (which sounds familiar from my experiences at the Port of Oakland).  In the 19th century, city architect Nicolass Plomp devised a plan to dam up some waterways and divert the water into one waterway, which pushed more water at a greater speed through the main river, thereby sweeping the silt away without the need for dredging.  Brilliant!!  The only downside was that other Ports were now handling the cargo they lost, and Kampen never recovered the stature they once had.

The Stedelijk Museum is in the former City Hall of Kampen.  The building dates from 1350, but has been rebuilt due to a fire in 1543.

Nothing inside is in English, so be sure you have your Google Translate app ready to go.  This was a life-saver numerous times.  Once again, I’m attracted to paintings with cows.

The item below is a whale bone that was attached to a person’s ankle for a period of time as a punishment for committing some crime.  I’m assuming that might work today?  It would certainly make running from the police more difficult!

The ticket to the Stedelijk Museum also got you into the former Kampen Synagogue, which has a small museum regarding the Jews here during WWII.  This building was built in 1847 by that genius Nicolass Plomp, who pushed all the silt out of the river.

There is a memorial on the wall of the former Synagogue that lists every Jew from Kampen that was murdered by the Nazis.  Only a few from Kampen survived by going into hiding, but they never returned to the city after the war, which is why this is a “former” Synagogue.

One last view of the bridge from the city side of the river.  The newest rebuild of the bridge was completed in 1999.  Those golden wheels control the cables for the drawbridge.  Gotta admit they look pretty cool!

Up next, we visit Kamp Westerbork, a transit camp used by the Nazis for transporting Jews from the Netherlands to various concentration camps.