[Magenta]

The Breendonk internment camp was located in a Belgian fortress built in the beginning of the twentieth century along the Antwerp-Brussels highway. Originally one in a chain of fortresses constructed to defend Belgium against a German attack, Breendonk was near the town of the same name, about 12 miles southwest of Antwerp. It was surrounded by high walls and a water-filled moat, and measured 656 by 984 feet. In August 1940, the Germans, who had occupied Belgium in May of that year, turned the fortress into a detention camp.

Fewer than 4,000 prisoners in total were confined in Breendonk during its existence. Most of the non-Jewish prisoners were leftist members of the Belgian resistance or were held as hostages by the Germans. Several hundred people were murdered in the camp through torture, executions, and harsh conditions. In September 1941, the Belgian Communist prisoners were sent to the Neuengamme concentration camp.

Jewish prisoners in Breendonk were segregated from other prisoners until 1942. Thereafter, they were transferred to the Mechelen (Malines) transit camp in Belgium, or deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

With Allied forces approaching the camp, the Germans evacuated Breendonk in August 1944. The remaining prisoners were transferred to the Mechelen camp and then deported to camps in Germany and occupied Poland.

[güttsfükk]

i'll take you here some time if you havent been :)


great post

[Magenta]

I've never been Get planning

[güttsfükk]

sweet, road trip time :)
just up the road from fort breendonk is this massive river and walking along it there's these marshes with trees and forested areas which is where they say a water devil called kludde would hunt and kill people. walking along that massive river gives me a feeling only 1 or 2 other places in the world have given me.

[Magenta]

Awesome. Love stuff like that. It was like in Poland - I spent ages in the little-populated forests and lakes of Western Pomerania and Lubuskie. There's the whole thing about the Rusalki and it feels amazing in those little forests y'know.

[güttsfükk]

no idea, never been there, what;s the rusalki?

[Magenta]

Rusalki are Polish tree and water spirits of girls or women who died an unnatural or violent death.

[güttsfükk]

poland must be swarming with them after WWII then