Breendonk prison

Vaulted arches support open prison gates, with two armed men sitting on a bench at the end of the corridor. Built in 1906 along the ancient highway from Brussels to Antwerp, Fort Breendonk first resisted the German army in the First World War. During the Second World War, Breendonk was used as a military transfer facility by the German occupation administration for prisoners of war. Prisoners were detained here before being transferred to Germany. The accommodation and food rations, punishment and torture regime, and forced labour were so harsh few prisoners left the camp alive. Those who did were in such poor physical condition that they died shortly afterward. By the time Allied troops arrived on 3 September 1944 the camp was empty, having been evacuated four months earlier.