History Day

With the rise in anti-Semitism in pre-World War II Germany, German Jews began to emigrate, and many came to the Netherlands. The Netherlands opened a refugee camp called Westerbork in 1939 to house the growing number of Jewish refugees streaming into the country.

In 1942, the Germans invaded the Netherlands, and turned Westerbork into a concentration camp instead. Jews (and a small number of gypsies) were housed there, usually briefly, before being sent to other camps. Anne Frank passed through Westerbork on her way to Auschwitz.

We (the 4 visiting Americans and our hosts) visited Westerbork today. It was, as you can imagine, very moving. It is one thing to read about places like Westerbork, and another entirely to stand on the grounds, to see the rail cars,

to walk through the barracks, and so forth.

The camp was liberated by the Canadians in 1945, and served as a resettlement camp for people displaced by the war. The camp has been returned to its previous use as a refugee camp periodically since then. In the 1950s, people fleeing war in Indonesia were housed there.

At this point, it is primarily a monument. Some of the original structures have been restored, but not the commandant's house. A decision was made to preserve, but not restore that house, and so it is encased in a giant glass cage, as if to contain its evil:

The thing I found most moving, though, is the stone garden. One stone is placed for every prisoner moved through Westerbork by the Germans, and each stone is marked with a Star of David for Jewish victims, or a flame for gypsy ones. Pictures of victims, many of them children, have also been placed among the stones.

The whole day wasn't somber, however. We had lunch in a small nearby village, and then went to a historical village which illustrated life in the 1800s, sort of. (We noted the electric oven in the bakery.) We Americans were particularly taken with the thatched roofs.

Apparently, in the Netherlands, you can go to school to learn to thatch roofs. One of our hosts had had a student who decided to leave the program he was in to become a thatcher, and she had helped him locate the thatching school. I can honestly say none of my students have ever asked to become thatchers instead.