Deported Jews (in numbers)

During the German occupation, about 107,000 Dutch Jews and Jewish refugees were deported. The Germans used camp Westerbork in the province of Drenthe as a transit camp. This camp had been constructed in 1939 as the Central Refugee Camp for Jews who had fled Germany. In 1942, it became a Durchgangslager, a temporary residence for Jews living in the Netherlands. 245 Sinti and Roma were also deported from Westerbork to concentration and extermination camps abroad. Almost every week, trains left the camp for the east; 93 transports in total. Only about 5,000 to 5,500 Jewish deportees survived the war.

The website of Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre gives the following figures for deportations from the camp:

More than 60,000 people were deported to Auschwitz, less than 900 of whom survived. 34,313 people were deported to Sobibor, of whom only 18 survived. Almost 5,000 Jews were deported to Theresienstadt; 3,000 of them were later sent on to Auschwitz. Nearly all of them were killed. More than 175 Dutch Jews died in the ghetto of Theresienstadt. Of the 3,751 people deported to Bergen-Belsen, approximately 2,000 survived. Some Jews were deported from Westerbork to other German camps, but their numbers were much smaller. According to the Memorial Centre, only about 5,000 Jews deported from Westerbork returned after the war.

In Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (‘The Kingdom of the Netherlands During the Second World War’), vol. 8, p. 708, Dr. L. de Jong lists the following figures for the deported Jews and the survivors:

From the Netherlands to Mauthausen (1941 and 1942): about 1,750 deportees, 1 survivor
From the Netherlands to other concentration camps in Germany (1940-1942): about 100 (?) deportees, ? survivors
From German prisons to German concentration camps (1940-1942): about 100 (?) deportees, ? survivors
From Belgium and France to Auschwitz (1942-1944): about 2,000 (?) deportees, about 100 (?) survivors
From Westerbork to Kosel (28 Aug - 8 Dec 1942): about 3,450 deportees, 181 survivors
From Westerbork and Apeldoorn to Auschwitz (15 Jul 1942 - 23 Feb 1942): 42,945 deportees, 84 survivors
From Westerbork to Sobibor (March-July 1943): 34,313 deportees, 19 survivors
From Westerbork to Auschwitz (24 Aug 1943 - 3 Sept 1944): 11,985 deportees, 588 survivors
From Vught to Auschwitz (15 Nov 1943, 3 Jun 1944): 1,646 deportees, 198 survivors
From Amsterdam and Westerbork to Theresienstadt (1943-1944): 4,894 deportees, about 1,980 survivors
From Westerbork to Buchenwald and Ravensbrück (Oct. 1943): 150 deportees, ? survivors
From Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen (1944): 3,751 deportees, about 2,050 survivors

According to De Jong, there were a little over 5,200 survivors.

According to Bert Jan Flim, approximately 5,500 people returned: about 5,400 returnees who had been deported from the Netherlands and about 100 returnees who had been deported from abroad (source: Jozeph Michman and Bert Jan Flim (ed.), Rechtvaardigen onder de Volkeren; Nederlanders met een Yad Vashem-onderscheiding voor hulp aan joden (‘Righteous Among the Nations; Dutchmen with a Yad Vashem award for helping Jews’), Amsterdam/Antwerp 2005, p. 30).

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