History of Sorts

She was a maid and came from an NSB family. At the age of 18, she started working as a guard in Camp Vught. She was involved in the Bunker drama that took place on the night of 15 to 16 January 1944. From the end of 1944 to March 1945 she worked as a security guard in Ravensbrück.

Katja Schot was notorious in the camp Vught. She taunted, kicked, humiliated, abused and beat the inmates. In 1947 she was sentenced by the Special Court in Den Bosch to twenty years in prison for her crimes, after two granted requests for clemency, she was given nine years. Katja Schot was called “an animal creature” by the prosecutor at the hearing

Katja Schot never expressed regret and married a former SS man.

The Bunker drama was an atrocity committed by the staff at the Herzogenbusch concentration camp (also known as Kamp Vught) in the Netherlands, on January 15 1944.

Right before the Bunker tragedy a quarrel took place at the female department of the camp. One of the female prisoners in barrack 23 was blamed by other women for betrayal, and finally, they cut her hair to punish her. The next day the main culprit was locked up by the camp leadership in a cell in the camp prison, the Bunker. She refused to tell the names of the other women who were involved in the quarrel. The women of the 23rd barrack decided to declare their solidarity with her and all declared guilty in expectation to lighten the punishment of their detained fellow prisoner. That was a fatal miscalculation because Grünewald took the women’s solidarity action as mutiny and decided to take very hard measures. On the 15th of January, he let round up all the women and, under the encouragement of SS-Obersturmführer Hermann Wicklein, lock them in two cells in the Bunker. They crammed 74 women into cell 115, while the remaining 17 were detained in cell 117 nearby. Cell 115, had a floor area of 9m2 and hardly any ventilation.

After 14 hours of confinement, the inmates were released from the cell. Ten women did not survive the night.

Katja Schot was present during the confinement of the prisoners and had to translate camp commander Adam Grünewald’s speech in which he described the accused women of mutiny and told them not to shout and that no window could open. There was so little space left that Schot, had to climb onto a bench to see how much space was left. Schot was also the one who reopened the cell the next morning.

Tineke Wibaut a resistance fighter and survivor testified, “When the lights went out, the panic erupted in full force. Some tried to shout through it to calm down the women and not to waste oxygen. Sometimes that helped, just for a moment, but then it started again. It didn’t stop, not that whole night, it just got less noise. The heat got stifling.”

These are the women who died.

Lena Bagmeijer-Krant
Nelly de Bode
Maartje den Braber
Lamberta Buiteman-Huijsmans
Anna Gooszen
Mina Hartogs-Samson
Johanna van den Hoek
Lammerdina Holst
Antoinette Janssen
Huiberdina Witte-Verhagen

Katja Schot died on 28 January 1996.

sources

https://www.tracesofwar.com/articles/5192/Bunker-tragedy-at-concentration-camp-Vught.htm

https://www.nmkampvught.nl/bunkerdrama/

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/artikel/een-nacht-cel-115-het-bunkerdrama-kamp-vught

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Katja-Schot/03/0004

https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1269422/92481