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Westerbork was a transit camp, and the Nazis didn't kill there. They tried to lull the prisoners into a false sense of security so they would not resist when loaded on to the trains bound for Asuchwitz and Sobibor. Please see the link.

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15y ago

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As I understand it, Westerbork was only a transit camp - originally set up by the Dutch authorities in an act of collaboration - for Dutch enemies of the Reich. The Germans eventually took it over. There were no gas chambers or even any industrial workshops and slave labour. Nobody was murdered in the camp itself and it is not believed to have a high mortality rate; that wasn't the aim of the place. The prisoners did not stay there for very long;it was a stop-gap between The Netherlands and the death camps in Poland and the conditions were tolerable. It was a low-security camp and the prisoners could even socialise in the evenings and keep their possessions. In another perverted, calculated and cruel act of the Nazis, the creation and existence of Westerbork lured the prisoners into a false sense of security; once they got there many believed that the subsequent destinations they'd be taken to would be similar to Westerbork and that all the rumours they'd heard about extermination camps in the East were false whereas in reality the Nazis granted such liberties in order to facilitate the transit to those very places. Selections were made at the camp every Tuesday and those chosen were shipped off in cattle-cars to Auschwitz and Sobibor in uncomfortable train journeys lasting three days. They got to the camps de-hydrated, starving and weak and many were gassed on arrival.

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14y ago
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About 102,000 out of about 140,000 (nearly 73%).

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13y ago
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50 - 60,000 people were killed in the Westerbork camp

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14y ago
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Q: How many people were killed at Westerbork?
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