Bergen-Belsen. It was a Nazi concentration camp in the federal state of Lower Saxony, Germany. released by British troops where approximately 70,000 people perished.
Summary
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- 1 History
- 2 The prisoners
- 3 Release
- 4 Source
History
Bergen Belsen is located about 15 kilometers from the town of Celle (Germany) and owes its name to the fact that it is located between the towns of Bergen and Belsen.
It was built in 1936 to house some 3,000 workers who were to build the Bergen barracks dedicated to the training of armored motorized forces. The German army converted it into a prisoner of war camp in 1939, receiving the name Stalag XI C (311). Its first occupants were French and Belgian soldiers. In 1941 it was expanded considerably to hold prisoners of war from the Soviet Union.
The SS organization took over much of the camp in 1943, turning it into a Nazi concentration camp to hold Jews for a hypothetical exchange for German prisoners of war and citizens held by the allies. It received the name of Bergen Belsen. In 1944 it was used to house Jews deported from German-occupied countries in the west (Belgium, Denmark and Holland) in transit to the so-called Final Solution camps located in Poland.
Bergen Belsen underwent various extensions to house the huge number of prisoners and its facilities were divided into specific camps.
Bergen Belsen went through different phases; as a camp for Russian prisoners of war (POW) from 1941 to 1945, as a concentration camp from 1943 to 1945 and finally as a camp for displaced persons from 1945 to 1950.
Bergen Belsen closed its facilities permanently in 1950 with the departure of the last ex-prisoners.
The prisoners
In December 1944 the population of the camp was 15,257 people. In the first months of 1945, tens of thousands of prisoners died, 34,168 people (in February 7,000, in March 18,168 and during the first half of April 9,000). By February 1945 there were already approximately 22,000 prisoners. With the arrival of more prisoners from the east, on March 1 there were 41,520 prisoners, on April 1 43,042 and on April 15, 1945 there were already more than 60,000 prisoners.
Weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops, the young German Jew Anne Frank died in the concentration camp , who became famous for her memoirs with her sister Margot Frank, who died three days before Anne.
Release
The 7 of April of 1945 , Ernst Kaltenbrunner , head of the main security office of the Reich (RSHA), sent an order directly to the Head of Field in saying that all prisoners of the camp were to be killed before falling into the hands of the enemy.
The 15 as April as 1945 , British forces liberated the camp. In the camp they found sixty thousand prisoners, most of them seriously ill, thousands of corpses remaining unburied within the limits of the camp. More than 13,000 prisoners (too sick to recover) died after liberation (9,000 in April and 4,000 in May).
