Fort Breendonk - Present Memorial

Present Memorial

In 1947, Fort Breendonk was declared to be a national memorial, recognizing the suffering and cruelty that had been inflicted on the prisoners during World War II. The fort is now a well-preserved example of the prison camps operated by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Fort Breendonk is open to visitors all year round. It is located close to the A12 Brussels-Antwerp road.

Pictures of working Nazi interment camps during the war are rare and, for a long time, it was believed that absolutely no pictures of Breendonk during the war existed. But in the early 1970s a batch of photos of the camp was discovered in the possessions of Dutch photographer Otto Spronk. He had collected thousands of pictures and films of the Third Reich as part of his work for the SOMA, a Dutch organization that focused on preserving any material of wars. The collection consisted of 37 pictures depicting the daily order of events in the camp. Roll call, eating, forced labour, and even the SS officers going about their business, relaxed and cheerful as the inmates toiled on. There's even a picture of the Nazi camp commandant, Philipp Schmitt playing with his infamous dog 'Lump'. They were taken by German Nazi photographer Otto Kropf. They were taken for propaganda purposes but never used. All pictures are essentially cliché stills; none of the daily atrocities or horrors of the camp are shown. But they are the only reference material available. Several of the inmates on the pictures managed to survive the war and were able to identify the others on the pictures and the circumstances in which they were taken.