Kamp Amersfoort

Kamp Amersfoort Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort
Concentration camp
The watchtower of the camp
Location of the camp in the Netherlands
Coordinates	52°7′57″N 5°21′56″E / 52.13250°N 5.36556°E / 52.13250; 5.36556Coordinates: 52°7′57″N 5°21′56″E / 52.13250°N 5.36556°E / 52.13250; 5.36556
Other names	Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort
Location	Amersfoort, Netherlands
Operated by	SS
Operational	18 August 1941 19 April 1945
Liberated by	transferred to Red Cross
Website	www.kampamersfoort.nl

Amersfoort concentration camp (Dutch: Kamp Amersfoort, German: Durchgangslager Amersfoort) was a Nazi concentration camp in Amersfoort, Netherlands. The official name was "Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort", P.D.A. or Police Transitcamp Amersfoort. During the years of 1941 to 1945, over 35,000 prisoners were kept here. The camp was situated in the southern part of Amersfoort, on the city limit between Amersfoort and Leusden in central Netherlands.

Kamp Amersfoort in 1939 still was a complex of barracks that supported army artillery exercises on the nearby Leusderheide. From 1941 onwards, it didn't merely function as a transit camp, as the name suggests. The terms "penal camp" or "work camp" would also be fitting. During the existence of the camp many prisoners were put to work in kommandos. In total around 37,000 prisoners were registered at Amersfoort.

To get to the camp, prisoners had to walk from the railyard through the city and through residential neighborhoods:

Visible in the windows, above and below, of most residences and behind closed lace curtains, were numerous silhouettes, especially those of children. Usually the silhouettes did not move. Sometimes, feebly and furtively, they waved. Children who waved were very quickly pulled back. It was a farewell from the inhabited world -- now a realm of shades.

The history of the camp can be separated into two periods. The first period started on August 18, 1941 and ended in March 1943. In March 1943 all but eight of the surviving first prisoners in Amersfoort were transferred to Kamp Vught. The prisoner transfer to Vught allowed for the completion of an expansion of Kamp Amersfoort. Maintaining the camp, despite Kamp Vught coming 'online' in January 1943, still appeared necessary to the Nazis.

The camp held Soviet prisoners of war following the invasion of the USSR in June 1941. These included 101 Uzbek prisoners brought to display to the Dutch for propaganda purposes, all either dying in the winter of 1941 or executed in woods near the camp in April 1942. 865 Soviet prisoners are buried in nearby Rusthof cemetery.