Fort Breendonk (Nazi Camp) Photo Tour

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"The first prisoners arrived in this former Belgian army base on the 20th of September 1940. It is thought that in the four years before the liberation in September 1944 a minimum of 3,532 prisoners passed through "Auffanglager Breendonk". Of these 1,733 did not survive the war. At least 185 prisoners were executed in Breendonk itself. At first the prisoners were mainly petty criminals, persons in breach of the anti-Jewish laws, social deviants ("Asoziale"). As the war went on, the number of hostages and resistance fighters increased. These were political prisoners. The "Bunker" was opened in 1942. This was a special torture chamber used for interrogating political prisoners. The visitor to the "Breendonk Fort National Memorial" is confronted with the most striking and best preserved historical record of the Nazi terror in West Europe." (From the Breendonk Memorial Website)

Fort Breendonk was built by the Belgian Government in 1906, but it has seen more military use as a German base than Belgian. Early in World War I, the Germans overwhelmed Breendonk using artillery that could fire from 5-6 miles outside the range of the Belgian guns; the Fort remained in German hands for the rest of the war. In World War II, Breendonk once again fell early in the conflict, and was taken over by the SS as a concentration camp. Fort Breendonk today is a museum and a monument to those who died there. A tour of the camp takes about two hours. .