Camp “Erika” near Ommen

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On the Besthmenerberg near Ommen, the Dutch Theosophical Society had a camp for large meetings before the war. That society was banned by the occupiers, the camp was confiscated. They knew in the transformation phase from June 1941, that they would need it, even though they did not yet know exactly what for. The German horse butcher Werner Schwier was in charge of the transformation. Language of communication was German, the name of the camp became "Erika" because of the moors in the vicinity. [1]
Erika is one of the German names for the heather. There was also a marching song widely sung by German soldiers with that name at the time. [2]

On June 22, 1942, the camp was opened with Dutch guards. In the first phase, the prisoners were convicted black marketeers and illegal slaughterers, people who had violated distribution laws. Other prisoners convicted by Dutch judges were added later, as there had become a severe lack of space in Dutch prisons in a very short time. [1]
Schwier was in charge of the camp until the summer of 1943. It increasingly became a center of professional sadism. The technique of torment was so perfected in this camp that reportedly even experts from Dachau and Auschwitz came to learn about how prisoners were mistreated at Camp Erika. [3]
Soon there was also a lack of space here and prisoners were lent to forced labor camps in Germany, such as in Cologne, Siegburg and Heerte (Hermann-Goering-Werke), but they remained registered in Ommen. Historian Guusta Veldman estimates the number of deaths in this phase of the camp to be between 170 and 200.[4]

From May [1] or June 1943, Erika became an “education camp” (AEL, Arbeits-Erziehungs-Lager) for vagrants and beggars as well as for people who had evaded labor duty in Germany. [3]
The first prisoners were several thousand students, who had refused, to sign the declaration of loyalty and thus had to report for forced labor in Germany. They were gathered in Ommen to be taken to Germany from there. But most of them did not show up. Especially at the beginning of that phase, guards from Ommen were therefore sent out throughout the country to provide more prisoners. They were assigned as auxiliary police to the local police forces, again under a German name: Arbeitskontrolldienst, AKD for short. They were also notorious here, they shooted at anything that moved. [5]
t moved (municipal police Eindhoven). They were recruited from Dutch concentration camp guards. One of the most notorious members of the AKD was their chief in Venlo Johan Berendsen, aka “The Terror of Venlo”, who was executed as a war criminal after the war.
Because at this time it was a transit camp to destinations in Germany, where those workers had to arrive in one piece, there were fewer deaths in Ommen itself than in the first phase. But in the manhunts throughout the country the AKD scum had ample compensation. Still, even from this period at least three fatalities are known. [1]

The final phase of the camp began in September 1944. [1]
The Allies had by then penetrated the southern part of the Netherlands. The camp came under the command of the Ordnungspolizei. De aanwezige gevangenen van het AEL werden naar Duitsland afgevoerd. Bijvoorbeeld naar Neuengamme, zoals Arie van den Munckhof and Jan Kuypers. The camp became now prisoners who had been rounded up in the region, including Jaap Musch, the only person listed in our database, who also died in Ommen. The guards had far from shed their sadism, Jaap’s autopsy later revealed. † in Ommen, September 07, 1944.
The NIOD (Dutch Institute for War Documentation) estimates that certainly more than 10% of the Ommen prisoners perished (in Ommen or in one of the German labor camps). After the war, the camp was called “Erica” and served as a detention camp for arrested Dutch collaborators. On December 31, 1946, Camp Erica was closed. [3]
The only visible reminder in Ommen of this camp is a memorial stone in the forest. [6]

1. Andreas Pflock Auf vergessenen Spuren, Ein Wegweiser zu Gedenkstätten in den Niederlanden, Belgien und Luxemburg, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Bonn 2006
   Lager „Erika“ bei Ommen, p.52 ff.
2. VouTube Erika
3. 1. www.4en5mei.nl Ommen, monument ‘Kamp Erika’
   2. AEL (Arbeits-Erziehungs-Lager)
4. Guusta Veldman (1993): Knackers achter prikkeldraad - Kamp Erika bij Ommen, 1941-1945
5. Gemeentepolitie Eindhoven De oorlogsperiode
6. OpenStreetMap Herdenkingsmonument Kamp Erika Steile Oever, 7731, Ommen
7. Kamp Erika, Wikipedia • Nederlands • Deutsch • English • Français

1944-08-30 Anton Hubert Ummels † Belfeld
1944-09-06 Hendrik Gijsbert Driessen † Ravenstein?
1944-09-07 Jaap Musch † Ommen
1944-12-25 Karel Hendrik Cobben † Neuengamme
1945-01-20 Peter Hubertus van Rhee † Neuengamme
1945-01-24 Adrianus Johannes van den Munckhof † Neuengamme
1945-01-26 Johannes Wilhelmus Kuypers † Hauptlager Neuengamme
1945-02-06 Eelco Wigerius Maria Kortrijk † Neuengamme
1945-03-03 Leendert L. Sluijmers † Hamburg-Neuengamme
1945-03-13 Johan Martin van Gestel † München
1945-05-03 Arnold van Geenen † Lübecker Bucht
1945-05-03 Henricus Antonius Oudenhoven † Duitsland
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