Mechelen Transit Camp - Location

Location

In the summer of 1942, the Nazis made preparations to deport the Jews of the occupier's concept of Belgium, of which about 90 percent lived in the north near Antwerp or centrally at Brussels. Halfway these cities is Mechelen, a city with a major railway hub that ensured easy transport, also for eastern destinations. A track that connected a local freight dock ran along the River Dijle bypass at the inner city's ring road, where the rails passed the iron-barred small windows in military barracks of the Lt. Gen. Baron Dossin de Saint-Georges Casern. The Germans found this location with minor adaptions required ideal for a transit camp in their Endlösung programme.