Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
In 1935, the Wehrmacht began to build a large military complex close to the village of Belsen. This became the largest military training area in Germany at the time and was used for armoured vehicle training. The barracks were finished in 1937. The camp has been in continuous operation since then and is today known as Bergen-Hohne Training Area. It is used by NATO armed forces.
The workers who constructed the original buildings were housed in camps near Fallingbostel and Bergen. Once the military complex was completed in 1938, 39, the workers' camp fell into disuse. However, after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Wehrmacht began using the huts as a prisoner of war camp. The camp of huts near Fallingbostel became known as Stalag XI-B and would become one of the Wehrmachts largest POW camps, holding up to 95,000 prisoners from various countries.
In June 1940, Belgian and French POWs were housed in the former Bergen-Belsen construction workers' camp. This installation was significantly expanded from June 1941, once Germany prepared to invade the Soviet Union. It became an independent camp known as Stalag XI-C (311). It was intended to hold up to 20,000 Soviet POWs and was one of three such camps in the area. By the end of March 1942, some 41,000 Soviet POWs had died in these three camps from starvation, exhaustion, and disease. When the POW camp in Bergen ceased operation in early 1945, the cemetery contained over 19,500 dead Soviet prisoners.
In April 1943, a part of the Bergen-Belsen camp was taken over by the SS Economic-Administration Main Office. It thus became part of the concentration camp system, run by the SS Schutzstaffel, but it was a special case. Having initially been designated a Zivilinterniertenlager, in June 1943 it was redesignated Aufenthaltslager. This holding camp or exchange camp was for Jews who were intended to be exchanged for German civilians interned in other countries.
Between the summer of 1943 and December 1944 at least 14,600 Jews, including 2,750 minors, were transported to the Bergen-Belsen holding or exchange camp. Inmates were made to work, many of them in the shoe commando which salvaged usable pieces of leather from shoes collected and brought to the camp from all over Germany and occupied Europe. However, only around 2,560 Jewish prisoners were ever actually released from Bergen-Belsen and allowed to leave Germany.
In March 1944, part of the camp was redesignated as an Erholungslager recovery camp, where prisoners too sick to work were brought from other concentration camps. They were in Belsen supposedly to recover and then return to their original camps and resume work, but many of them died in Belsen of disease, starvation, exhaustion and lack of medical attention. In August 1944, a new section was created, and this became the so-called women's camp. By November 1944 this camp received around 9,000 women and young girls.
The camp was liberated on the 15th of April 1945, by the British 11th Armoured Division. The soldiers discovered approximately 60,000 prisoners inside, most of them half-starved and seriously ill, and another 13,000 corpses lying around the camp unburied. When British and Canadian troops finally entered they found over 13,000 unburied bodies and around 60,000 inmates, most acutely sick and starving.
Immediately before and after liberation, prisoners were dying at around 500 per day, mostly from typhus. The scenes that greeted British troops were described by the BBC's Richard Dimbleby, who accompanied them. Initially lacking sufficient manpower, the British allowed the Hungarians to remain in charge and only commandant Kramer was arrested. Subsequently, SS and Hungarian guards shot and killed some of the starving prisoners who were trying to get their hands on food supplies from the store houses.
Over the next days the surviving prisoners were deloused and moved to a nearby German Panzer army camp. Over a period of four weeks, almost 29,000 of the survivors were moved to the displaced persons camp. Before the handover, the SS had managed to destroy the camp's administrative files, thereby eradicating most written evidence. The British forced the former SS camp personnel to help bury the thousands of dead bodies in mass graves.
From September 17 to the 17th of November 1945, 45 of those were tried by a military tribunal in Lüneburg. They included former commandant Josef Kramer, 16 other SS male members, 16 female SS guards and 12 former kapos. Among them were Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Hertha Ehlert, Johanna Bormann and Fritz Klein. Many of the defendants were not just charged with crimes committed at Belsen but also earlier ones at Auschwitz.
Eleven of the defendants were sentenced to death. They included Kramer, Volkenrath and Klein. The executions by hanging took place on the 13th of December 1945, in Hamelin. Fourteen defendants were acquitted. Of the remaining 19, one was sentenced to life in prison but he was executed for another crime. Eighteen were sentenced to prison for periods of one to 15 years; however, most of these sentences were subsequently reduced significantly on appeals or pleas for clemency. By June 1955, the last of those sentenced in the Belsen trial had been released.
Denazification courts were created by the Allies to try members of the SS and other Nazi organisations. Between 1947 and 1949 these courts initiated proceedings against at least 46 former SS staff at Belsen. Around half of these were discontinued, mostly because the defendants were considered to have been forced to join the SS. Those who were sentenced received prison terms of between four and 36 months or were fined.
A first wooden memorial was built by Jewish DPs in September 1945, followed by one made in stone, dedicated on the first anniversary of the liberation in 1946. On the 2nd of November 1945, a large wooden cross was dedicated as a memorial to the murdered Polish prisoners. The British military authorities ordered the construction of a permanent memorial in September 1945 after having been lambasted by the press for the desolate state of the camp.
The memorial was finally inaugurated in a large ceremony in November 1952, with the participation of Germany's president Theodor Heuss, who called on the Germans never to forget what had happened at Belsen. In 1960, 61, the memorial was redesigned. In 1966, a document centre was opened which offered a permanent exhibition on the persecution of the Jews, with a focus on events in the nearby Netherlands.
In October 1979, the president of the European Parliament Simone Veil, herself a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, came to the memorial for a speech which focused on the Nazi persecution of Roma and Sinti. This was the first time that an official event in Germany acknowledged this aspect of the Nazi era. Only in 2000 did the Federal Government of Germany begin to financially support the memorial.
Anne and Margot Frank both died of typhus there in February or March 1945, shortly before the camp was liberated on the 15th of April 1945. Other notable inmates included Czech painter and writer Josef Čapek, who had coined the word robot, popularised by his brother Karel Čapek. French Resistance member Jean Maurice Paul Jules de Noailles, the 6th Duke of Ayen, also died there on the 14th of April 1945.
The British comedian Michael Bentine wrote about his encounter with Belsen: To me Belsen was the ultimate blasphemy. Hanneli Goslar survived Bergen-Belsen and later spoke about memories of Anne Frank. Shaul Ladany, who was in the camp as an 8-year-old and later survived the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics, recalled seeing his father beaten by the SS.
An anonymous account from a British Red Cross worker described how lipstick arrived for the women. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again.
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Common questions
When was the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp liberated?
The British 11th Armoured Division liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on the 15th of April 1945. Soldiers discovered approximately 60,000 prisoners inside and another 13,000 unburied corpses lying around the site.
Who were the notable inmates who died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp?
Anne Frank and Margot Frank both died of typhus in February or March 1945 before liberation. Other notable victims included Czech writer Josef Čapek and French Resistance member Jean Maurice Paul Jules de Noailles who died on the 14th of April 1945.
What happened to the SS personnel after the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp trial?
Eleven defendants including commandant Josef Kramer received death sentences that were carried out by hanging on the 13th of December 1945 in Hamelin. Fourteen defendants were acquitted while eighteen others received prison terms ranging from one to 15 years which were later reduced significantly.
How many Soviet prisoners died in the original POW camps near Belsen?
By the end of March 1942 some 41,000 Soviet prisoners had died in these three camps from starvation exhaustion and disease. The cemetery contained over 19,500 dead Soviet prisoners when the camp ceased operation in early 1945.
When was the permanent memorial at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp inaugurated?
The memorial was finally inaugurated in a large ceremony in November 1952 with the participation of Germany's president Theodor Heuss. A document centre opened in 1966 offered a permanent exhibition on the persecution of the Jews with a focus on events in the nearby Netherlands.