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Belgium · Mechelen

Mechelen concentration camp

Concentration campHigh
Verified
Aging · 4mo ago
Sources last reviewed on

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

For families

How to send mail, money, and visit Mechelen concentration camp

Step-by-step guidance using the Belgium system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

Open toolkit
Photograph of Mechelen concentration camp

Operational period: 1942–ongoing/unknown.

Background

The Mechelen transit camp, officially SS-Sammellager Mecheln (lit. 'SS Assembly Camp Mechelen') in German, also known as the Dossin barracks, was a detention and deportation camp established in a former army barracks at Mechelen in German-occupied Belgium. It served as a point to gather Belgian Jews and Romani ahead of their deportation to concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. The camp was established in March 1942 and was the only transit camp in Belgium. It was managed by the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo-SD), a branch of the Reich Security Main Office, and was used to hold Jews and Romani ahead of their deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau as well as other camps including Heydebreck-Cosel. Between 4 August 1942 and 31 July 1944, 28 trains left from near the camp and deported over 25,800 people.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

84

Current population

—

Occupancy

—

Year opened

1942

Operational

Figures from official sources · verified 16 Jun 2026 · methodology

Facility profile

Operator

Sterkhuis

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

1942

Region

Mechelen

Security level

—

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Notable inmates

Showing 9 of 12. Source: Wikidata + Wikipedia.

Contact & address

48 Hanswijkstraat, Mechelen 2800

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

—
Insufficient data
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Related facilities

All in Belgium →

Same country, matched on type + security level where possible.

Compared to other facilities in Belgium

78 peers
Capacity (beds)this: 84 · peers avg: 276 (70%)

Data completeness

52%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA
World Prisons. (2026). Mechelen concentration camp. Retrieved October 20, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/prisons/mechelen-concentration-camp
Chicago
"Mechelen concentration camp." World Prisons. Accessed October 20, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/prisons/mechelen-concentration-camp.
BibTeX
@misc{worldprisons-mechelen-concentration-camp,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Mechelen concentration camp},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/prisons/mechelen-concentration-camp},
  urldate = {2026-10-20}
}