"Black pages in Ommen's history" Ommen Local Custom Tip by Pavlik_NL

In world war II Ommen had one of the worst places in the Netherlands. Here was a (straf lager) punishment camp of the German SS, that however was manned by mainly Dutch collaborating NSB and SS agents. Arbeitslager Erika was the name and sounded quite positive, however things that were going on here couldn't stand daylight and great horrors were done in this place to Dutch people that were arrested by the Nazi regime. In small barracks 60 people were put and slept in hanging mats, three over one another. During the day people worked hard labour and were constantly brutalised by the sadistic camp guards. Many died under these circumstances. Let us never forget or fall in the same mistakes that were made then by not acting against these terrible acts.