Two Remaining Kamp Vught Survivors Die, Monument Says
Their deaths remove two of the last living witnesses to the only SS-run camp on Dutch soil, reducing the pool of direct testimony for remembrance.
Overview
- Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught announced this week that Elly Vleeschhouwer-Blocq (101) and Marie Verbraeken-Blommaart (105) have died, with regional outlets reporting the memorial statements.
- Elly Vleeschhouwer-Blocq was among the first prisoners at Kamp Vught; she grew up in a Jewish family in Amsterdam and later said she survived eight concentration camps thanks in part to luck, her husband Wim and work with the Philips-Kommando.
- Marie Verbraeken-Blommaart joined the Zeeland resistance as a courier, was betrayed and detained for months in the seminarie in Haaren before being sent to Kamp Vught in March 1943 and released on 10 May 1943.
- The Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught described Verbraeken-Blommaart as an inspiring ‘woman of resistance’ and mourned the loss of both women as important custodians of the camp’s history.
- With this generation of witnesses shrinking, their deaths heighten the urgency for museums and local groups to preserve survivor testimony and local wartime records for future education.