Camp Westerbork is asking for government support due to financial problems

Camp Westerbork Memorial Center is in financial trouble and urgently needs help. That’s what director Bertien Minco says. Together with a survivor of the camp and someone related to him, Minco is today presenting a petition in The Hague with a request for additional support from the government.

The problems are not due to disappointing visitor numbers, because they are actually increasing. Last year, 130,000 people visited the former transit camp in Drenthe.

During World War II, more than 100,000 Jews and 250 Sinti and Roma were sent by train to Nazi extermination and concentration camps through Camp Westerbork. Only 5,000 Jews and 32 Roma survived the war.

According to Minco, the memorial center will not last “much longer”. Camp Westerbork is not yet in the red, but there is no buffer, says Minco. If there is a problem such as a broken heating system, the memory center immediately goes into negative mode.

The financial shortfall is largely due to higher costs, including energy and salaries. “All the costs have increased a lot, but they are hardly compensated by our subsidies. So we have a big problem,” said the director in return for RTV Drenthe. The old building is also suffering from delayed maintenance.

In addition, the government plans to increase the VAT tax in the cultural sector. The memorial center is included and this means that entry tickets will become more expensive. The group will also receive a fifteen percent cut in government subsidies, the director says. Minco: “Just add it: then you have a quarter of your income that you lose. That is impossible for us.”

Minco says other institutions will get much more money. “We get about ten percent of what the Drents Museum or the Jewish Cultural Quarter gets. That has been a crack in our side for years.”

Approximately 35,000 students visit the memorial each year. The center itself largely pays for these visits. According to Minco, many schools have to be rejected now because there is no more money to hire additional staff, and the educational work of the group is important, Minco says.

The memorial is hoping for both a structural solution from the government and a one-off grant for renovations to make the memorial future-proof.