Twilhaar Labor Camp

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The Twilhaar labor camp ( Dutch Rijkswerkkamp Twilhaar ) was a labor camp from the time of the Second World War in the east of the Netherlands . The area is now part of the Sallandse Heuvelrug National Park in the Overijssel province .

history

The camp was originally established in 1940. However, the builders were not the German occupiers, but the Dutch Rijksdienst voor de Werkverruiming . This was an authority that existed between 1939 and 1945 and had the task of reducing the number of unemployed in the Netherlands by creating job opportunities. For the first two years, therefore, unemployed fishermen and seamen from the area around Katwijk and Scheveningen were housed in Twilhaar .

In 1942 the labor camp was taken over by the occupiers after all, whereupon the previous inmates had to leave the camp to make room for Jewish forced laborers. The first group of men from Groningen arrived here by train on July 10, 1942, and people from Amsterdam and Tilburg joined them later. A total of 83 people were housed in the camp at that time.

The forced laborers were deployed in the forests in the vicinity of Twilhaar. A working day lasted from 7:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and usually consisted of tasks such as clearing trees, creating paths or removing gravel and sand. Most of the inmates were not used to this type of physical work. The work was monitored by employees of the Dutch forest authority Staatsbosbeheer . The camp was evacuated on October 2, 1942, and the previous prisoners had to run to the Nijverdal train station accompanied by Wehrmacht soldiers . From here they were first taken to the Westerbork transit camp , from where they were further deported to the extermination camps in the east . Almost all of them were subsequently killed in camps like Auschwitz and Sobibor .

After the labor camp was cleared, refugees from the west of the Netherlands found refuge here . They had to evacuate their houses because of the construction of the Atlantic Wall . Towards the end of 1944, the Germans laid a runway for V1 rockets near the camp and declared the surrounding area a restricted area , which is why the camp had to be left again. The previous residents could not return until the beginning of 1945. After the heavy bombing of Nijverdal on March 22, 1945, there were also some residents of the place whose homes had been destroyed.

In 1947, the former Twilhaar labor camp was finally abandoned and then dismantled. In its place a forest was planted, which was named Jodenbos (in German "Judenwald") in honor of the murdered inmates .

construction

The camp consisted of a fenced area at a fork in the road in a wooded area west of Nijverdal . The area had only a single entrance, behind which there was a canteen and a building with a kitchen and the administrator's apartment. An open area followed immediately afterwards, which was enclosed by two smaller buildings with a laundry room or a pumping station as well as two elongated residential barracks . These barracks were divided into six residential units each, in which the prisoners were housed. On the side opposite the camp entrance there was also a latrine and a hut where coal was stored.

monument

The Twilhaar Monument

On October 2, 2003, the 61st anniversary of the deportation of the Jewish slave laborers from Twilhaar, a new monument in honor of these men was unveiled in the national park near Nijverdal. This memorial was designed by the artist Marjolein Rensen and consists of two concrete slabs placed side by side, each with an identical photo of a group of former inmates of the camp. While the left of the two is sharp and easily recognizable, the right is purposely faded, with which the artist would like to draw attention to the danger of the memory of these men fading. An information board placed nearby tells the history of the camp.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Cultuurhistorie. In: sallandseheuvelrug.nl. Retrieved August 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  2. ↑ a b c Werkkamp Twilhaar. In: joodsewerkkampen.nl. Retrieved August 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ a b Teije Terhorst, Paul Moerenhout: Monument Rijkswerkkamp Twilhaar. In: tracesofwar.nl. Retrieved August 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  4. ↑ Rijkswerkkamp Twilhaar. In: oocities.org. Retrieved August 21, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Nederlands krijgsgevangenenkamp. In: dedokwerker.nl. Retrieved August 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  6. ↑ Locatie. In: werkkamptwilhaar.nl. Retrieved August 21, 2018 (Dutch).

Coordinates: 52 ° 21 '54.4 "  N , 6 ° 24' 49.8"  E