Fort Breendock

As you may have noticed, in the past month we have done a fair amount of traveling. Part of it was me finding good deals, part was me just wanting to get out and do stuff, and the other part of timing. I had agreed to cover for some co-workers who were taking vacations this summer. These people have covered for me many times when I've traveled, and it was time to return the favor. Unfortunately, returning the favor means I am working 4-6 day work weeks for most of June and all of July. Now I know that sounds ridiculous to most as any full time job is usually a 5 day work week. But... I don't work full time. I'm used to doing my 2-3 days a week. So this past week has been a bit rough. Exhausting. I didn't have any plans for this Saturday. My plan was to do some homework and get my house together. When I got home Friday night Josh and I started talking about possible plans on Saturday, and we decided to get out for the day.

One of Josh's favorite things to do is to drive to Belgium (we can be across the border in about 45 minutes) and go shopping to stock up on beer. Over here 98% of the beer comes in bottles, and you must recycle the bottles. I'm glad we're able to recycle, but that means my basement is full of bottles and beer racks. It is a disorganized mess. If Josh goes to buy new beer, he takes all the old bottles to return/recycle them. I was glad to go beer shopping if that meant we could clear out the old bottles. So off to Belgium we went.

Recently Josh has had some new people come into work. When people arrive at the base, one of the many things they must do is attend a new comers briefing. Josh came home one day with a piece of paper he snagged when he dropped off someone at the briefing. It is a "Bucket List" the base has written to give to new people. I think it is to excite people about Europe, to encourage them to go do things, ect. Josh and I poured over this list and had a grand time checking off everything we've already done, but we also found our curiosity being peaked about some things we haven't done or hadn't heard of. One thing which really stood out to me was the entry which said, "Visit the concentration camp in Breendock, Belgium." Whhhhaaaattt??? There is a concentration camp that close to us? How did I not know this??? Although it sounds morbid, I want to go visit concentration camps. I want to see as many as possible while we are here. I have a lot of reasons why, but the main two are that I am interested in the history, and I want to bear witness to the tragedy which surrounds the camps. Anyway, I decided to turn our beer trip into a side trip to Breendock.

I did some online research into Breendock, and I thought I knew what we were in for since we've been to Dachau. However, this was something completely different. Dachau has a lot of pictures of the way the camp was, and some things are still in place (such as the crematorium), but a lot of the buildings were knocked down. At Breendock, the majority of the buildings are still there, so it made everything feel more real. Breendock wasn't an actual concentration camp per-say, or not in the way you would think of one. It was a prison for political prisoners (specifically people from Allied forces and resistance groups), but there were some Jewish people there as well. Prisoners were subjected to slave labor, poor living conditions, starvation, abuse, and torture. There were actual torture rooms where members of the SS would torture prisoners to try to get information out of them. Prisoners died at Breendock from exhaustion, injuries from beatings, torture, sickness, or general horrible conditions. This was a place of unimaginable suffering, but unlike other camps there was no crematoria or gas chamber. Still inhumane and disgusting.

You walk through the fort at your own pace and are given an audio tour. The audio tour does a great job of explaining the conditions and circumstances of the camp. The fort has a man-made moat surrounding it in addition to the fence and barbed wire. The fort is solid concrete - ominous to look at. The inside is cold and damp (keep in mind it is June right now. I can't imagine what January would be like).

The last photo is of the area for the firing squad. During the tour they talked about how sometimes, for no apparent reason, guards would select prisoners to be killed. Then the next day a new batch of prisoners showed up to take their place.

I don't know if the pictures do it justice, but being inside of the prison was seriously creepy. I was incredibly creeped out. I had goosebumps all over my arms and was jumpy. Josh and I were the only people there, so when I would hear noises it just sent chills through me. The classic, "If that wasn't us, what made that noise?" Josh found my anxiety funny. I don't know what it was, but I just... I felt sad about how people were treated here, and what they had to endure... but I also felt... like you could feel more there. I don't know how to explain it without sounding ridiculous, but let's just say I was freaked out by the whole place. However, I'm glad we went to check out Breendock. I didn't realize it was so close to us, and I now have another piece of the puzzle of World War Two history.