Fort Breendonk - Gallery

Gallery

The prisoners were subjected to forced labour, which consisted of removing the thick layer of top soil that covered the fort. In the few years Fort Breendonk was used by the Nazis, the millions of cubic meters of soil covering the fort were removed by the prisoners by hand at a gruelling pace. The soil had to be moved to create a high circular earth wall around the fort to hide the camp from view. Prisoners only had hand tools to complete this enormous task and the soil had to be transported to the outer wall via hand carts on a narrow gauge railway system. The ground in the camp was often very soggy causing the rails to sink away in the mud. Prisoners were then expected to move the carts entirely by hand, which were filled with dirt they weighed over 1 ton each, pushing and dragging them back and forth over a distance of more than 300 meters. This regime was imposed for over 12 hours a day, seven days a week, even in the worst of weather conditions. Orders were given only in German, so inmates were forced to learn the basic commands rather quickly or otherwise be punished for failure to obey orders. Prisoners were also forced to salute, march and stand to attention every time a guard passed.

Accommodation in the fort consisted of the old barracks. Built from thick stone, these were extremely cold and damp because there were no windows and only minimal ventilation. Each barrack room only had a small coal burning stove, and providing sufficient heating was nearly impossible. Rooms were originally designed for no more than 38 people, but frequently housed over 50 inmates sleeping in three-tier bunk beds on straw mattresses. The top bunks were highly priced real estate. Inmates only had a single small bucket per room for a toilet during the night, and many of the sick and weakened inmates simply allowed their waste to drop down to the lower levels. This caused much fighting in between inmates, which was probably what the guards wanted.

Jewish prisoners were segregated from other inmates and housed in specially constructed wooden barracks. These barracks were poorly insulated and over-crowded.

Other prisoners were housed in cells, either in small groups or individually. The aim was to isolate certain prisoners for later interrogation and torture.

Food was severely rationed for the prisoners and distributed in different quantities to the various types of inmates. Jews received the least food and water. Prisoners were served three meals a day. Breakfast consisted of two cups of a coffee substitute made of roasted acorns and 125 grams (4 oz.) of bread. Lunch was usually 1 bowl of soup (mostly just hot water). Supper was again 2 cups of a coffee substitute made of roasted acorns and 100 grams (3 oz.) of bread (sometimes with a spoon of marmalade or sugar). This was far from enough to sustain a human being, especially considering the intense cold or heat, harsh labour and physical punishments the prisoners were subjected to.

For this reason, Fort Breendonk has been described as one of the worst camps in all of Europe. Conditions in the camp were so cruel and harsh that those who left alive were so weak that their chances of survival at the final destination were severely hampered. Often prisoners were so sick and weak that they were led straight to the gas chambers or simply died within weeks of their arrival. The regime in the camp was at least as harsh as in an actual concentration camp. Fewer than 10% of the nearly 4,000 inmates survived the war.

Particular controversy surrounds the Flemish SS guards of the camp, who so openly and cruelly turned against their fellow countrymen in blind support of their Nazi paymasters.