Around the Walchum Heritage House, a multigenerational house, an open-air stage, a village pond, a bakehouse and a coach house form a cohesive rural ensemble.
Lager IV Walchum was planned as a prison camp for 500 inmates and completed in May 1935. Expansion plans from December 1936 provided for increasing the planned capacity to 1,000 inmates by 1939.
Before the Second World War, people persecuted by the Nazi regime for political, racial, social or religious reasons were imprisoned there. During the war, the camp mainly housed former soldiers who had been convicted by military courts. Foreign prisoners from areas occupied or annexed by Germany were also imprisoned there, including Poles, Czechs and Luxembourgers.
The prisoners had to perform eight to twelve hours of forced labor in the moor every day, including drainage work, road construction and peat extraction. After 1939, prisoners were increasingly deployed in war-related businesses and in agriculture.
In February 1945, 167 prisoners remained in Lager IV Walchum; at the beginning of April 1945, they were transferred to Aschendorfermoor. Civil registers document 71 deaths, although the actual number was probably higher.
Walchum was one of the Emsland penal camps administered by the judicial authorities from 1934 to 1945. At the former sites of the Emsland camps, information panels explain the history of each camp, including that of the former site of Lager IV Walchum.
The Catholic Church of the Holy Family in nearby Hasselbrock was built in 1952–1953 according to designs by Lingen architect Wilhelm Ruge in the traditional brick style. Nearby Hasselbrock received a parish house in 1954 and became an independent parish in 1976.
According to a report on an event in Walchum in 2026, buckwheat pancakes were prepared there by hand using an old Emsland recipe.
Herzogsee is located on the western edge of Walchum. It has a gently sloping bathing beach, as well as a kiosk and a toilet building at the bathing area.
Seepark Eiken is located on the sandy shore of a clear bathing lake between Walchum and Hasselbrock. The water and lakeside meadows are publicly accessible; there is also a designated shallow-water area for children and less confident swimmers.
Marina Emsland has up to 70 berths for boaters and water sports enthusiasts, as well as a harbor café.
The Emsland region has more than 3,500 kilometers of well-signposted cycle paths, providing a way to explore the region.
More local pages: Spelle, Lehe, Twist, Dersum, Stavern, Haselünne, Niederlangen, Fresenburg.
For travelers wishing to rent a holiday apartment in Walchum, the next step is to choose accommodation.
For the higher-level travel overview: Emsland.
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