Fort Breendonk Memorial (Pp Tminimizer)
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Transcript of Fort Breendonk Memorial (Pp Tminimizer)
- 1. FORT BREENDONKMEMORIAL
2. 2. World War II
The German army invaded and occupied Belgium in 1940. Fort
Breendonk was obsolete and was no answer tomechanized warfare. The
fort was briefly the headquarters of the Belgian command during the
first weeks following the invasion, but was abandoned in the face
of German advances.
The Nazis transformed Fort Breendonk into a prison camp.
OnSeptember 20, 1940, the first prisoners arrived. Initially
prisoners were petty criminals, people deemed anti-social, or
trespassers of the new race laws. Later on, resistance fighters,
political prisoners and innocent hostages were detained as well.
Another section was used as a transit camp for Jews being sent to
death camps such asAuschwitz.
German as well as FlemishSSunits guarded this camp. 185 prisoners
were executed, and many others were transported toconcentration
camps. The execution poles and gallows are still there, as is a
gruesomeSStorture chamber. Contrary to popular belief there were
never any gas chambers at Fort Breendonk.
Fewer than 4,000 prisoners in total were confined in Breendonk
during its existence. Most of the non-Jewish prisoners were leftist
members of the Belgian resistance or were held as hostages by the
Germans. Several hundred people were murdered in the camp through
torture, executions, and harsh conditions. In September 1941, the
Belgian Communist prisoners were sent to theNeuengamme
concentration camp.
Jewish prisoners in Breendonk were segregated from other prisoners
until 1942. Thereafter, Jews were transferred to theMechelen
(Malines) transit campin Belgium, or deported directly to
theAuschwitz-Birkenauextermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. In
total over 15 transports (mostly Jews) left the camp, almost no one
survived.
Upon arrival at the camp, new inmates were brought to courtyard
where they would have to stand facing to wall until they were
processed into the camp. The were forbidden to move and any motion
was severely punished. In the camp punishment consisted of
beatings, torture in a specially designed chamber, hanging or
execution by firing squad, either in the camp or nearby. The camp
commander Lagerkommandant Phillip Schmitt was known to set his
German Shepherd dog loose on the inmates. His wife was also known
to wander the camp, ridiculing the inmates and ordering punishments
at whim. Severe and arbitrary beating occurred daily. Once an
inmate, a Jewish boy of less than 20 years of age, was unable to
continue working. The Flemish SS guards threw him into the moat, he
could not swim and they refused to let him out. He struggled for
over 15 minutes before finally drowning.
3. 4. Inmates were forced to watch any executions that took place.
They were only allowed to use the toilet twice a day (a large
circular vat in the middle of one of the courtyards), all together
at the same time. They were only given five minutes to do their
business. Any longer would mean punishment. But none of the inmates
had a watch, so most left after only a minute or so in fear of
surpassing their allotted time. This frequently caused bowel
problems, cramps and diarrhea.
The prisoners were subjected to forced labour, which consisted of
removing the thick layer of top soil that covered the fort. In the
few years Fort Breendonk was used by the Nazis, the millions of
cubic meters of soil covering the fort were removed by the
prisoners by hand at a gruelling pace. The soil had to be moved to
create a high circular earth wall around the fort to hide the camp
from view. Prisoners only had hand tools to complete this enormous
task and the soil had to be transported to the outer wall via hand
carts on a narrow gauge railway system. The ground in the camp was
often very soggy causing the rails to sink away in the mud.
Prisoners were then expected to move the carts entirely by hand
(filled with dirt they weighed over 1 ton each), pushing and
dragging back and forth them over a distance of more than 300
meters. This regime was imposed for over 12 hours a day, seven days
a week, even in the worst of weather conditions. Orders were given
only in German, so inmate were be forced to learn the basic
commands rather quickly or otherwise be punished forfailure to obey
orders. Prisoners were also forced to salute, march and stand to
attention every time a guard passed.
Accommodation in the fort consisted of the old barracks. Built from
thick stone, these were extremely cold and damp because there were
no windows and only minimal ventilation. Each barrack room only had
a small coal burning stove, and providing sufficient heating was
nearly impossible. Rooms were originally designed for no more than
38 people, but frequently housed over 50 inmates sleeping in
three-tier bunk beds on straw mattresses. The top bunks were highly
priced real estate. Inmates only had a single small bucket per room
for a toilet during the night, and many of the sick and weakened
inmates simply allowed their waste to drop down to the lower
levels. This caused much fighting in between inmates, which was
probably what the guards wanted.
Jewish prisoners were segregated from other inmates and housed in
specially constructed wooden barracks. These barracks were poorly
insulated and over-crowded.
5. 6. Other prisoners were housed in cells, either in small groups
or individually. The aim was to isolate certain prisoners for later
interrogation and torture.
Food was severely rationed for the prisoners and distributed in
different quantities to the various types of inmates. Jews received
the least food and water. Prisoners were served three meals a day.
Breakfast consisted of 2 cups of a coffee substitute made of
roasted acorns and 125 grams of bread. Lunch was usually 1 bowl of
soup (mostly just hot water). Supper was again 2 cups of a coffee
substitute made of roasted acorns and 100 grams of bread (sometimes
with a spoon of marmalade or sugar). This was far from enough to
sustain a human being, especially considering the intense cold or
heat, harsh labour and physical punishments the prisoners were
subjected to.
For this reason Fort Breendonk has been described as one of the
worst camps in all of Europe. It wasn't a concentration camp or an
extermination camp, merely a transit camp for later deportation.
But conditions in the camp was so cruel and harsh that those who
left alive were so weak that their chances of survival at the final
destination were severely hampered, and often prisoners were so
sick and weak that they were lead straight to the gas chambers or
simply died within weeks of their arrival. The regime in the camp
was at least as harsh as in an actual concentration camp. Fewer
than 10% of the nearly 4000 inmates survived the war.
Particular controversy surrounds the Flemish SS guards of the camp,
who so openly and cruelly turned against their fellow countrymen in
blind support of their Nazi paymasters.
7. 8. 3. Breendonk II
Following liberation in September 1944 Fort Breendonk was briefly
used as an internment camp for Belgian collaborators with the Nazi
occupiers. This period of the Fort's existence is known as
"Breendonk II". The internees were moved to Dossin Barracks,
Mechelen, on 10 October 1944.
Trials of the Flemish SS guards, considered Nazi collaborators,
were held during 1946 inMechelen- including some guards and
officials at Fort Breendonk. Of those who were convicted, 14 were
sentenced to be executed by firing squad in 1947. 2 appealed their
case and had their sentences revised to life imprisonment. 4 more
people were sentenced to life in prison. 1 person to 20 years of
prison. 1 person was acquitted. Two guards were sentenced to life
but were never caught. By now, they have most likely died of old
age. The Nazi camp commandant, Philipp Schmitt, was tried in
Antwerp in 1949 and sentenced to death. He was shot on the 9th of
August 1950. He never showed any remorse and denied all of the
atrocities that occurred at Breendonk, claiming he was merely
reeducating the inmates as ordered.
4. Present memorial
In 1947 Fort Breendonk was declared to be a national memorial,
recognising the suffering and cruelty that had been inflicted on
the prisoners during World War II. The fort is now a well-preserved
example of the prison camps operated byNaziGermany during WW
II.
Fort Breendonk is open to visitors all year round. It is located
close to the A12 Brussels-Antwerp road.
Pictures of working Nazi interment camps during the war are rare in
itself, and for the longest time it was believed that absolutely no
pictures of Breendonk during the war existed. But in the early
1970s a batch of photos of the camp was discovered in the
possessions of Dutch photographer Otto Spronk. He had collected
thousands of pictures and films of the Third Reich as part of his
work for the SOMA, a Dutch organization that focused on preserving
any material of wars. The collection consisted of 37 pictures
depicting the daily order of events in the camp. Role call, eating,
forced labor, and even the SS officers going about their business,
relaxed and cheerful as the inmates toiled on. There's even a
picture of the Nazi camp commandant, Philipp Schmitt playing with
his infamous dog 'Lump'. They were taken by German Nazi
photographer Otto Kropf. They were taken for propaganda purposes
but never used. All pictures are essentially clich stills, none of
the daily atrocities or horrors of the camp are shown, of course.
But they are the only reference material available. Several of the
inmates on the pictures managed to survive the war and were able to
identify the others on the pictures and the circumstances in which
they were taken.
SOURCE WAPEDIA
9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.
26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.
43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.
60. PHOTOGRAPY AND EDITING
Marco Belzoni 2009