Amsterdam Hooghalen

Hooghalen is not a tourist town; in fact, with a population hovering around 1000, it’s barely a town at all. However, this hamlet hides one of the Netherlands’s most important sites, nestled appropriately deep in the Dutch forest. Originally built in 1939 as a refugee camp for fleeing Germans, Kamp Westerbork, Oosthalen 8, quickly transformed into the most dreaded locale in the country. Used as a detainment camp for Jews from 1942 until liberation, Kamp Westerbork held more than 100,000 Dutch Jews before sending them east to the concentration camps. The transport camp was the last stop on Dutch land for virtually all of the country’s Jews, including the Frank family in 1944. The Herinneringscentrum (Memorial Center) runs a museum that documents life inside the camp through clothing, letters, documents, maps, photos, and movies. Displays at the end of the exhibit reveal the contents of some of the suitcases brought to Westerbork by Jewish families. Though most of the information is in Dutch, there are a few panels in English. About three kilometers from the Herinneringscentrum is the actual camp, accessible by Westerbork shuttle (every 20min. M-F 11am-5pm, Sa-Sa 1:10-5pm; round-trip €1.75). Not much remains here but open fields and the remnants of former barracks, but there are several memorials, including a set of railway tracks rising off the ground, splintered and twisted, at the back of the camp. The memorials were designed by Westerbork inmate and Theresienstadt survivor Ralph Prins. At the former roll-call site, 102,000 rocks sit in stony silence—one for each detainee who perished in the concentration camps. On the drive, look for five stone coffins on your right, representing the five concentration camps to which Jews were sent from here. On one side of the coffin is the number sent, and on the other is the number exterminated. The exhibits and displays are in Dutch, but a 700m walk to the far end of the camp, where a watch tower and barbed wire are still intact, will give you some idea of life inside Westerbork. After WWII, the site was used as a refugee camp for 12,500 Moluccans. A small population inhabiting the eastern tip of Indonesia, Moluccans joined the drive for Indonesian independence but found the Dutch government unsympathetic to their nationalist cause. They remained an independent community within the Netherlands by living in Westerbork with the hope that they would return home en masse. The Moluccans ultimately integrated into the Dutch population. (☎59 26 00; www.kampwesterbork.nl. Open Feb.-June and Sept.-Dec. M-F 10am-5pm, Sa-Su 1-5pm; July-Aug. M-F 10am-5pm, Sa-Su 11am-5pm. Tours July-Aug. daily noon, 2pm. €4.50, ages 8-18 €2.)

To pay your respects, take a train from Groningen to Beilin (25min.; 2 per hr.; €7, round-trip €13), then a €5 taxi straight to Westerbork’s Herinneringscentrum. The taxi can be summoned from a kiosk at the train station and usually arrives within 10min. Call ahead for the ride back.