Kamp Amersfoort

"When visitors pass the gate, they reach a desolate, open space that is fenced off by high walls. This spaciousness feels oppressing, in the way the prisoners felt entirely abandoned and detached. The only remaining witnesses are a few trees that were already there during World War II. The open square is also the roof of the new underground museum, which is thrice as large as the information centre.

The museum is a place of mémoir et miroir. Reflecting, remembering and, most importantly, looking ahead. What is the current state of affairs of what transpired here? What do we learn from it?

The visitors escape the darkness and scale into the light by way of stairs. Once outside, they are confronted by a long line of sight along the shooting range to the ‘stone man’, a memorial monument at the execution place on the other side of the forest.

The office of the camp commander, once so distressingly present, has been left as a negative space in the surface pavilion, whose exterior is made of mirrored glass."

Text by INBO