Head above the parapet

I don't normally post photos. I thought I'd give it a go.
These are a couple I took today when I visited Kamp Amersfoort, a WW2 punishment and transport camp. There is not a lot of it left, but there are the souls of thousands, Jews, Sinti, Dutch and Russian watching your every move there.

[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/Bargwynbu/Kamp%20Amersfoort%20November%202012/KampAmersfoort14.jpg[/IMG]

Spotlight on the watchtower


[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/Bargwynbu/Kamp%20Amersfoort%20November%202012/KampAmersfoort1.jpg[/IMG]

Not a nice path through the woods but the shooting range, dug by the prisoners and where a good number also met their end.


[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/Bargwynbu/Kamp%20Amersfoort%20November%202012/KampAmersfoort7.jpg[/IMG]

At the end of the range the Prisoner before the Firing squad, or the stone man as he is more commonly called. Sculpted by a camp survivor from a single piece of stone.
He is wearing clogs, as all the prisoners had too. No socks, just wooden clogs, all day, every day.


[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/Bargwynbu/Kamp%20Amersfoort%20November%202012/KampAmersfoort8.jpg[/IMG]

A close up of him.


[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/Bargwynbu/Kamp%20Amersfoort%20November%202012/KampAmersfoort22.jpg[/IMG]
The remains of a punishment cell. Those are 30x30cm tiles so you can work out how small the cell was (1m20x2m40).


[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/Bargwynbu/Kamp%20Amersfoort%20November%202012/KampAmersfoort11.jpg[/IMG]

Close up of the Rose Garden. This sculpture is in memory of the original rose garden - an area fenced in by barbed wire, surrounded by guards, and with sand on the floor. Prisoners were forced to stand still for hours, and even days in there. If they moved they were punished - beaten and made to stand again. The sand was swept around them so it was clear if they had moved. The prisoners visualised the barbs as rose thorns hence the name.


You can read more about the Kamp here

All photos taken with the K-5 and either the Pentax 17-70 or the Pentax 50-135*.

Be gentle with me .

Very Moving. The spot light, the close up and the barbed wire do it for me

Nice shots - chilling subject though

A very grim reminder of man's inhumanity towards each other!

May the souls of the departed rest in peace.



Have we forgotten yet............?




R.

I never realised there was such a memorial in NL...

Very moving pictures of such a sad place.

There seems to be quite a lot of PF on the shot of the
cell, but the sky is quite bright on that one.

-

There, but for time and place, go you or I

Bernard

Thanks for the comments.

It was a very moving experience. As I said, there is not a lot of it left, but the atmosphere gets to you after a very short time.

There are two other concentration camps in the Netherlands, and I am considering visiting them too, though I think for those I'll wait until my husband can go with me, so I have someone to talk to about it all.

Algi - yes I noticed the PF on the cell photo. The sky was very bright and the lighting tricky, but I don't have the necessary skills to reduce it by processing. It was a bit of a grab shot anyway as a party of secondary school kids were about to continue their tour of the camp there.

I'm planning on going back again another day, and also on going to the nearby cemetery which has the Russian field of honour, with the graves of all the Russian soldiers who died in the Netherlands - a good number of them at Kamp Amersfoort, plus Commonwealth War Graves.

I wouldn't bother too much about the PF. Some programs
have a facility to remove it automatically, but often
don't do a very good job.

-

Very pleased you decided to post these Gwyn. As the others say, very moving set of images - I really appreciate seeing them.

Photographically , you've captured a variety of images with different styles that together tell a clear, if grim, story. I keep going back to the first one...

As has been said above, these are very moving. For me, the first one is the best from a photographic point of view, but the others are powerful storytellers. Thanks for sharing them.

Regards
David

Thanks for posting these, makes you step back and realise how lucky you are

Very thought provoking. Thanks for sharing Gwyn

A deeply moving set. Thank you for sharing!

Best regards
Bjørn