Breendonk Fort National Memorial

Museum Nationaal Gedenkteken Fort Breendonk

Breendonk Fort was used as a police internment camp under German occupation in Belgium. Today, the former stronghold is a memorial.

History

Breendonk Fort was built in 1906 as part of a defence complex surrounding Antwerp. It was severely damaged at the beginning of World War I, when after nine days of German besiegement the fort capitulated. During the inter-war period, the Belgian army used the stronghold and it was decided that if Belgium should be attacked, the army's headquarters would be installed there. After Germany's invasion of Belgium on May 10, 1940, King Leopold III took high command of the army at Breendonk Fort. When Belgium capitulated on May 28, 1940, the stronghold was used as a prison and collection camp. The first Jews were arrested in September of that year and held captive separately from the »Aryan« prisoners. On June 22, 1941, in the course of »Aktion Sonnenwende« (»Operation Solstice«), communists, other political opponents as well as Soviet citizens residing in Belgium were brought to the prison. The number of prisoners rose further. From 1942 on, Breendonk functioned as a transit camp. From here prisoners were deported to concentration camps such as Buchenwald. The Jewish inmates were first taken to the collection camp in Mechelen and from there deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The camp at Breendonk was one of the worse National Socialist camps in Western Europe due to insufficient supplies and severe punishments. Until its liberation in September 1944, between 3,000 and 3,600 prisoners passed through Breendonk Fort. Jewish prisoners from Belgium made up about 7 per cent, the largest groups were communist resistance fighters, Soviet prisoners of war, hostages and black market traders. In November 1942, the security police set up a special cell for interrogating political prisoners called the »bunker«. The SS deported approximately 2,330 prisoners from Breendonk to other prisons and concentration camps.

Breendonk, undated, Fort entrance, CEGES/SOMA

Breendonk, 2000, Interior with documentation on political resistance, Museum Nationaal Gedenkteken Fort Breendonk

Victims

Of the 3,600 prisoners that passed through Breendonk Fort, around 300 died on site. At least 164 prisoners were shot and 21 hanged at the camp's execution site. Most of the Jewish prisoners who were later deported via the Mechelen collection camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau were murdered there.

Neutral Belgium was attacked in May 1940 and was subsequently governed by a German military administration. The German-speaking districts of Eupen and Malmedy in the east of the country were incorporated into the Third Reich. At the time, there were around 66,000 Jews in Belgium, including many refugees. The first anti-Jewish laws were enacted in October 1940. In 1942, the occupying power’s policy of persecution and expropriation culminated in preparations for systematic deportation. As only a few of the Jews reported for their alleged forced labour deployment the SS and police carried out raids to capture them. Those arrested were sent to the Mechelen transit camp before being deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where they were murdered on arrival. A total of around 25,000 Jews and over 350 Roma from Belgium died as a result of deportation. From September 1940, the Breendonk fort near Antwerp served as a prison and an assembly and transit camp. Above all political opponents of the Nazi occupation were transported from here to the German concentration camps. At the end of 1944 the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge, resulted in widespread destruction and many civilian casualties as German troops tried in vain to hold back the Allies in south-east Belgium (around Liège and Malmedy), who had already reached Aachen. Around 90,000 Belgians fell victim to the war and occupation. The majority of the Jewish population survived thanks to the help of non-Jewish Belgians. The culture of remembrance in Belgium was and continues to be divided in line with the political structure of the country. In French-speaking Wallonia, exaggerated accounts of the resistance prevailed for a long time, along with the one-sided view that people in Flanders had been collaborators. By contrast, in Flanders many glossed over the issue of collaboration under the German occupation, viewing this in terms of a fight for the Flemish nation in the face of persecution from the Belgian state. The persecution of the Jews was repressed and the victims only commemorated by the Jewish community. Since the 1980s, however, Belgian sites of memory have begun to acknowledge the collaboration on the part of both Flanders and Wallonia and to document the oppression as well as the resistance during the war. With the inauguration of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance in Mechelen (Flanders) in 1995 it became clear that the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish Belgians in the camps could provide a bridge between different memories. In today’s Belgium the range of distinct memorial sites such as the Breedonk Fort National Memorial to the Belgian resistance and the museum at Mechelen are all considered legitimate aspects of the culture of remembrance.

Remembrance

In 1947, the Belgian parliament unanimously decided to convert the fort into a national memorial site. In 1954, the King dedicated a memorial in the fort's courtyard to all political opponents of the German occupation. In the meantime, a museum has been established at the stronghold. An exhibition on the prisoners' everyday lives and torture methods of the SS is on display at the museum. Breendonk Fort was reopened in 2003 after being fully renovated.
In September 2021, a new monument to the victims was inaugurated at the gates of the fortress. It is called »Ode to the Resistance« and was designed by artist Tom Fransen. The monument depicts a giant boot stepping on women, children and resistance fighters, while a man releases a dove. The initiative for the monument came from the »National Confederation of Political Prisoners and their Heirs» (»Confédération nationale des prisonniers politiques et ayants-droit« - CNPPA).

Breendonk, undated, Prisoners in Breendonk Fort, CEGES/SOMA

Breendonk, 2000, Rampart complex at Breendonk Fort with references to the victims, Museum Nationaal Gedenkteken Fort Breendonk

Possibilities

Guided tours, workshops, discussion rounds, annual commemorative ceremony on the anniversary of the camp's liberation on September 4.

Open

Daily: 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. (last admission 4.30 p.m.). Closed on the last Sunday in August, on Christmas and New Year's Day.

Contact

http://www.breendonk.be

info@breendonk.be

+32 (0)38 607 525

Brandstraat 57
2830 Willebroek

Breendonk, 2022, Gates of the fortress, Stiftung Denkmal

Breendonk, 2022, Installation in the exhibition, Stiftung Denkmal

Breendonk, 2022, The memorial »Ode to the Resistance«, inaugurated in 2021, Stiftung Denkmal

Breendonk, 2022, Detailed view of the monument »Ode to the Resistance«, Stiftung Denkmal

Breendonk, 2000, Aerial photo of the stronghold complex, Museum Nationaal Gedenkteken Fort Breendonk

Düsseldorf

Memorial to the Victims of National Socialism in Düsseldorf

Since 1987, the Düsseldorf »Stadthaus« has been home to the »Düsseldorf Memorial«, which is dedicated to all victims of National Socialism from Düsseldorf. The same building housed the Düsseldorf poli...

Osthofen

Rhineland-Palatinate National Socialist Documentation Centre / KZ Osthofen Memorial

Between March 1933 and June 1934, an early concentration camp was in operation in Osthofen, a small town near Worms. The people incarcerated there were for the most part political prisoners in police...

Weimar

Buchenwald Memorial

Located on the Ettersberg (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, the Buchenwald concentration camp was one of the largest concentration camps in the German Reich. Between 1937 and 1945, the SS held hundreds of...