Westerbork - Life and Work in the Camp, The Hague 1945 - First Edition

Westerbork - Life and Work in the Camp, The Hague 1945 - First Edition

Westerbork - Het leven en werken in het kamp - Westerbork - Life and Work in the Camp, Testimonies and Songs of Prisoners from the Westerbork Jewish Transit Camp, by former camp inmates Is. van Nierop and Louis Coster are accompanied by illustrations by Dick Bleiji. The Hague, June 1945 - First edition. Dutch.

Testimonies and songs of prisoners from the Westerbork camp. The booklet published for the first time songs that the prisoners used to sing in the camp to lift their spirits. The songs deal with a variety of topics related to daily life in the camp: one of the songs deals with two Jews who managed to escape from the camp. The song is accompanied by an illustration showing two Jewish overalls with a Star of David on their sleeves, and the song describes how the overalls were left alone, when an alarm sounded in the camp and all the prisoners reported to the commander. Another song deals with the humiliation of the Jews in the camp, and how everywhere you see them their heads lowered, there is a song describing the daily order, other songs deal with the daily suffering of the prisoners in the camp, the longing for liberation and return home, and the cruelty of the commanders, there is a song about the endless waiting of the prisoners to receive packages from outside, and more. At the end of the booklet, the day the camp was liberated is excitedly described, when the Jews were ordered to load all the spoils left in the camp for the Nazis, who managed to steal it and escape: "They disappeared... We don't hear curses anymore, there is no shouting, there is no rampage by these madmen, we don't need to tremble anymore... We are free...". In the introduction to the booklet, the writer describes the structure of the camp in detail, its geographical location, and the arduous agenda in the camp. Also at the beginning of the booklet are pictures of the camp's banknotes.

The police transit camp for Jews Westerbork (Polizeiliches Judendurchgangslager Westerbork) was one of two transit camps established by the Nazis in the Netherlands (the other being Ficht, in the south of the Netherlands) for the purpose of deporting Dutch Jews to concentration and extermination camps in the East. The camp was established in February 1939, and began functioning as a transit camp on July 1, 1942, after the Germans occupied the Netherlands. (Anne Frank was in the camp from August 7th to September 3, 1944 before being deported to Auschwitz.) The camp was liberated on April 12, 1945 by Canadian soldiers. Some 102,000 Jews were sent from the camp to Auschwitz and Sobibor for extermination.

31 p. Second title page may be missing. Good Condition.