The Dutch prison-camps during WWII; part 4: Camp Vught

This is a series of five stories about the camps that were in use, by the Nazi occupiers during the war as prison- or concentration camps, in the Netherlands.

Camp Schoorl, was in use as a prison-camp from June 1940 until the end of October 1941.

Camp Erika, near Ommen, was in use as a prison-camp from June 19 1941 until April 11 1945.

Camp Amersfoort, was in use as a prison-camp from August 18 1941 until April 19 1945.

Camp Vught, was in use as a prison-camp from January 1943 until September 1944.

Camp Westerbork, was in use as a prison-camp from July 1 1942 until April 12 1945.

Aerial photograph taken in September 1944: At right, white line crossing Lunet II: the shooting range.
Cross-shaped building at bottom-right: barracks of SS-guards.
Square-shaped building in the northern part of the camp: The Bunker.

The fourth camp that was put to use as a prison-camp by the German occupiers in WWII in the Netherlands, was Camp Vught. Officially known as Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch. Situated near the city of 's-Hertogenbosch, 97 km south-east of Amsterdam. The concentration-camp was just outside of the village of Vught, on the west side. Prisoners had to walk from the local railway-station of Vught to the camp. A walk of about 4,5 km, which would have taken about an hour.

Prisoners walking through Vught on their way to the camp

As such it was the only Concentration camp outside Germany during the war, under direct command of the SS-Wirtschafts-VerwaltungsHauptAmt (WVHA). The WVHA was in charge of all concentrationcamps during WWII. They were responsible for all the camps with forced laborers working for the Nazi industry, as was the case in Vught, but also for the extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Majdanek, Chelmno, Treblinka and Belzec. Everything that was taken from the prisoners in these camps was send to Berlin, jewelry, watches, gold teeth-fillings, money, diamonds. Even glasses, clothing and hair was taken from the prisoners. Mostly Jews, but also political prisoners and resistance workers.

Prisoners walking in the streets of Vught on their way to work

The start

Camp Vught was a newly build camp paid with money which was confiscated from the Dutch Jewish community, thanks to the economic anti-Jewish regulations issued in 1941 and 1942. Building started in 1942 and was not yet finished when in January 1943 the first prisoners entered the camp. They came from Camp Amersfoort and this first group of prisoners had to work finishing the building of the camp. Soon after this a group of Jewish prisoners entered the camp on the 16^th of January 1943. They were coming from the Hollandsche Schouwburg (Dutch Theatre) in Amsterdam, which was used as a temporary prison for Jewish prisoners from Amsterdam. One of these prisoners just made it to the main entrance of the camp and died there. His name was Elias Koopman and he was 80 years old.

Prisoners outside the camp working

In the nearby (cross-shaped) barracks of the Dutch Army, the SS-guards for KL Vught were housed. These men were part of the SS-Wachbatallion Nord-West, which had its headquarters near Amersfoort.

Some 31.000 prisoners passed through KL Vught, 16.000 of them were Jewish prisoners. Among them Helga Deen and Klaartje de Zwarte-Walvisch. The camp itself was about 350 meters wide and 1000 meters long.

Working inside the camp

During the war some 735 people were killed in Camp Vught, about halve of them were shot by firing-squad on the nearby shooting-range, just to the east of the camp. Most of them were suspected of being a member of one of the resistance groups. The shooting-range was situated in the so-called Lunet nr. II. These are the crown-shaped defensive works to the east of camp Vught, dating from the beginning of the 19^th century.

South of the camp Vught is a lake called 'De IJzeren Man' (The iron man). This lake was, also during the war, a very popular place to swim and sail. Part of the lake was only accessible by members of the German Army and SS and was frequently visited by the SS guards and their family's.


The camp-commanders

Karl Walter Chmielewski

The first commander of the camp was Karl Walter Chmielewki, until October 1943. After charges of fraud and corruption he's been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by judges in Berlin. He's substituted by Adam Grünewald until January 1944. He was discharged after the horrific events that became widely known as 'the bunkerdrama'. He was brought to court, sentenced and afterwards sent to the Eastern front, never to return alive.

Adam Grünewald

The last commander of camp Vught is Hans Hüttig until the liberation of the camp on the 22^nd of September 1944. He was tried after the war for crimes he commited as campcommander of Natzweiler in France and served 11 years imprisonment. After his prisonterm he was extradited to Germany where he lived in freedom until his death in 1980.

Hans Hüttig

The bunker-drama

The 'bunker-drama' took place in the evening and night of the 15^th and the 16^th of January 1944 when by order of commander Grünewald 74 women were locked up in a cell of the camp-prison. The prison building had just been finished and the walls of the prison cells were still wet. This cell had a floor surface of about 9 m² and only very little ventilation. The damp walls and all the women breathing and sweating caused a chemical reaction on the bare skin of the women that were pressed against the walls. They all got severe skin-burns. When the cell was opened the next morning 10 women had died of shortage of oxygen, panic, burns and overheating.

The bunker was the commonly used name for the prisonbuilding in the northern part of Camp Vught. It was a rectangular shaped building with an open centre-court. Prisoners could be locked up in here in case of 'crimes' committed during their stay in Camp Vught. Most of them were locked up in isolation in damp cells for long periods of time to get them talking.

The reason for the lock-up of all these women in one cell was that they had cut-off some hair of one of their fellow-prisoners because she was giving information about the prisoners to the camp-commander at that time Grünewald. Because she felt threatened by her fellow-prisoners she tried to flee the camp and was shot by a camp-guard. She died a couple of days later of her wounds.

One of the women that had cut-off her hair was Non Verstegen. She was a communist and had been arrested because she worked for the Dutch resistance. She was punished for her 'crime' with solitary confinement in the Bunker. Her fellow-prisoners got wind of her punishment and protested against it to some German camp-officials. They declared this to be an act of 'muteny' and instantly brought the whole group (49 women) to the Bunker and locked them up in cell 115. A little later Non Verstegen was taken out of her own cell and added to the women in cell 115. A second group of women was brought to the Bunker and 24 of them were added to the women that were already in cell 115. The rest of them, 17 women, were put in another cell nearby, cell 117. The size of cell 115 was: 237 x 402 x 235 cm (W x L x H). There was only one small window for air- and light-supply.

The 'Bunker': the prison-building in Camp Vught.
Photograph taken after the liberation.

An eyewitness account by Non Verstegen from march 1946;

“In our cell it was so full that we could barely move. The air-supply was very insufficient, also caused by the fact that we could open a very small window only after some hours. At that time already some of the prisoners had fainted and during the night more and more of us fainted. As long and as many as we could we held the women upright but this became more and more impossible because fewer women were left to help the others. The situation got worse because of the complete darkness in the cell during the night, the immense thirst and because some of the women got insane and started to bight others. We threw nearly all our cloths off to keep cool and licked off condensation that was falling from the ceiling from our skin. Later on it became clear that by standing against the wall we got severe skin-burns and licking up condensation caused our lips to burn. Experts later explained to us that this was caused by the fact that the prison was just build and the wall reacted with the sweat by giving off nitric acid. Then finally, at halve past 7 the next morning, the door of the cell opened 34 bodies were piled upon each other in the center of the cell, the other women standing around, pressed against the wall or leaning against each other. At that time already 10 women had died. Many were sick for a long time after this and some of them died later on because of what had happened this night.”

Non Verstegen and the other survivors were drawn out of the cell into the hallway and after some time 40 of them were locked up in another cell. After a couple of hours they were all split up into other cells with only 2 persons in each cell. They got mattresses and blankets.

Suse Arts, one of the female SS-guards in Camp Vught played an important role in the Bunker-drama. She was convicted to 15 years imprisonment after the war. She's discharged from prison in 1953.

On 25-05-1944 the 11^th victim dies in the hospital of Camp Vught.

The news of the tragedy was public news very soon after it had happened. All illegal newspapers wrote about what had happened that night. Heinrich Himmler came to the Camp to talk about it. As a consequence Grünewald was discharged and tried. He had been demoted to a common soldier and died in 1945 in Hungary serving in the Waffen-SS.

The Philips-commando

Camp Vught was partly used as a work-camp and as part of the work-camp several baracks were in use by former workers of the Philips factories in Eindhoven. Part of these barracks were just outside of the camp, on the east-side, between the camp and the shooting range. Most of the people that worked in the Philips-barracks were former Jewish employers of the Philips-factories in Eindhoven.

Detail of technical drawing of Philips workshop

In February 1943 a decision is taken by the director of the Philips-company, Frits Philips, at the urgent request of the Germans and after long hesitation, to start a workshop in Camp Vught. Part of his cooperation are several demands to which the SS-camp-commander, much to his surprise, complies. He demands that; Philips has the leadership in managing the workshop, Philips-workers are free to go in and out of the camp, he decides which work is done and how, which prisoners are working in the workshop, prisoners in the workshop get paid and each day a warm meal.

Drawing of Philips-barracks

In total, about 3100 people did work in the Philips-workshop for some period of time. Among them about 600 Jewish people, for which is was the only way to escape deportation, for a long time.

Under the leadership of camp-commander Hüttig the Philips demands were no longer taken into consideration and all personnel lost their privileges in April 1944. In May about 250 prisoners were deported to Camp Dachau. One week later all 500 Jewish workers in the Philips-commando were deported to Auschwitz.

After this the workshop was started up again but it ended definitively on the 5^th of September 1944. In the night of September 5 1944 trains were loaded up with all prisoners that were still left in Camp Vught. The male prisoners were taken to Sachsenhausen, all the women to Ravensbrück. Vught is liberated on the 19^th of October 1944.

Of the 600 Jews that worked in the Philips workshop 400 survived the war. Upon arrival in Auschwitz they were not gassed like so many others, but considered as specialized workers and put to work in the war-industry until their liberation.

Prisoners at Camp Vught

The children's transports

Part of the Camp Vught was a prison-camp for Jewish prisoners. These were complete families, parents with children, young children, older children and babies. With this many people and children staying together in cramped barracks many of them were getting sick easily. The Germans being very afraid of infectious deceases decided to clear the camp of all children. The people were told that they were taken to a special camp nearby, more suitable for children. On the 6^th of June 1943 a train with all children aged 0 – 3 with their mothers left the camp. The next day all children aged 4 – 16 with their mothers. The trains went to Camp Westerbork and from there straight to Camp Sobibor. All were killed upon arrival in the camp. Most of the fathers of these children were working during this time in an external camp in Moerdijk, to the north of Vught. So all these families were split up. A total of 1269 Jewish children were taken from Camp Vught to Sobibor and killed there.


The Deppner executions

On the shooting-range of Camp Vught, just to the east of the camp, from the beginning of August 1944 until the beginning of September 329 people were executed. Most of them were members, or supposedly members, of the Dutch resistance. The lists of people that had to be executed were drawn up by the German SS-officer Erich Deppner. In The Hague, as head of Section IV of the Sipo and SD, he was in charge of the German fight against all resistance-groups in the Netherlands.
Just after D-Day a large group of prisoners was brought in to Camp Vught from the main prison in Scheveningen, near The Hague, also called 'The Orange Hotel'.
Before this Deppner was in charge of the execution of more than 70 Russian prisoners at Camp Amersfoort.
After the war Deppner was a few years a POW for the Russians and after he was discharged from prison in 1950 he worked for various intelligence agencies in Germany until his death in 2005. He was never tried for his crimes committed in the Netherlands, despite many attempts made by the Dutch Justice Department.

The end

Just before Camp Vught was liberated in October 1944 all prisoners were deported to camps in Germany. In the beginning of September all female prisoners were deported to camp Ravensbrück (north of Berlin) and all male prisoners to Sachsenhausen (just north of Berlin). Many of them didn't see the end of the war.

Sources

• Jan van de Mortel; Kamp Vught, Januari 1943 - September 1944; Stichting Archieven 1940-1945, 1990, Vught
• Dit is om nooit te vergeten, dagboek en brieven van Helga Deen - 1943; Balans, 2007, Amsterdam
• Dagboek geschreven in Vught; David Koker; G.A. van Oorschot, 2006, Amsterdam
• Alles ging aan flarden, Het oorlogsdagboek van Klaartje de Zwarte-Walvis; Balans, 2009, Amsterdam
• Concentratiekampen, systeem en de praktijk in Nederland; Fibula-van Dishoeck, 1970, Bussum
• Eindpunt of tussenstation, gids Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught; 2002, Vught
• Leven naast het kamp, Kamp Vught en de Vughtenaren;Boy van Dijk; Spectrum, 2013 Houten
• Het hele leven is hier een wereld op zichzelf, De geschiedenis van kamp Vught; Marieke Meeuwenoord; De Bezige Bij, 2014, Amsterdam