The Prisoners of Breendonk: Personal Histories from a World War II Concentration Camp (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780358240280)

Fort Breendonk was built in the early 1900s to protect Antwerp, Belgium, from possible German invasion. Damaged at the start of World War I, it fell into disrepair . . . until the Nazis took it over after their invasion of Belgium in 1940. Never designated an official concentration camp by the SS and instead labeled a "reception" camp where prisoners were held until they were either released or transported, Breendonk was no less brutal. About 3,600 prisoners were held there--just over half of them survived. As one prisoner put it, "I would prefer to spend nineteen months at Buchenwald than nineteen days at Breendonk."

With access to the camp and its archives and with rare photos and artwork, James M. Deem pieces together the story of the camp by telling the stories of its victims--Jews, communists, resistance fighters, and common criminals--for the first time in an English-language publication. Leon Nolis's haunting photography of the camp today accompanies the wide range of archival images.

The story of Breendonk is one you will never forget.

Author: James M. Deem
ISBN-10: 035824028X
ISBN-13: 9780358240280
Publisher: Mariner Books
Language: English
Published: 08/25/2020
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.70d

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 8.3
Point Value: 10
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 175218 / Prisoners of Breendonk: Personal Histories from a World War II Concentration Camp