A neatly maintained white facade on a neatly maintained avenue: when you walk down the Grote Looiersstraat in the centre of Maastricht, there is no sign of what happened at number 17 eighty years ago. The building that is now a quiet workplace for employees of the Inner City University Library used to house political prisoners: Maastricht men thought to have been on the wrong side during the occupation, and women suspected of having fraternised with German soldiers – ‘moffenmeiden’, as they were known.
"The arrests weren't always justified: for example, a woman who had just given directions to a German, or one neighbour maliciously accusing another because of an argument
After the city was liberated on 14 September 1944, they were arrested in large numbers. Hundreds on the first day alone, says researcher Erik van Rijsselt, who has been looking at police archives from the time. “Those arrests were often justified,” he has concluded. “But not always: for example, a woman who had just given directions to a German soldier, or one neighbour maliciously accusing another because of an argument.”
Justified or not, they were transported in open-topped lorries to the police station on the Vrijthof – now a theatre. The atmosphere was grim. “They were spat on and taunted. The women had their heads shaved, sometimes fully, sometimes in the shape of a swastika. We suspect that the Military Authority at the time encouraged it as a way of preventing worse abuse. A kangaroo court? People were taking out their rage at the occupation on these people. Yes, definitely. It was chaos.”
"Incredibly primitive"
That chaos soon led to the question of where you even leave all those prisoners. The police station was too small to contain the constant stream of arrests, as was the prison on the Minderbroedersberg, next to what is now Maastricht University’s administration building. So, in October 1944, the first prisoners arrived at Grote Looiersstraat 17, a former military barracks which stood empty. ‘Camp De Grote Looier’ was born, in a building that Van Rijsselt considers entirely inadequate: “It was run down, had no toilets, and there were only twelve taps where the men – and only the men – could wash themselves, as they were all in the male section; the women had to make do with the pots and pans they also had to use to cook their food. People also had to sleep on the ground. It was all incredibly primitive.”
And overcrowded: there was room for 700 people, but it housed up to 1400. Those people suffered from more than just the conditions; there were also the guards. Some were corrupt, misappropriating food packages, for example, others couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. Chaplains and the camp doctor sounded the alarm about the abuse. One of them described the infamous punishment known as ‘the record player’, in which a prisoner was forced to walk in circles while keeping one finger on the ground: “This is apparently an extraordinarily effective way to drive someone mad, and as such is also banned in German concentration camps. It was used here repeatedly.” Prisoners were also forced to beat each other: “If they don’t beat each other hard enough, the guards take over.”
"At a certain point, you surely have to think: what they did was wrong, but what we're doing is also bad"
Those in charge were not happy with the criticism; letters and reports were kept hidden. Until that was no longer possible: in early March 1945, lawyer Charles van Oppen published an article about the abuse in the local newspaper Veritas. “Dachau in Maastricht?”, read the headline of an article that did not beat about the bush. An investigation followed and slowly, the conditions improved, until the last political prisoner walked out of De Grote Looier in 1951.
Looking back at what took place there, Van Rijsselt shakes his head: “I think – much like Van Oppen did – that there were a lot of people who, given the lack of severity of their crimes, didn’t belong there. And the corruption and abuse was shocking. Of course there were people who had truly done wrong, but at a certain point, you surely have to think: what they did was wrong, but what we’re doing is also bad. Unfortunately, I found precious little evidence of that realisation in my research. Sometimes I feel ashamed when I see what happened in the city at that time.”