Please note: This tour is only available in Dutch.
The ‘Traces of the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen’ tour will take you to 11 locations linked to the history of deportations. The Dossin Barracks were used as an assembly camp during World War II. Despite the fact that the camp was closed off from the outside world, the Nazis nevertheless made use of a number of institutions in Mechelen. For example, they allowed heavily pregnant women to give birth in the ‘old maternity home’, sick prisoners were taken to the ‘Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Gasthuis’ (Our Lady’s Hospital) and a number of young children were accommodated in the crèche at De Noker. The tour also takes you past several locations where Jewish residents of Mechelen used to live.
All you need to do is download this app (available on both Android and iOS).
Their fate hung by a thread, e.g. one Jewish couple who lived just a few hundred metres from the Dossin Barracks managed to elude destiny.
Dorien Styven, archivist, who helped develop the tour