Vught is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is a town where lots of commuters live and has recently been named "Best place to live" by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.
Population centres
- Cromvoirt, 797 people
- Vught, 24.442 people
History
World War 2
Vught is known for having been the site of a transit/concentration camp built by Nazi Germany during its occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It was part of camp Herzogenbusch, but usually better known as "Kamp Vught" . The camp held male and female prisoners, many of them Jewish and political activists, captured in Belgium and the Netherlands. The guard staff included SS men and a few SS women, headed by Oberaufseherin Margarete Gallinat. The SS initially used this location as a transit camp to gather mostly Jewish prisoners for classification and transportation to camps in Poland and other areas.
A group of women were severely punished for standing up for another female prisoner. Seventy-four women were pushed into a cell room of barely nine square meters and held there for over fourteen hours. Ten of the women died, and several suffered permanent physical or mental damage. The camp commander responsible was demoted by Himmler to the regular rank of soldier and sent to the Hungarian front; he died there in 1945.
Dutch underground members Corrie and Betsie ten Boom were held at Vught in 1944, before being sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Poncke Princen, who would later become known for going over to the Indonesian guerrillas opposing Dutch rule, was imprisoned at Vught for his anti-Nazi activities.
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