Fort Oranje
Published by Vice
2018

You probably know Fort Oranje mainly from stories about crime, prostitution and crooked enforcement. You could almost forget that there are also a lot of people living and staying who can’t go anywhere.

A brief history: the four-star campsite Fort Oranje was founded in the early 1970s and is located in Rijsbergen, a small village near Breda. The campsite was a Dutch paradise, where people celebrated their holidays and where some even, for a number of years, lived permanently. It had five swimming pools, a large disco and happy tourists.

From 2009 the campsite is often negative in the news related to crime - think of the episode of Danny Looking for Problems - and suddenly it seems to be one of the most notorious campsites in the Netherlands. A few weeks ago the municipality of Zundert decided to permanently close the campsite due to criminal activities and miserable living conditions. All residents must leave in a year. Owner Cees Engel is considering taking legal action against the municipality of Zundert to get the campsite back.