Amersfoort was a full-blown Holocaust concentration camp, new study finds

Camp Amersfoort played a more significant role in the persecution and extermination of Jews in the Second World War than previously thought. The penal camp is known as a transit camp for forced laborers and detention for resistance fighters. But new research by historian Amanda Kluveld of Maastricht University showed that Camp Amersfoort was a full-blown Holocaust camp, Trouw reports.

Kluveld discovered that Camp Apersfoort was already a collection camp for Jews 10 months before Camp Westerbork opened. 82 Jews were murdered in the camp, including a baby. She discovered several direct deportations - two trains left for Auschwitz from Amersfoort, and almost 400 Jews were transported to Mauthausen penal camp, where they were murdered.

The historian published her findings in the book Het vergeten verhaal van de Joodse gevangenen van Kamp Amersfoort, which translates to “The forgotten story of the Jewish prisoners of Camp Amersfoort.” Her research took six years and is based on ego documents and statements from prisoners in post-war trials against Nazis, among other things.

“What happened to the Jews in Camp Amersfoort does not fit in with the relatively clean image that exists of the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands,” Kluveld said. “Pencils were stuck in their eyes, beards were set on fire, Jews were thrown into cesspools and beaten to death. These are practices of which we might think: that happened elsewhere. But it did happen here. And it also had a purpose.”

According to Kluveld, Jews were gruesomely treated and separated in Camp Amersfoort. The camp policy was to pit other prisoners against the relatively small group of Jews in the camp. There were around 47,000 prisoners in Camp Amersfoort, including 3,000 Jews. The Jewish prisoners received less food, for example, forcing them to steal from other prisoners. According to Kluveld, camp guards told prisoners who helped the Jews: “You will be an anti-Semite here within three months.”

Kluveld only described horrors in her book for which she found multiple sources. She left a lot out. “These examples say enough,” she said. She hopes that her research will help give Jewish prisoners in Amersfoort more recognition for the suffering, humiliation, and abuse they endured. “What we learn from this research is that Camp Amersfoort was the beginning of the end for many Jewish prisoners.”

“This research puts Camp Amersfoort in a completely different light,” Floris van Dijk, head of research at National Monument Camp Amersfoort, told Trouw. “In the post-war memory culture, the Jewish prisoners of this camp have been unfairly marginalized.”

“We could have guessed that it was bad, but the fact that it was that bad is really shocking,” Van Dijk said. There were many Nazi camps during WWII, and several of them played an important role in the Holocaust. “Camp Amersfoort does not appear on an international list of these camps. But Kluveld’s research shows very convincingly that Amersfoort should be among these.”