Mechelen transit camp SS-Sammellager Mecheln
Transit camp
Modern view of Dossin Barracks which housed the transit camp
Location of the camp in Belgium
Coordinates	51°02′02″N4°28′42″E / 51.03389°N 4.47833°E /51.03389; 4.47833
Other names	SS-Sammellager Mecheln
Location	Mechelen,Belgium
Operated by	Nazi Germany Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo-SD)
Original use	Military barracks[Note 1]
First built	1756
Operational	July 1942 – September 1944
Inmates	mainly Jews and Roma
Number of inmates	Jews: 24,916[1] Roma: 351[2]
Killed	c.300 (on-site only)[3]
Liberated by	Allied Forces, 4 September 1944
Notable inmates	Felix Nussbaum,[4]Abraham Bueno de Mesquita
Website	www.kazernedossin.eu/en

TheMechelen transit camp, officiallySS-Sammellager Mecheln (lit. 'SS Assembly Camp Mechelen') inGerman, also known as theDossin barracks, was adetention and deportation camp established in a former army barracks atMechelen inGerman-occupied Belgium. It served as a point to gather BelgianJews andRomani ahead of their deportation toconcentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe duringthe Holocaust.

The camp was established in March 1942 and was the only transit camp in Belgium. It was managed by theSicherheitspolizei (SiPo-SD), a branch of theReich Security Main Office, and was used to hold Jews and Romani ahead of their deportation toAuschwitz-Birkenau as well as other camps includingHeydebreck-Cosel.^[5] Between 4 August 1942 and 31 July 1944, 28 trains left from near the camp and deported over 25,800 people.^[1][6] Only 1,240 survived the war.^[6]

The camp was abandoned at theLiberation of Belgium in September 1944 and subsequently was repurposed for housing. A museum was established in 1996 and today part of the former barracks and a new building opposite form part of theKazerne Dossin – Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, which includes aHolocaust memorial and museum.

Belgium was invaded byNazi Germany in arapid military campaign on 10–28 May 1940. It was subsequently placed undera military occupation administration which would endure until July 1944 when the territory briefly passed undera civilian administration, brought to an end by theLiberation of Belgium in September 1944.

As early as September 1940, the German administration established a prison camp inFort Breendonk, a former Belgian military fort. Inmates were largelypolitical prisoners, though a number ofJews were also held in a segregated part of the camp. As part of theFinal Solution after January 1942, it was decided to transportBelgian Jews toconcentration and extermination camps inEastern Europe.

Approximately 90 percent of Belgium's Jewish population lived in the cities ofAntwerp andBrussels in 1942. Accordingly,Mechelen, a city with a railway hub located halfway between the two, was chosen as the site of the new transit camp.

The building chosen to house the camp was a former army facility called Dossin Barracks, built in 1756 and named after Lieutenant-GeneralÉmile Dossin de Saint-Georges, a hero of theBattle of the Yser duringWorld War I. It was located in the north of the city and provided access to the railway freight dock serving theRiver Dyle.^[7] The three-storey block that completely surrounded a large square yard was fitted with barbed wire. It became operational in July 1942.

The camp staff was mostly German but was assisted by Belgian collaborationist paramilitaries from theAlgemeene-SS Vlaanderen ("General SS Flanders").^[8][9] It was officially under the command ofPhilipp Schmitt, commandant of the Fort Breendonk. The acting commandant at Mechelen was SS officer Rudolph Steckmann.

The first group of people arrived in the camp from Antwerp on 27 July 1942. Between August and December 1942, two transports, each with about 1,000 Jews, left the camp every week forAuschwitz concentration camp. Between 4 August 1942 and 31 July 1944, a total of 28 trains left Mechelen for Poland, carrying 24,916 Jews and 351 Roma;^[1] most of them went to Auschwitz. This figure represented more than half of the Belgian Jews murdered duringthe Holocaust. In line with the Nazi racial policy that much later became named theRomani genocide, 351 Belgian Roma were sent to Auschwitz in early 1944.

Conditions at the Mechelen camp were especially brutal. Many Roma were locked in basement rooms for weeks or months at a time without food or sanitary facilities. The Roma had an especially low survival rate.

Some people succeeded in escaping the transports, especially from the Transports 16 and 17 which consisted of men returned from forced labor on theAtlantic Wall to Belgium. Most of these men jumped between Mechelen and the German border. Many were caught and were soon put on subsequent transports but a total of about 500 Jewish prisoners did manage to escape across all the 28 transports. On 19 April 1943 three resistance fighters, acting on their own initiative,stopped Transport 20 near the train station ofBoortmeerbeek, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south-east of Mechelen. From this action 17 prisoners managed to flee. More Jews escaped by their own deeds, a total of 231 Jews fled although 90 were eventually recaptured and 26 were shot by guards escorting the train.^[10]

The last transport left on 31 July 1944 butAllied forces could not stop it before its destination was reached. As Belgium was being liberated, an attempt by the Germans to deport 1,600 political prisoners and Alliedprisoners of war from Brussels toconcentration camps in Germany via theNazi ghost train was thwarted by Belgian railway workers and the Belgian resistance. The train made it to Mechelen but returned to Brussels where the release of the prisoners was negotiated by Swiss and Swedish diplomats.^[11] When the Allies approached Mechelen by 3 September 1944, the Germans fled the Dossin Barracks, leaving the 527 remaining prisoners behind.^[8] Some remaining prisoners escaped that night and the others were freed on the 4th, though soon replaced with suspectedcollaborators. The lists of deportees were left atHasselt during the German retreat and were later discovered intact.

In 1948 Dossin Barracks reverted to its original use by theBelgian Army. It was used until 1975 when it was abandoned. Apart from a wing renovated in the 1980s for social housing, the barracks became the site of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance by 1996. In 2001, theFlemish Government decided to expand the institution by a new complex built opposite the old barracks; the latter closed in July 2011, to become a memorial monument.^[12] TheKazerne Dossin – Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights reopened its doors on 26 November 2012.^[13]

• The Holocaust in Belgium
• Belgium in World War II

Citations

Bibliography

• Transports from Mechelen atEuropean Holocaust Research Infrastructure
• Laub, Michel (2 March 2011)."Le projet Kazerne Dossin" (in French). Centre Communautaire Laïc Juif. Retrieved3 August 2011.

• Nazi concentration camps in Belgium
• Buildings and structures in Mechelen
• History of Mechelen

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