Pastime 10 — Vught: Occupation, Persecution, Memory

After travelling through centuries of Dutch history, Pastime reaches the 20th century — and the end of its first season.

We have followed the Netherlands through prehistoric traces, roman settlements, medieval towns, religious conflict, trade, political change, industrialisation and experiments in building a new society.

For our final chapter, we turn to one of the darkest periods in the country’s modern history:
the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War.

And for that, we are going to Vught.

Kamp Vught

Hidden among the woods of the Vughtse Heide stood Kamp Vught — officially Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch.

Built in 1942 and opened in January 1943, it was the only SS concentration camp in the Netherlands, and the only SS concentration camp established outside Nazi Germany and territories formally annexed by Nazi Germany.

More than 32,000 men, women and children passed through the camp between January 1943 and September 1944.

They included Jewish prisoners, political prisoners, members of the resistance, hostages, Jehovah’s Witnesses and many others persecuted or imprisoned by the Nazi regime. More than 12,000 Jewish prisoners were transported from Vught through Westerbork towards the extermination camps in occupied Poland.

For this final Pastime, we’ll walk through the Vughtse Heide and the landscape surrounding the former camp, looking for the physical traces that remain and reconstructing the history of occupation, persecution and imprisonment in the Netherlands.

The landscape today is quiet: woodland, sandy paths and open heath.

That contrast is precisely part of the experience.

A watchtower appearing through the trees, the former camp boundaries, memorial sites and surviving structures make visible a history that can otherwise feel increasingly distant.

Why remember this place?

Pastime has always been about more than simply visiting historical locations.

The idea of the series has been to understand how the Netherlands became the country it is today by physically moving through different chapters of its history.

That makes Vught an unavoidable final chapter.

The German occupation brought the systematic removal of freedoms, persecution of Jewish people and other groups, forced labour, imprisonment, deportation and murder.

And the history of Kamp Vught also forces us to consider something Pastime has encountered repeatedly throughout the season: what institutions can become when political systems decide that some people no longer belong within society.

This will therefore be a quieter and more reflective event than most of our Pastime walks.

🍽️ Afterwards: Boerderij De Loonsebaan

After the walk, we’ll continue to Boerderij De Loonsebaan, on the edge of the Vughtse Heide.

It’s a relaxed farmhouse restaurant where we can sit down together afterwards for a drink, coffee or something to eat.

As always, staying afterwards is completely optional and everyone pays individually.

Practical information

We meet at 13:15 at the Martinilaan bus stop in Vught.

This is primarily an outdoor walking event, partly through woodland and sandy paths, so please wear suitable shoes and dress for late-November weather.

The exact route will remain a surprise.

The end of Pastime: Season One

This is the final event of the first season of Pastime.

Over the course of the season, we have used places across the Netherlands to travel through its history chronologically — not simply asking what happened here?, but using each place to understand what was happening in the country at that particular moment in time.

From the distant past to the 20th century.

And finally, to Vught.

A difficult place to finish.

But an important one.

Pastime will return next year with a new season and a new historical theme.

The journey through Dutch history may be ending here, but the series itself is not.