Westerbork

Westerbork is a village in the northeastern Netherlands, in the province of Drenthe. It lies near Assen and is known primarily for the Kamp Westerbork complex that stood nearby during World War II. The name Westerbork roughly means "western marsh" in Dutch.

During the late 1930s the area served as a refugee camp for Jews fleeing persecution in Germany. After the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, the site was converted into a transit and detention camp by the Nazi authorities. The camp housed Jews, Roma and other detainees and functioned as a staging point for deportations to camps in occupied Poland and elsewhere in the east. From 1942 to 1945, tens of thousands of people passed through Westerbork; most were deported to extermination camps such as Auschwitz, where the vast majority were killed. A minority survived the war, often after transfer to other camps. The operation of the camp ended in 1945 with Allied advance.

After the war, the site became a place of memory and education. The remains and reconstructed facilities, along with exhibitions and archives, document the experiences of those imprisoned there and the broader history of the Holocaust in the Netherlands. A national memorial and the Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork (Westerbork Memorial Centre) oversee remembrance activities and visitor programs. The camp site and memorials are visited by schools, researchers, and visitors from around the world, serving as a reminder of persecution and the consequences of intolerance.