BACKGROUNDER (June 2023)
The 1946 riot and siege at Camp Duindorp: A new perspective
New information on a 1946 riot and subsequent two-day siege at Camp Duindorp, near The Hague, where thousands of collaborators—many of whom had been members of the Dutch SS—were imprisoned after the Second World War, is provided by Jan Jürgen Petersen, one of the prisoners who lived through these events. The information is presented in a new book about Petersen, A Snake on the Heart – History, Mystery, and Truth: The Entangled Journeys of a Biographer and His Nazi Subject, by Patrick Wolfe.
Petersen described the camp as “a very bad world” due to extreme privation where prisoners ate weeds to supplement their diet. He said the prisoners eventually learned that they should have been receiving considerably more in the way of food, clothing, and other provisions, but these supplies were being “largely stolen by officials” before they got to the prison camps. As time passed, the atmosphere at Camp Duindorp steadily worsened and the prisoners became “more and more full of hatred,” which prompted the “riot situation,” according to Petersen.[1]
“Kamp Duindorp,” a television documentary by Hans Polak, was broadcast on Nederland 3 in 1998. Based largely on the recollections of former guards and prisoners, as well as what children of former prisoners learned from their inquiries about the camp, it confirms, without identifying the riot’s root cause, much of what Petersen said.
Conditions, according to guard I. Schermer, “were harsh.” He said he felt bad for the prison population of about five thousand. The buildings where they lived generally lacked heat, electricity, doors, and windows (meaning there was no glass in the frames). Hay was used in the place of mattresses. Guard C. La Lau, a former soldier with the Dutch army, said prisoners died from lack of food.
According to La Lau, the riot was triggered by unrest in one of the blocks. There was also a fire. Firemen sought access to the camp, but they never got the chance to fight the fire. Nico de Heijer, a former prisoner, said word spread among the inmates to open all the taps and flush all the toilets, reducing water pressure and hampering the firemen’s response. While La Lau said prisoners climbed onto the roof and threw rocks, Schermer described a more serious situation. Prisoners broke into the armory, obtained weapons, and were firing them, which necessitated more guards being called in, he said. It was “a big chaos.” The military was soon called in as well, which caused panic amongst the rioters.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Schermer recalled Mr. Pot, the prison camp’s director, shouting. But he was either ignored or overruled, for there was shooting. Schermer said he shot, too, and that he killed someone.
“There were only a few killed,” he added. “Then it was finished.”
Petersen’s information agrees with Schermer on some points, but not on others. Petersen agreed that the prisoners breached the armory, but he maintained they rendered the weapons inoperable and locked several guards in their own quarters. While he described these steps as precautions, he also noted that many of the prisoners had SS training and “knew how to fight.” Wolfe’s book points out, however, that Petersen was a manipulator and liar and that his statements need to be treated with skepticism.
According to Petersen, the riot and subsequent siege, which began when the military arrived, took place over two days—“the most horrible two days of my life.” He said the camp was surrounded by soldiers and tanks, that machine guns were set up at the end of every street, and that the soldiers used dumdum bullets. One of Petersen’s roommates was killed—his head “just exploded”—when he was raising it above a windowsill to look out a window. The siege ended when the army sent in a team of negotiators. They promised more blankets, better food, and better treatment, provided the prisoners surrendered and went back to work. The prisoners relented. Petersen said they had no choice. Long afterward, he claimed he saw some newspaper articles about the riot and the siege. He said the true story had not been reported.
Petersen had been in the Dutch SS’s Intelligence Service in 1944, and possibly earlier. A former insurance salesman who joined the SS in mid-1940, he returned part-time to the insurance industry in August 1941, possibly as a spy and informer. In January 1943, he further diversified his activities by joining the Schutzgruppe, a semi-military organization attached to the German army that performed rudimentary functions on its behalf.
“By playing a reckless game, namely playing the German authorities against each other,” he wrote in a mid-1951 letter, “I managed to remain free till [early September] 1944” when the Allies were about to enter the Netherlands. In response to this threat, the German occupation officials declared a state of emergency, and Petersen’s Schutzgruppe unit “was placed on stand-by” for active service.
Like Petersen, his younger brothers, Constant Petersen and Wim Kempen, were also imprisoned as collaborators.[2] Wim was married to the daughter of Barend van Leeuwen, a member of the resistance. In October 1946, Van Leeuwen wrote a testimonial letter on Jan Petersen’s behalf. He hoped it would “contribute to [Petersen’s] release.” In the letter, Van Leeuwen “declares that he guarantees the political accuracy of Mr. J. J. Petersen. Mr. J. J. Petersen had knowledge the undersigned worked illegally and hid Jews in his home.”
The story of the three brothers provides a window onto the labyrinthian reality that prevailed during the harrowing, five-year Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. A Snake on the Heart unravels the manipulation and lies that Jan Petersen used to survive the war. As Wolfe notes in the book, Petersen contributed to some of the war’s horrors and mitigated others. To his detriment and that of others, Petersen retained his tendency to manipulate and lie for much of the rest of his life.
A Snake on the Heart, published in March 2023 by Iguana Books of Toronto, is available online in hardcover, paperback, and eBook formats.
For more information: See A Snake on the Heart, Chapter 24 – Duindorp, pp. 336-345, and Chapter 25 – Muiden, p. 347.
- In his 1952 book The Purge of the Quislings: Emergency Justice in the Netherlands, Henry L. Mason writes (54-55, 175) that the corruption problem extended to “some of the P.O.D. [Political Investigative Service, which was later called the Political Investigation Departments (Politieke Recherche Afedlingen or P.R.A.)]. The commission of the Second Chamber which inspected the camps reported that the internees complained above all about irregularities in the pre-trial releases. Those with money and connections seemed to be helped first. Camp officials told the commission that P.O.D. (P.R.A.) investigators had been known to arrange things for ‘money, goods, and even women’…. Several P.O.D. investigators, and even section heads were convicted of corruption and other crimes.” ↑
- Wim Kempen was a younger half-brother to Jan and Constant. ↑