Fort Breendonk in Willebroek, Belgium

Most Popular PlacesRandom PlaceListsItinerariesAdd a PlaceDownload the App Fort Breendonk Pinkie the Pink Elephant Tomb of Mem de Sá Round Barn Capital of the World The Best Haunted Hotels to Book for a Spooky Getaway 7 days ago Is Alton, Illinois America’s Most Haunted Small Town? 11 days ago 14 Real Places That Haunt the Pages of Literature 13 days ago Walk through a well-preserved World War II Nazi prison and transit camp. The entrance of the eerie prison camp. Claire043 / Atlas Obscura User One of the many long and creepy halls Claire043 / Atlas Obscura User The barbed wire leading towards the main part of the fort Claire043 / Atlas Obscura User The torture room that certainly leaves quite an impression of how it was Claire043 / Atlas Obscura User The entrance of the eerie prison camp.

Claire043 / Atlas Obscura User The entrance of the eerie prison camp. It was originally built between 1906 and 1913 and has been used in both World War I and World War II. It was used as a prison camp for the detention of political prisoners, resistance members, and Jews.

It became known for the poor living conditions rather than the many deaths. The camp had more SS guards than prisoners, which meant they were constantly watched. Many prisoners were transported to larger concentration camps in Europe.

The fort has held 3,590 prisoners, 303 of whom died in the camp,1,741 passed away in other camps before the end of the war. The camp was eventually evacuated by September 1944, by the Allies of World War II. Prisoners were tortured badly, apart from the obvious beating they'd get, they would be thrown into the water that surrounds the fort, buried up to their head into the soil and get mud thrown at their face and into their mouths if they cried out.

The doors of the torture room would stay open at night so that the prisoners could hear everything that happened in there, they couldn't sleep from the crying aloud.Deaths were always registered as heart failure or simply old age but there's been countless ways in the fort that the guards have used to brutally murder the inmates. For example, the camp commander, Philipp Schmitt, would let his German Shepherd dog, named Lump, run around the camp and set it loose on the inmates. One of them has been known to bleed to death after being bitten 14 times by Schmitt's dog.

It's a maze of halls and rooms that you'll walk around, you can visit multiple rooms like the torture room, showers and multiple barracks. There's loads of information everywhere and an audio-tour which gives an impression of daily life for the prisoners back then. Get more unusual and extraordinary places each week with the Atlas Obscura Places newsletter.