Camp Vught (Herzogenbusch concentration camp) was a Nazi concentration camp located in Vught near the city of 's-Hertogenbosch.
- Experience the history and the current importance of the former SS camp Vught.
- Kamp Vught was the only concentration camp controlled by the SS outside Germany in Western Europe.
- Today, Kamp Vught stands as a national monument listing the names of the people who died there.
The people held at Kamp Vught included Jews, political prisoners, Sinti and Roma gypsies, and resistance fighters. Prisoners were forced to make products for the German war industry, such as torches and radios. Despite their difficult circumstances, the prisoners managed to resist even in the prison camp by sabotaging the goods they were forced to make.
Bunker drama
Kamp Vught witnesses endless cruelty on the part of the German occupiers. One of the most infamous events is the bunker drama. On 15 January 1944, to punish prisoners for a women’s protest in the camp, the camp commander put 74 women in cell 115, a bunker measuring 9 square meters without ventilation. When the soldiers opened the bunker door the next morning, 10 of the women were dead.
Herzogenbush Concentration Camp
Camp Vught was the only SS concentration camp outside Nazi Germany. The camp was first used in 1943 and held 31,000 prisoners and 749 prisoners died in the camp. Part of the prisoners were moved to other camps shortly before the Allied Forces liberated the camp in 1944.
Museum and Monument
Today you will find a memorial center at the former camp site. There are prisoner barracks, three guard towers and the original fences, as well as a reconstruction of cell 115 where the horrifying bunker drama occurred. The execution site was converted to a national monument in 1947, bearing the names of all 329 male resistance fighters who died here.
The stories of former prisoners
The audio tour (for rent at the reception desk) describes life in the camp in 1943 and 1944. You will hear the stories of former prisoners, as well as a description of twenty special places at Camp Vught. The tour also includes music created in the camp by former prisoners, such as Louise van de Montel and Marius Flothuis.
