On the 6th and 7th of June 1943, two trains with Jewish children departed from the Vught camp. All children under 16 had to leave on this transport. Their parents were to accompany them. They were told that they would go to a special camp for children in the area. But the trains went to the Westerbork transit camp and from there on to Sobibor in Poland. The nearly 1300 Jewish children were murdered upon arrival. The rigorous decision to deport all children at once was quite exceptional. The reason this decision was made was due to the origin of the camp. The Vught concentration camp was the only SS-Concentration camp outside Nazi Germany in occupied territory. It had a strict and brutal concentration camp regime. Men, women, and children were held in separate barracks. There was a lack of food, clean drinking water and hygiene. The resulting chaos was difficult to handle, both for the Jewish prisoners as for the SS in charge. The children were the most vulnerable. They suffered from diseases and, in the eyes of the SS, they were a nuisance. Most likely this was the reason for their sudden deportation.
