Today we visited Kamp Westerbork
Kamp Westerbork was a World War II concentration camp in province of Drenthe, Holland. Its function during the war was to assemble Dutch Jews for transport to other Nazi concentration camps.
Anne Frank and her family were put on the first of the three last trains (the three final transports were most probably a reaction to the Allies' offensive) on September 2, 1944 for Auschwitz, arriving there three days later.
The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division liberated the several hundred inhabitants that were still there on April 12, 1945. The first soldiers to the camp were from the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment, followed by troops of the South Saskatchewan Regiment.
Today the grounds at Kamp Westerbork have been transformed into a memorial. Although the buildings are gone, the foundations remain. Some portions of walls and fencing have been rebuilt to indicate where some of the significant building were situated.
The area used as the daily roll call square is now paved and is laid out with small cubes, one for every person who was transfered through the camp and was later killed.
This is a reconstruction of cement, built to resemble the wooden barracks on the site. It is the place where Anne Frank was held when she was at Kamp Westerbork.
The rail line linking the camp to other parts of Holland to the death camps has been torn out except for this small section. The rails are turned up at the end to symbolize an end to such injustice.
On the remaining section of track poems and flowers are left by people, especially school children, who make field trips to the site.
It is a place of remembrance and of quiet contemplation.
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