{{Short description|WWII Nazi concentration camp atrocity}} thumb|Replica of cell 115 thumb|''Kamp Vught'', site of the Bunker Tragedy
The '''Bunker Tragedy''' was an atrocity in January 1944 during World War II that resulted in the death of ten prisoners, an act committed by the staff at the Herzogenbusch concentration camp (also known as ''Kamp Vught'') in the Netherlands. The camp was operated by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. The ten victims were among 749 men, women and children who ultimately died at the camp.
==Events== In January 1944, a German woman who had been sent to Kamp Vught for insulting Hitler, sought to have her sentence cut short by reporting on other prisoners. When the other prisoners found out about the betrayal, one of the inmates retaliated against her by cutting off a hair braid. The inmate who retaliated against the German was reported to the commandant, who had her placed in a bunker. The other inmates staged a protest, with 91 signing a letter criticizing the action.<ref name=USHMM/><ref>[https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/kamp-vught Kamp Vught], Normandy1944.info. Accessed April 26, 2026.</ref> On January 15, as suggested by Hermann Wicklein, the camp commandant Adam Grünewald had a total of 74 women confined into cell 115, which covered {{Convert|9|m2}} and had inadequate ventilation; another 17 of the protesting inmates were placed in a separate cell in the bunker. Kept in the cramped cell for 14 hours, ten of the women died after suffocating, only to be discovered after the cell was opened the next morning.<ref name=SuzeArts>[https://dirkdeklein.net/2024/06/28/suze-arts-dutch-female-ss-guard/ "Suze Arts—Dutch Female SS Guard"], History of Sorts, June 28, 2024. Accessed April 26, 2026.</ref><ref>[https://www.nmkampvught.nl/ontdekken/het-verhaal/tijdens-de-oorlog/winter-1944-geweld-en-veerkracht/ Winter 1944; Violence and Resistance], Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught. Accessed April 26, 2026.</ref>
The Nazi occupying power reacted after details of the incident spread outside the camp and was written about in resistance newspapers. Commandant Grünewald and Wicklein were both court-martialed for excessive cruelty and were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to serve time in prison. Grünewald was sentenced to 3.5 years and Wicklein was sentenced to six months, though both were granted pardons after serving a month in prison.<ref name=USHMM>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/herzogenbusch-main-camp-vught "Herzogenbusch Main Camp (Vught)"], United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed April 26, 2026.</ref> Grünewald was then demoted and ordered to fight on the Eastern front, where he was killed in combat in January 1945.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Grünewald, Adam. |url=https://ww2gravestone.com/people/grunewald-adam/ |access-date=2022-10-01 |website=WW2 Gravestone |language=en-US}}</ref>
{{ill|Tineke Wibaut|nl|Tineke Wibaut-Guilonard}}, a member of the Dutch resistance who had been imprisoned after aiding Jews escape the Nazis, was one of the 74 women in bunker 115.<ref>[https://www.liberationroute.com/en/stories/297/tineke-wibaut-guilonard Tineke Wibaut-Guilonard], Liberation Route Europe. Accessed April 26, 2026. "Following in the footsteps of her father, Tineke came into resistance against the Nazis when her Jewish fellow students had to leave the Amsterdams Lyceum in 1941. She and her classmates arranged hiding places, ration cards and fake identity cards. Not much later she joined the armed resistance under her pseudonym Thea Beerens. After she was betrayed in September 1943, Tineke ended up in Camp Vught on 2 January 1944. Less than two weeks after her arrival, she lived through the so-called 'bunker tragedy', one of the darkest pages in the history of Camp Vught. Tineke was one of the 90 women who declared their solidarity with a fellow prisoner. As a consequence, 74 women, including Tineke, were locked up in cell 115, and seventeen women in cell 117. In Tineke’s cell, no less than ten women died."</ref> She wrote:
<blockquote>"When the lights went off, a great panic rose among the women. It was a strange swelling sound, which sometimes would diminish, but soon swell up again. It was caused by praying, screaming and yelling women. Some tried to yell over it to calm the women down, so they could save oxygen. Sometimes it would help a bit, but then it would start again. It would not stop, it continued the whole night. It diminished, though, because the heat was suffocating."<ref name=SuzeArts/></blockquote>
Suze Arts, a guard at the camp who rounded up the women that were crammed into the bunker, was dismissed from her position at the camp. After the war, she was put on trial for her role in the incident and sentenced to 15 years in prison.<ref name=SuzeArts/>
This event is being remembered annually in closed circle.<ref name=ref1>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nmkampvught.nl/|title=Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught | HERDENKEN IS NADENKEN|accessdate=October 1, 2019}}</ref>
==See also== *Black Hole of Calcutta *Nazi concentration camps
==Sources and notes== {{Reflist}}
{{coord missing|Netherlands}} Category:Massacres committed by Nazi Germany Category:The Holocaust in the Netherlands Category:Massacres in the Netherlands Category:Massacres in 1944 Category:War crimes in the Netherlands Category:January 1944 in Europe Category:1944 in the Netherlands Category:Massacres of women Category:Violence against women in the Netherlands Category:Events that led to courts-martial Category:Crowd collapses and crushes in Europe Category:1944 murders in Europe
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