A memorial center for the more than 100,000 Jews deported by the Nazis from Holland during World War II will be opened officially by Queen Beatrix on April 12. The center, sponsored by a private, non-Jewish group, is located at Westerbork in northeast Holland, the site of a transit camp used as a staging area for Jews on the their way to death camps in Eastern Europe.
The center will house a replica of the Dutch Pavilion at the Auschwitz memorial in Poland. The displays illustrate Jewish life in Holland before World War II, the persecution of Jews during the German occupation and life at Westerbork when it served as a way station for Jewish deportees. Only a handful of Jews who left Westerbork survived.
Westerbork is located in a remote corner of the province of Drenthe. The camp was built by the Dutch government in 1939 to house German Jewish refugees whom the Dutch did not want to integrate into the country’s economic life. It was taken over by the Germans in July, 1942 and from then until September, 1944, a train left each Tuesday with about 1,000 Jews for death camps like Auschwitz and Sobibor. The deportations ended in September, 1944 only because no more trains were available.
Westerbork was liberated by Canadian troops on April 12, 1945. There were still 900 Jews incarcerated at the time. The official opening of the memorial center will mark the 38th anniversary of the liberation.
Dutch Nazi collaborators were imprisoned at Westerbork in the early 1950s and for 20 years afterwards it housed South Moluccan refugees. The barracks have since been demolished. There is now an astronomical observatory near the site of the camp.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
