Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen, nowadays usually called merely Belsen, was a German concentration camp in the Nazi era. It was in Lower Saxony, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. It was named after a nearby town called Belsen.

History

It was started in 1940 as a POW camp. Until spring 1942, about 18,000 Soviet soldiers had died of hunger, cold and disease. Later (1942) Bergen-Belsen became a concentration camp; the SS took command of it in April 1943. In March 1944 the camp was redesignated as an "Ehrholungslager" (= "Recovery Camp"), http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Belsen.html where prisoners of other camps too sick to work were brought. It is usually said that there were no gas chambers in Bergen-Belsen, since the mass executions took place in the camps further east (but see below); nevertheless thousands of Jews, Czechs, Poles, anti-Nazi Christians, homosexuals, and Roma and Sinti(gypsies) died in the camp. In 1945 the prisoners of other camps were brought to the front lines, since these camps were liberated by the Soviets. In overcrowded conditions disease and malnutrition caused many deaths. Mass graves were dug. Eventually, 34 female guards served at Bergen-Belsen, many of them escaping as the British neared. Prisoners said after the war that they saw SS men and women burning papers and fleeing the camp days before the troops arrived. The SS who stayed, however, wore white armbands.

Related Topics:
1940 - POW - 1942 - Soviet - SS - 1943 - 1944 - Gas chamber - Jew - Czechs - Poles - Christian - Homosexual - Roma and Sinti - 1945 - Malnutrition

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