Bunker Tragedy
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The incident known as the "Bunker Tragedy" or the "Bunker Drama" was an atrocity committed by the staff at the Kamp Vught concentration camp in the Netherlands as a reprisal for the actions of a group of female political prisoners. The prisoners had earlier punished a prison informer named Jedzini, whom they saw as a traitor, by cutting off her hair and threatening her. Jedzini then ran to SS Oberaufseherin Margarete Gallinat and complained about the abuse and threats.
On January 13, 1944, at 11 p.m., about 115 women were called out of barrack 23B by female guard Suze Arts. The women were in a happy mood, joking and laughing along the way through the camp. Aufseherin Suze then turned to them and said with a smirk, "This day will live forever with you. The laughter will soon pass."
The women were then marched to the back of the camp and into the "bunker" where commandant "Greinwald" and camp leader Arnold Strippel were waiting. The two men and the female guard then pushed the eighty-nine women into a room 9.5 square meters. The other seventeen girls were put into a room even smaller. In the bunker cells the women fought to stay alive. Intolerable heat caused the women to become dehydrated, so they began licking the walls. Recently the walls in the bunker had been repainted and contained nitric acid which caused burns on the women's lips. The women did all they could to stay alive in the crowded cells. They slept where they stood, since they did not even have enough room to sit down. On January 16, 1944 at 8:00 p.m. the doors were finally opened by Aufseherin Katja Schot. The chief wardress, Margarete Gallinat was surprised to find the bodies of ten women who had died during the three day ordeal. The female guards then dragged the survivors and dead out.
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