SS-Schule Avegoor: a SS-school in the Netherlands

Avegoor was an educational institution for the Dutch SS and various other Dutch nazi organisations at the Avegoor estate near the village of Ellecom, about 20 km north-east of the city of Arnhem. Close to the IJssel river, next to the medieval castle of Middachten, with a view on the largest of the Dutch natural surroundings, the Veluwe. A forest-rich region which stretches all the way to the IJsselmeer. At the Avegoor estate from May 1941 the volunteers for the Dutch SS were trained in the Nazi ideology and had a short military training. Although the training-centre was meant for the Dutch SS, it was under the supervision of the German SS. It's commander was the German SS-officer Alphons Brendel. He was also responsible for the SS-troops that worked at Camp Amersfoort as guards.

Anton Mussert and Alphons Brendel, commander of Avegoor.

At Avegoor also various other Nazi organisations were trained in the Nazi ideology such as divisions of the NSB, Nazi youth-organisations, Nazi police-organisations, etc. Also a lot of the so-called Jew-hunters received part of their training at Avegoor. They worked for divisions of the Dutch police that were specialised in finding and arresting Jews that were in hiding.

Dutch SS soldiers in front of the estate Avegoor

In the course of 1942 there's need for an enlargement of the training facilities and for a gym and sports fields. It's decided that Jewish prisoners will be brought over from prison-camps for levelling the grounds where the gym will be build. To transport the huge amounts of sand a track is build first and on the 3^rd of September 1942 139 Jewish men are imprisoned in the nearby villa called Irene. The name of the villa is changed by the Germans to Palestina and the prisoners have to sleep, side by side, head to toe, in a cramped space in the attic of the villa, which is infested by flees.

On the day of their arrival they are lined up in front of the villa. They have to unpack their luggage and give their identity-cards to the SS-guards. Their heads are shaved and they are beaten up the stairs with clubs.

Each day they have to walk to the Avegoor estate with their heads bowed, looking down. They are not allowed to raise their heads during the walk and they are beaten and humiliated when the SS-guards feel like it. During their walk to their work no-one else is allowed on the streets and the villagers have to keep their curtains closed. The work is very hard, they had to work 11 hours each day and the food is bad and insufficient. Hunger is one of the weapons used by the SS to defeat the prisoners. They are under constant guard of 11 Dutch SS guards.

When the SS-guards are in the mood they force their prisoners to run up and down the stairs of the villa. Sports exercise, “Sport machen”, according to the SS-guards. The Jewish prisoners are also used by the Dutch SS-trainees as training material. They are beaten down with clubs and whips. Sometimes they are used as sparring partner by a German professional boxer.

They completed their work after 11 weeks and were brought to the Westerbork camp on the 21st of November 1942. After their arrival in Westerbork their average weight was 36 kg. 3 men died in Avegoor, 12 in the weeks after arriving in Westerbork. 35 men that have worked at Avegoor managed to survive the war.

Gravestone of the 3 Jews that died at Avegoor

The 3 men that died at Avegoor are; Alfred Tuvy (October 11^th 1942), Jacob de Leon (November 17^th 1942) and Meijer de Groot (November 20^th 1942). Jacob de Leon died in the cellar of the villa Irene, he was sentenced to three days solitary imprisonment because he “refused to work”, he had collapsed. The cellar was flooded with groundwater and it was very cold. He was found dead after the first night of his imprisonment.

SS soldiers in front of Avegoor

Eyewitnesses:

“Suddenly they were there, a large group of bold shaved men with wooden clogs and in strange looking long coats with the Star of David on their chests. Screaming soldiers surrounding them.”

“The road was cleared and the soldiers forced everybody to go into their houses when the prisoners passed in the morning and evening. Anyone, of the prisoners, who was too slow was beaten to get them to speed up.”

“Between empty boxes at the greengrocer Brinkhorst in front of the door, I saw them trudging past. Old men with their heads bowed. It was a terrible sight. But far worse were the guards. They shouted. I could not understand. But they shouted. They shouted at those people. Those guards had thick heads with a helmet around it. And a rifle with a bayonet. And they shouted. And the men trudged on. In clogs. Their heads bowed. With their arms dangling by their grey coats.”

At arriving in Westerbork:

“They came into the registration(barracks). These people looked terrible. They didn't look like people any more. They were walking skeletons. Skin and bone. Completely emaciated. They could hardly stand on their feet from thinness. At the registration(barracks) mess tins were brought in with porridge to give them something. On seeing the mess tins, these poor people couldn't control themselves. There was food! They flew on it like wild animals.”

Rauter decorating a SS-man on the sports field of Avegoor

During the existence of the SS-Schule Avegoor it was visited by many high-ranked SS-officials such as, Hanns Albin Rauter (head of SD and police in the Netherlands), Anton Mussert (head of the NSB, the Dutch National-Socialist Movement), Heinrich Himmler (head of the German SS) and Arthur Seyss-Inquart (Reichskommisar in the Netherlands).

Tinus Osendarp was also a frequent visitor of the sports-fields of Avegoor. He won 2 bronze medals for the Netherlands during the Olympic Games of Berlin 1936, on the sprint of 100 and 200 m. Later on he joined the NSB, the German SS and he worked for the SD arresting people that worked for the Dutch resistance.

Heinrich Himmler (second from left) at Avegoor, Mussert in black uniform, February 1944, in the gym that was build by the Jewish prisoners in November 1942

Sources:

• www.zadelhof.nl; warstories from Ellecom
• www.beeldbankwo2.nl; NIOD-website with photographs of WWII
• www.4en5mei.nl; website about war-monuments in the Netherlands
• www.archieven.nl; archives of the SS at NIOD
• www.gahetna.nl; website of the National Archives
• Jodenjacht (Jew-hunt, the staggering role of the Dutch police in WWII) by Ad van Liempt and Jan H. Kompagnie; 2011 Publisher Balans.