Every year on May Fourth, the Netherlands commemorates the victims of World War II. We all experience World War II in very different ways, depending on who you are, what you stand for, what you do, and where you live. All those different experiences are reflected in the different commemoration ceremonies throughout the years. During the national commemoration of Remembrance Day on 4 May, those various experiences come together and the dead are jointly remembered and honored.

Today I want to remember and honor my grandfather, Felix Ravesloot. After a British fighter jet plane came down near Arnhem, my grandfather, 26 years old at the time, hid two British pilots in the woods and provided them with food and water. However, the Germans were tipped off, caught him and imprisoned him in the concentration camps Vught and Amersfoort. He suffered greatly and received an award from Eisenhower for his courage and dedication. Below are his witness statements from camp Vught and camp Amersfoort I translated from Dutch into English.

It is his bravery, and his impeccable sense of justice, and his accounts on suffering from oppression that have given meaning to my life. His actions, and his unwavering desire to always do and say what’s right, and to stand up against oppression and injustice, despite possible repercussions, inspire me to hold myself to the highest possible moral and ethical standards, and always, ALWAYS stand up for the truth.

About Concentration Camp Vught:

Vught was the only official SS concentration camp in occupied Northwest Europe, established in occupied Holland. Construction began in May 1942. The first prisoners arrived at the camp before it was finished at the end of 1942. These prisoners came from the camp in Amersfoort , which the Nazis wanted to give up. The famished and abused prisoners arrived at the railway station in Vught and were marched off along the streets.

The first commander of the camp was an SS captain named Karl Chmilewski. This SS Officer was well known for the barbaric atrocities he had committed at the camp of Gusen, an sub-camp of Mauthausen. (Mauthausen had a reputation as one of the most brutal Nazi camps).

Conditions in Vught were initially deplorable. Hundreds of prisoners died during the first few months as a result of maltreatment, shortage of clothing, lack of food, polluted water, and various infectious diseases that were rampant in the overcrowded barracks. Many Jewish children were victims of this. After a while conditions improved simply because nearly all the Jews had been deported and so the camp had more space.

The second section of Vught was designed as a security camp (Schutzhaftlager). This section received all the Dutch and Belgian political prisoners, men and women. The guards were exclusively SS. The food was nearly nonexistent : warm water with some carrots or sauerkraut floating on the surface. The SS guards tortured the prisoners with incredible cruelty beating them to death (several prisoners were brutalized with a club wrapped with barbed wire). The SS often provoked their dogs to attack prisoners and there are several testimonies of horrible wounds, including to genitals. Altogether 749 people lost their lives for various reasons. A large number of them (mostly members of the resistance) were executed in the woods near the camp at the so called “Fusilladeplaats.” (source https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Vught.html)

Witness Statement Felix Adrianus Eliza Ravesloot born 10-01-1915, Vught Concentration Camp.

On a Sunday morning, the end of January, beginning February 1943, all prisoners from the concentration camp in Vught were driven from their barracks. After the headcount that followed all marched to the future location of the headcount square.

After the trees were cleared to make space for the concentration camp, they had been stacked in this area. Now this location had to be cleared for future head counts, since up to this point, headcounts were just held next to or in between the barracks.

This Sunday the goal of the camp leaders was that all the trees had to be removed from this area by the prisoners. This happened along the road that went through the camp, and then excited the camp toward the town of Yzeren, and when you turned right you entered the highway, I believe it lead to Tilburg. A little ways down this highway was an area where all the wood was supposed to be transported to. The whole route was surrounded by SS soldiers, armed with rifles and machine guns, clubs and long whips. Also there were several SS soldiers with dogs on long leashes.

On the headcount square the prisoners were forced to carry the trees on their shoulders. Depending on the weight of the trees, three or four man would pick up a tree and begin carrying it. Then when we were on our way to carry the tree from the square to the place all the way down the road where we were supposed to dump it, the soldiers or other camp staff, would strike and beat one or two prisoners away from the group that carried the tree, so that the remaining two would have to carry the tree all the way down the road, which was virtually impossible.

After we had delivered the tree, on the way back, we had to run. If we slowed down at all, the soldiers hit us as hard as they could, wherever they could with their with their clubs, back of the rifles, whips, or they set the dogs loose on us.

The whole thing lasted without a break from 7 am to 4 pm.

A large number of prisoners died through the exhaustion or torture and an even larger number was in very bad shape after this day. The bodies of the victims had to be carried back to the camp by the other prisoners on wheelbarrows or just by lifting them up amongst them. The total number of deaths of this Sunday was about 250 prisoners.

Personally I was OK, besides receiving numerous kicks and punches, and hits with clubs and the back of rifles and so forth.

Because the crematorium was not working yet, the bodies of the victims could not be processed quickly and that’s why the bodies were stacked everywhere there was room, also in the sick ward. When one day I had received permission from a camp commander to visit a friend in the sick ward, and entered the building, I accidentally opened the wrong door, and found myself in a room where I saw a large number of naked human bodies stacked on top of each other.

During the first two winter months in 1943 the situation in Vught was deplorable. Nothing functioned normally. There was a lack of sufficient barracks, beds, hay bags, blankets, medication, bandages, cooking utensils, and no drinking water. The food could not be cooked, due to a lack of pans and because there weren’t enough…. the food could not arrive on time in the barrack. Afterwards these things were supplied from Amersfoort. Repeatedly there was not food for us at all.

We slept with three or four men on two single beds, pushed together, naked with very few, thin blankets. In the beginning we were clothed in the old uniforms for the Dutch Army, which we received in Amersfoort. From this several still had a coat. However on a cold night mid February 1943 we had to take off all our clothes and hand them over. Then we received nothing but one pair of pants, one shirt and a hat, of striped fabric, also called a Sing-Sing outfit.

Everything was of course far too big on us over our naked bodies. Many who tied a rope around their middle to get the fabric closer to their bodies, received hard and repeated beatings. In the morning at 6 am, while the temperatures were far below freezing, that is how you stood on the head count square. Some prisoners ( I among them) were ‘rich’ if they had found an empty cement bag and after creating the necessary holes could wear it as an undergarment. If you wore this garment and the camp police found out, you received at least 25 beatings with the club.

The change of clothing was supposedly happening to delouse us, however we never saw our original garments back. From top to bottom we were covered by lice. Soap and towels were not available so there was nothing we could do to delouse us ourselves, except for delousing each other.

Many prisoners, including myself, suffered from open wounds on our bodies, especially on arms and legs. The vermin around the camp especially liked these places on our bodies. In those days you were lucky if you could get a fresh bandage once week at the sick ward. This bandage was nothing more than toilet paper. When you were ‘bandaged’ with this material, you could throw it away an hour later, it did nothing to protect the wound and consequently many prisoners suffered from severe wound infections. Many were suffering from dysentery and because there were no medications there was nothing to stop it.

There was also a lack of drinking water. Around the taps and sinks in the camp the commanders had written with red markers that it was forbidden to drink the water from the tap. However, since we still needed fluids, we still drank it, and also tried to do whatever we could to get fluids, for example from the ditch that was dug by the prisoners on the edge of the camp. Personally I witnessed how a prisoner asked the nearest soldier if he could drink from the ditch and after the soldier gave permission, the prisoner went to the ditch. When he was on his knees in front of the ditch to drink, another soldier shot and killed him for an attempt escape the camp. This resulted in a bonus for the soldier who shot him, who received a financial reward and four days vacation.

In the morning, during head count, a number of a prisoner would be called, and the person with this number would be released from the camp. After repeatedly calling out the number, nobody stepped forward and nobody asked about it. After about three weeks a prisoner died in the sick ward who had the number that had been called out three weeks prior for release at the head count square. If the camp commanders had taken the effort to explore where this prisoner was, this prisoner would most likely still have been alive today. I believe his name was Jan Lind from Doesburg, about 20 to 22 years old.

The head counts lasted a terribly long time. What was horrible too is that the bodies of the prisoners who had passed away also had to be at the head count. In the mornings the head counts had to be the same as the previous evening counts. So if 25 men had died during the night, all those 25 bodies had to be stacked onto the headcount square. The transport occurred by wheelbarrows or carried by the prisoners. Afterward the bodies were brought to the sick ward, and there, after being undressed were transported with 5 or 10 bodies stacked on top of each other, to the crematorium. Several times I noticed how during this transport one or two bodies fell off the hand cart which was awful to watch.

The chimney would smoke and the camp guard Jupo and his helpers would get very drunk afterward, because for this work they would get extra brandywine and food. All these facts happened under command of Schmilewoki and hauptscharfuher Franz Ettlinger.

This last one was even meaner than the commander himself. He did everything he could to make the life of the prisoners as miserable as possible; he crawled through the buildings and behind trees, to startle us, beat us and note numbers of prisoners who he thought were not working hard enough. Then, at night, during head count, these numbers would be called for punishment. This would be a large number of lashings with a stick on their naked bodies, in front of the other prisoners. Also the dogs were a favorite play toy of Ettlinger, and he used them often to torture the prisoners.

I was in Vught the beginning of 1943 in block 16, with capo’s Ernst Schneider, capo nr 4057 and Oswald Unverdorben, capo nr 4028.

Especially the last one was a devil, who one moment could be calm, and then the next completely insane. Repeatedly he assaulted the prisoners while they were sleeping. Completely naked we had to come to him through the below freezing temperatures, without shoes, for inspection, even though nobody had soap or a towel.

Then we would be beaten toward the washroom, and together with about 200 men, we had about 30 taps, so washing was impossible. In the mean time the guards beat us left and right on our naked bodies as hard as they could, wherever they could strike us. If they got tired, they drove us back to the barracks, only to drive us out of the barracks half an hour later to play the game again.

People who were dying, or sick, or suffered from dysentery, were not allowed to enter the sleeping barracks, and had to spend the night in the washroom, because they might defile the mattresses. In the washroom, they were laying on the stone cold floor without a blanket or mattress. Many died this way.

For every 200 prisoners there were five toilets, with one toilet being reserved for the guard, so there was always a long line to find a place to relieve yourself, and toilets were shared by three prisoners at the same time. That didn’t happen because we liked it, but out of sheer necessity, yet Oswald Unverdorben loved to beat the group apart with his club when this happened.

Repeatedly I have seen him give prisoners 25 or more hits with the club on their naked backs or buttocks, or on their heads, until the blood ran out of their nose and ears. In March 1943, when prisoners could receive a package from family, he stole everything from those packages that was even remotely interesting, so he could create a nice dinner for himself every day, while his prisoners perished. He was a sadist!

Above statements are a reflection of the truth. Signed Arnhem, December 5th, 1947, FAE RAVESLOOT.

Above statement  on request of the Directorial Generaal voor Byzondere Rechtspleging, Sub Commissie Opsporing Oorlogs Misdryven te s’Hertogenbosch.  (War Crime Court)

My grandmother Hendrika Ravesloot-Wijlhuizen repeatedly tried to get her husband released from the camps. From what I have heard is that she finally found an official with connections who was willing to pull strings to get him out. This worked, and my grandfather returned home, only to find that his home (Mesdaglaan 39, Arnhem) was taken by German soldiers. Together with their daughter Lous my grandfather and grandmother lived on my grandmothers family’s farm for the last two years of the war. You can visit this farm, it is a guesthouse now. During this time my grandmother got pregnant with my father, also called Felix, who was born just before the end of the second world war. After the war my grandfather received certificates of appreciation from both Eisenhower and the British armed forces for his help given to the British pilots which enabled them to escape. While my grandfather never fully returned to complete physical health after his experiences in the prison camps, he remained mentally very strong, and was an amiable man who was always full of laughter and jokes. Due to his physical toll of the concentration camp experiences, he passed away on Christmas eve 1974, when he was just 59 years old.

May we never forget, and continue to work together across cultural, religious, national, political divides to create societies in which we all thrive and prosper for centuries to come. 

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