An attentive visitor to Camp Westerbork has noticed it: there is busy work on the back of the camp site and the ground is upset. It is part of a large test in which Kamp Westerbork memorial center wants to bring back the old structures of barracks.
“There were a lot of barracks and they were very big,” says director Bertien Minco. “The idea is to mow around the fields and also by sowing them, making the size of the barracks visible.”
Just like her predecessors, Minco has been thinking for a long time about what an appropriate way is to visualize elements of the camp. There is little left of history on the spot.
The project starts in small. Something new is being tried at five locations where barracks have stood. “Tagging, a barrack field is milled, another barrack field is processed with another machine and native herbs are coming in,” says project leader Simon de Jong. On the last field, the soil is granted and released from moss. At the end of the project, looking at what comes out of the best.
By using plants and herbs, Minco hopes with the architect in a place for more reflection. “You can’t rebuild the camp anyway, so then you don’t have to pretend.”
With the adjustment of the barracks fields, an archaeological investigation also comes into play. Anyone who wants to dig a millimeter into the ground on the former camp site needs the green light from archaeologists for that. It turns out immediately today.
“Normally in archeology we say: from 30 centimeters underground it starts. But now that is not the case. I am six centimeters and it already delivers everything,” says Yftinus van Popta as the metal detector.
At the location, Van Popta mainly expects to find traces of the constructions that have been there. The last remains of the foundations of the barracks such as pieces of concrete and bricks. But he also finds personal objects.
He holds a metal serving spoon in his hands, eroded in the ground. “It was at a depth of five centimeters. That indicates how relevant it is to do research here. This was part of the food supply in the camp.”
In addition to the soup spoon, Van Popta also finds two marbles. He is looking at that. “If you normally find a marble, then you think: children have played there. But what happened to these children? Why is it left behind? We don’t know. I think it’s a very characteristic find.”
Van Popta takes the discoveries he makes to the office to further investigate them. The camp site has several histories and the question is which of the histories the objects come.
The barracks were used even after the Second World War for Woonord Beschertberg for demobilized KNIL soldiers from the Moluccas and their families.
It is not strange that the organization in a part of the camp site has started on a part of the camp site. More money is not yet available. “We can always sow,” says Minco. “That costs nothing and then a lot is happening. So in this way you can look: what can you already do? What do we do when a little money comes? And what do we do when more money comes? And what do we do when all the money comes?”
Sowing the plants and herbs is the start of the great renovation. Ultimately, the rest of the camp site, the Memenklaan with the Bilzen monument and the museum will also undergo a major renovation. MINCO hopes to have more clarity about the budget this summer.