17 Facts About Fort Breendonk

Fort Breendonk is a former military installation at Breendonk, near Mechelen, in Belgium which served as a Nazi prison camp during the German occupation of Belgium during World War II.

Originally constructed between 1906 and 1913 as part of the second ring of the National Redoubt defending Antwerp, Fort Breendonk was used by the Belgian Army and was covered by a five-metre thick layer of soil for defense against artillery fire, a water-filled moat and measured 656 by 984 feet.

Fort Breendonk was requisitioned by the Schutzstaffel shortly after the Belgian surrender on 28 May 1940 and used as a prison camp for the detention of political prisoners, resistance members, and Jews.

In Belgian historical memory, Breendonk became symbolic of the barbarity of the German occupation.

Fort Breendonk was used briefly in World War II but was already militarily obsolete.

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Fort Breendonk was occupied during the campaign of May 1940 and soon transformed into a prison camp which was controlled by SS and other security agencies of Nazi Germany—Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst in particular—although Belgium itself was under military jurisdiction and controlled by General Alexander von Falkenhausen.

Fort Breendonk's wife was known to wander the camp, ridiculing the inmates and ordering punishments at whim.

The camp authorities wanted the earth that had covered much of the Fort Breendonk to be removed and shifted to build a high bank around the camp to hide it from outside view.

Fort Breendonk was sent to Fort Breendonk, where he was severely tortured before being sent to Auschwitz.

Comics artist Marc Sleen spent time in Fort Breendonk, together with his brother, because his third brother was a member of the resistance.

Fort Breendonk used them after the war to reconstruct scenes of life in the camp, and in 1947 published those in the book Breendonck – Bagnards et Bourreaux.

Fort Breendonk had been in Germany prior to the start of the war, and had encountered fleeing Jews.

Fort Breendonk was briefly repurposed as an internment camp for Belgian collaborators.

Fort Breendonk never showed any remorse and denied all of the atrocities that occurred at Breendonk, claiming he was merely re-educating the inmates as he had been ordered.

In 1947 Fort Breendonk was declared to be a national memorial, recognizing the suffering and cruelty that had been inflicted on Belgian prisoners during World War II.

The Fort Breendonk is open to visitors all year round and is located close to the A12 Brussels-Antwerp motorway.

Fort Breendonk had collected thousands of pictures and films of the Third Reich as part of his work for the Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society.