Herinneringsroute Atlantikwall Den Haag
Prison and deportation centre
Not only criminals were in Scheveningen prison during World War II, people who had resisted the occupying German forces in whatever way were interned there too. They stayed in the Oranjehotel, as the prison became known colloquially, for as long as the trials and legal proceedings lasted.
Afterwards, depending on the outcome of the proceedings, they were released, transferred to a different prison or concentration camp, or executed on Waalsdorpervlakte. There were usually 1,200 to 1,500 people imprisoned in the Oranjehotel at any one time. That amounted to about 25,000 in total throughout the whole war. Precise details are lacking, because the Germans destroyed the prison administration records at the end of the war.
Prisoners who were sentenced to death usually spent their last night in an execution cell. They were collected early in the morning and taken, via the gate in the outer wall, to a waiting truck which took them to Waalsdorpervlakte. There, bronze crosses pay tribute to the place where a total of 215 prisoners were executed.
Pictured
