In contrast to an extermination camp, a concentration camp was an internment center for political prisoners and members of persecuted minority groups. Usually the reason given for incarceration was that of exploitation, state security, or punishment. This was imposed by executive decree or military order. People were incarcerated on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals. In general this was accomplished without indictment or without the benefit of a fair trial. Concentration camps should not be looked upon as prisons. In the latter, people were locked up who were, in most cases, lawfully convicted of a crime. They were to be distinguished too from refugee camps, detention and relocation centers to accommodate displaced persons, and POW camps in which captured military personnel supposedly were held in accordance with the laws of the Geneva convention.

       All Nazi concentration camps were the liability of the administration of the SS. The only camp in the Netherlands that qualified as such was Vught. Others were transit camp Westerbork, Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort, Internment camp Schoorl and Penal camp Ommen. For the location of these camps click here. These camps were not administered by the SS, nevertheless these too were places of horror and despair. Sent to one of these camps sent chills down the spines of the many thousands of inmates who passed through these gates of Hell. Each of the camps in Holland will be dealt with separately.