query: where is bergen belsen concentration camp located?

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentration camp. Initially this was an "exchange camp", where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. The camp was later expanded to accommodate Jews from other concentration camps. After 1945 the name was applied to the displaced persons camp established nearby, but it is most commonly

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: neglect. For much of the 1950s, Belsen "was increasingly forgotten as a place of remembrance". Only after 1957 did large groups of young people visit the place where Anne Frank had died. After anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled on the Cologne synagogue over Christmas 1959, German chancellor Konrad Adenauer followed a suggestion by Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, and visited the site of a former concentration camp for the first time. In a speech at the Bergen-Belsen memorial, Adenauer assured the Jews still living in Germany that they would have the same respect and security as everyone else.

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 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. In general the prisoners of this part of the camp were treated less harshly than some other classes of Bergen-Belsen prisoner until fairly late in the war, due to their perceived potential exchange value. 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

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: Afterwards, the German public saw the Belsen memorial as primarily a Jewish place of remembrance. Nevertheless, the memorial was redesigned in 1960–61. 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 – where Anne Frank and her family had been arrested in 1944. This was complemented by an overview of the history of the Bergen-Belsen camp. This was the first ever permanent exhibit anywhere in Germany on the topic of Nazi crimes. However, there was still no scientific personnel at the site,

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: lying around the camp unburied. The horrors of the camp, documented on film and in pictures, made the name "Belsen" emblematic of Nazi crimes in general for public opinion in many countries in the immediate post-1945 period. Today, there is a memorial with an exhibition hall at the site. In 1935 the Wehrmacht began to build a large military complex close to the village of Belsen, a part of the town of Bergen, in what was then the Province of Hanover. This became the largest military training area in Germany of the time and was used for armoured vehicle training.

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: with only a caretaker as permanent staff. Memorial events were only organized by the survivors themselves. 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. In 1985, international attention was focused on Bergen-Belsen when the camp was hastily included in Ronald Reagan's itinerary when he visited West Germany after a controversy about a visit to a

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 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. In the summer of 1946, a commission presented the design plan, which included the obelisk and memorial walls. 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. For a long time, however, remembering Bergen-Belsen was not a political priority. Periods of attention were followed by long phases of official

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: as Stalag XI-B and was to become one of the "Wehrmacht"s 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, becoming 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. The others were at Oerbke (Stalag XI-D (321)) and Wietzendorf (Stalag X-D (310)). By the end of

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp was a displaced persons (DP) camp for refugees after World War II, in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. It was in operation from the summer of 1945 until September 1950. For a time, Belsen DP camp was the largest Jewish DP camp in Germany and the only one in the British occupation zone with an exclusively Jewish population. The camp was under British authority and overseen by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) with camp directors that included Simon Bloomberg. Today, the

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: the remaining 1,000 people transferred to Upjever near Wilhelmshaven. This camp in turn was closed in August 1951. The majority of former Belsen DPs emigrated to the State of Israel. Many others went to the US (over 2,000) or Canada (close to 800), a minority decided to stay in Germany and helped to rebuild the Jewish communities there. Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp was a displaced persons (DP) camp for refugees after World War II, in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. It was in operation from the summer of

title: Belsen (Bergen)

text: take part in exercises on the NATO military training area of Bergen-Hohne. After the Second World War, a displaced persons (DP) camp was created in the military base of "Lager Hohne" (now Bergen-Hohne Station), opposite the village. Called the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp. It was in operation from the summer of 1945 until September 1950. For a time, Belsen DP camp was the largest Jewish DP camp in Germany and the only one in the British occupation zone with an exclusively Jewish population. Since the merging of local councils as part of the Lower Saxon administrative reforms of 1971, Belsen

title: Auschwitz concentration camp

text: of the detainees were thus killed. A column of inmates reached Gross-Rosen concentration camp complex. Throughout February, the terribly overcrowded main camp at Gross-Rosen was cleared, and all 44,000 inmates were moved further west. An unknown number died in this last journey. In March 1945, Himmler ordered that no more prisoners should be killed, as he hoped to use them as hostages in negotiations with the Allies. Approximately 20,000 Auschwitz prisoners made it to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where they were liberated by the British in April 1945. When Auschwitz was liberated on 27 January 1945 by the 322nd

title: Bergen, Lower Saxony

text: Bergen, Lower Saxony Bergen (West Low German: "Bargen") is a town in the north of Celle district on the Lüneburg Heath, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Administratively it acts as a municipal borough divided into 12 subordinate parishes based on the town and its surrounding villages: Becklingen, Belsen, Bergen, Bleckmar, Diesten, Dohnsen, Eversen, Hagen, Hassel, Offen, Sülze and Wardböhmen. Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was located in the area of Belsen. The town had 13,099 inhabitants according to the census conducted in December 2008. Members of the British military and their families, who were not included in the census, brought the actual population

title: Belsen trial

text: of the court, the only charges that could be brought were war crimes and crimes against citizens of the Allied countries. "Crimes against humanity" and "crimes against peace", which featured in the later trials at Nuremberg, were not among the charges at Lüneburg. The official charges were grouped into crimes committed at Auschwitz and Belsen and were as follows:At Bergen-Belsen, Germany, between 1st October, 1942, and 30th April, 1945, when members of the staff of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp responsible for the well-being of the persons interned there, in violation of the law and usages of war, were together concerned as

title: Sülze (Bergen)

text: Sülze (Bergen) Sülze is a village in the local borough of Bergen located in the northern part of Celle district on the Lüneburg Heath in North Germany. The infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was located not far from Sülze, one of several farming villages in the borough. The general Bergen area today is economically heavily dependent on the surrounding military bases and the Bergen-Hohne Training Area to the west, which is the largest military training area in Western Europe. Sülze lies on the edge of the Südheide Nature Park about north of Celle on state road ("Landesstraße") L 240 which runs

title: Sülze (Bergen)

text: was extended, to Hermannsburg and Celle on a narrow gauge ("Kleinbahn") railway. Buses on the Celle - Faßberg route operated by CeBus stop several times a day in Sülze and link the place to the surrounding villages. Sülze (Bergen) Sülze is a village in the local borough of Bergen located in the northern part of Celle district on the Lüneburg Heath in North Germany. The infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was located not far from Sülze, one of several farming villages in the borough. The general Bergen area today is economically heavily dependent on the surrounding military bases and the Bergen-Hohne

title: Bergen-Hohne Training Area

text: Bergen-Hohne Training Area Bergen-Hohne Training Area (German: "NATO-Truppenübungsplatz Bergen" or "Schießplatz Bergen-Hohne") is a NATO military training area in the southern part of the Lüneburg Heath, in the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It covers an area of , which makes it the largest military training area in Germany. It was established by the German armed forces, the "Wehrmacht", in 1935. At the end of the Second World War it was taken over by British occupying forces and some of its facilities used as a liberation camp for survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was located on

title: Bergen-Hohne Training Area

text: large British military garrison for the 7th Armoured Brigade (the Desert Rats) which was part of the British Forces Germany. Opposite this barracks is the village of Belsen which gave its name to the nearby Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the Second World War. The current German commandant of Bergen-Hohne Training Area, Colonel Gerd Ahrens, is also responsible for Munster Training Area. He also has command of the training areas at Ehra-Lessien and Lübtheen. There are several places of interest within the Bergen-Hohne Training Area: <br> In the area of Lohheide: In the area of Osterheide and its neighbourhood: Bergen-Hohne Training

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: British sector, something for which the Jewish survivors had struggled with the British. The camp was for a while the largest Jewish DP camp in Germany. Although some had left, in late 1945 thousands of Jews who had survived the Holocaust in Poland or Hungary emigrated westward and many of them came to Belsen, although the British initially refused to give them DP status. In August 1946, the DP camp still housed more than 11,000 Jews. From then on, the British Army tried to prevent any more Jews from joining the DP camp. A first Jewish camp committee was formed

title: Belsen trial

text: Belsen trial The Belsen trial was one of several trials which the Allied occupation forces conducted against former officials and functionaries of Nazi Germany after the end of World War II. The "Belsen Trial" took place in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany in 1945 and the defendants were men and women of the SS as well as prisoner functionaries who had worked at various concentration camps, notably Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. The trial generated considerable interest around the world, as the public heard for the first time from some of those responsible for the mass murder in the eastern extermination camps. Some

title: Locations of executions conducted by Albert Pierrepoint

text: Ireland; for the British colonial authorities in Gibraltar; in the Suez Canal Zone, Egypt; at Graz-Karlau Prison in Austria; and most famously in the British occupation zone of Germany, at Hamelin, where he executed over two hundred Nazi war criminals. The list of condemned includes Juana Bormann (Auschwitz); Irma Grese, the youngest concentration camp guard to be executed for crimes at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and Auschwitz (aged 22); and Elisabeth Volkenrath (Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz); plus another ten men including Josef Kramer (Camp Commandant at Belsen) and Fritz Klein, plus Georg Otto Sandrock and Ludwig Schweinberger, who had both been condemned

title: Tomi Reichental

text: in Belsen" was first published by O'Brien Press Ltd. In this autobiography, Reichental recounts his experiences as a child prisoner in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In 2007 Tomi was approached by Gerry Gregg, Seamus Deasy, and Oliver Donohoe about making a film about Tomi and his experiences in Bergen-Belsen. Tomi agreed and in late 2007 they traveled to Germany to film Tomi talking about his experiences of the concentration camp, while standing where it once stood. Tomi Reichental Tomi Reichental is a Holocaust survivor. He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1935 to Jewish farmers and lived with his family on

title: Belsen Was a Gas

text: demo version features very faint, reverbed vocals. A different version of the song – titled simply "Belsen Was a Gas Demo 2" – was released as part of a single box on 19 April 2014. Belsen Was a Gas "Belsen Was a Gas" is a highly controversial song by the British punk rock band the Sex Pistols. The song is about one of the Nazi concentration camps in Nazi Germany, Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated by British troops in 1945. ASCAP credits the songwriters as John Beverly (Sid Vicious), Paul Cook, Steve Jones, John Lydon but Sid Vicious is often credited

title: Belsen Was a Gas

text: Belsen Was a Gas "Belsen Was a Gas" is a highly controversial song by the British punk rock band the Sex Pistols. The song is about one of the Nazi concentration camps in Nazi Germany, Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated by British troops in 1945. ASCAP credits the songwriters as John Beverly (Sid Vicious), Paul Cook, Steve Jones, John Lydon but Sid Vicious is often credited with having written the song while in his earlier band the Flowers of Romance, as a sheet of handwritten lyrics purported to be in his hand appears in Jon Savage's book "England's Dreaming". He is

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: Germany begin to financially support the memorial. Co-financed by the state of Lower Saxony, a complete redesign was planned which was intended to be more in line with contemporary thought on exhibition design. On April 15, 2005, there was a ceremony, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation and many ex-prisoners and ex-liberating troops attended. In October 2007, the redesigned memorial site was opened, including a large new Documentation Centre and permanent exhibition on the edge of the newly redefined camp, whose structure and layout can now be traced. Since 2009, the memorial has been receiving funding from the Federal

title: Female guards in Nazi concentration camps

text: three concentration camps. Pietzner currently lives in a small town in northern Germany. The only female guard to tell her story to the public has been Herta Bothe, who served as a guard at Ravensbrück in 1942, then at Stutthof, Bromberg-Ost subcamp, and finally in Bergen-Belsen. She received ten years' imprisonment and was released in the mid-1950s. In a rare interview in 2004, Bothe was asked if she regretted being a guard in a concentration camp. Her response was, "What do you mean? ...I made a mistake, no... The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had

title: Extermination camp

text: located in Germany proper, such as Bergen-Belsen, Oranienburg, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen, which were prison camps set up prior to World War II for people defined as 'undesirable'. From March 1936, all Nazi concentration camps were managed by the "SS-Totenkopfverbände" (the Skull Units, SS-TV), who operated extermination camps from 1941 as well. An SS anatomist, Dr. Johann Kremer, after witnessing the gassing of victims at Birkenau, wrote in his diary on 2 September 1942: "Dante's Inferno seems to me almost a comedy compared to this. They don't call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation for nothing!" The distinction was evident during the

title: Breitenau concentration camp

text: Breitenau concentration camp Breitenau concentration camp was established in June 1933 in Germany. It was located in the Breitenau, a part of the village of Guxhagen, ca. 15 km south of Kassel, Hesse. In 1874, at the former Breitenau monastery a "correctional and poor institution" was established. It became a "labour and welfare house", where prisoners should learn how to work. But the work in such houses were often brutal and back-breaking. This was the original reason why a concentration camp was opened in the Breitenau labour and welfare house. In 1933, an early Nazi concentration camp for political prisoners

title: Hinzert concentration camp

text: Hinzert concentration camp Hinzert ("SS-Sonderlager Hinzert" or "Konzentrationslager/KZ Hinzert") was a German concentration camp located in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, 30 km from the Luxembourg border. Between 1939 and 1945, 13,600 political prisoners between the ages of 13 and 80 were imprisoned at Hinzert. Many were in transit towards larger concentration camps where most would be killed. However, a significant number of prisoners were executed at Hinzert. The camp was administered, run, and guarded mainly by the SS, who, according to Hinzert survivors, were notorious for their brutality and viciousness. Located on the "Hochwald" plateau, and overlooking the Hunsrück mountain range, the

title: Rywka Lipszyc

text: to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she was liberated along with Esther and Mina on April 15, 1945, emaciated and sick. In July 1945, Rywka Lipszyc was transferred from the new Bergen-Belsen emergency hospital for the displaced persons, via the transit camp in Lübeck, to a hospital in Niendorf, Germany, too ill to be evacuated any further. The last document with her name on it found by the International Tracing Service was a DP Registration Record from September 10, 1945. No certificate of Rywka's death has been found, although according to Mina Boier's 1955 testimony (Minia from Rywka's Diary), that is

title: Malchow concentration camp

text: Malchow concentration camp Malchow was one of the numerous sub-camps of Nazi concentration camp: Ravensbrück, located in Germany, which is believed to be first opened in the winter of 1943. It was located at Malchow in Mecklenburg. The Malchow camp system consisted of ten barracks on the terrain of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which each had the capacity to house about 100 women. This meant that the Malchow camp was able to house 1,000 women prisoners. But, by 1945, the camp population had grown to 5,000 women. In the summer of 1943, the camp terrain finally became enclosed by a

title: Felice Schragenheim

text: Felice Schragenheim Felice Rahel Schragenheim (March 9, 1922 – December 31, 1944) was a Jewish resistance fighter during World War II. She is known for her tragic love story with Lilly Wust and death during a march from Gross-Rosen concentration camp (today Poland) to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany or, not later than, March 1945 in Bergen-Belsen. The story of the relationship between Schragenheim and Wust is portrayed in the 1999 film "Aimée & Jaguar", and in a book of the same name by Erica Fischer. It is also the subject of the 1997 documentary "". Schragenheim was deported from

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: come. To me Belsen was the ultimate blasphemy. I saw my father beaten by the SS, and I lost most of my family there... A ransom deal that the Americans attempted saved 2,000 Jews and I was one. I actually went into the gas chamber, but was reprieved. God knows why. This camp is perhaps best known as the death place of Anne and Margot Frank, who both died of typhus there in February or March 1945, shortly before the camp was liberated on April 15, 1945. Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: to starvation and epidemics. Bergen-Belsen concentration camp had three satellite camps. These were at regional armament works. Around 2,000 female concentration camp prisoners were forced to work there. Those who were too weak or sick to continue with their work were brought to Bergen-Belsen. "Außenlager Bomlitz-Benefeld" at Bomlitz near Fallingbostel was in use from September 3 to October 15, 1944. It was located at the facility of Eibia GmbH, a gunpowder works. Around 600 female Polish Jews were used for construction and production work. "Außenlager Hambühren-Ovelgönne" (Lager III, Waldeslust) at Hambühren south of Winsen was in use from August 23,

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: time of Nazi rule." Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was then burned to the ground by flamethrowing "Bren gun" carriers and Churchill Crocodile tanks because of the typhus epidemic and louse infestation. As the concentration camp ceased to exist at this point, the name Belsen after this time refers to events at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp. There were massive efforts to help the survivors with food and medical treatment, led by Brigadier Glyn Hughes, Deputy Director of Medical Services of 2nd Army, and James Johnston, the Senior Medical Officer. Despite their efforts, about another 9,000 died in April, and by the end

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: after the failed Warsaw Uprising. Others were Jewish women from Poland or Hungary, transferred from Auschwitz. Among those who never left Bergen-Belsen were Margot and Anne Frank, who died there in February or March 1945. In December 1944 "SS-Hauptsturmführer" Josef Kramer, previously at Auschwitz-Birkenau, became the new camp commandant, replacing "SS-Hauptsturmführer" , who had been in post since the spring of 1943. In January 1945, the SS took over the POW hospital and increased the size of Bergen-Belsen. As eastern concentration camps were evacuated before the advance of the Red Army, at least 85,000 people were transported in cattle cars

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: the Bengal Famine Mixture. Intravenous feeding was attempted but abandoned – SS doctors had previously used injections to murder prisoners so some became hysterical at the sight of the intravenous feeding equipment. Many of the former SS staff who survived the typhus epidemic were tried by the British at the Belsen trial. Over the period in which Bergen-Belsen operated as a concentration camp, at least 480 people had worked as guards or members of the commandant's staff, including around 45 women. From September 17 to November 17, 1945, 45 of those were tried by a military tribunal in Lüneburg. They

title: Belsen (Bergen)

text: Bergen. The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was near Belsen. The site of the former concentration camp and the present-day Bergen-Belsen Memorial Centre are mainly within the municipality of Winsen (Aller) and its parish of Walle (Winsen). Between Bergen and Belsen, there were railway ramps onto which prisoners from the incoming goods wagons alighted and from where they had to cover the remaining distance of about to the camp on foot. The original ramps have been replaced and the current ramps are used today to off-load military vehicles of the British, Dutch, French, German, Belgian, Luxembourg and Polish forces in order to

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: from August 1944 and, following the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in October 1944, around 1,000 members of the Polish Home Army were imprisoned in a separate section of the POW camp. In April 1943, a part of the Bergen-Belsen camp was taken over by the SS Economic-Administration Main Office ("SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA"). 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" ("civilian internment camp"), in June 1943 it was redesignated "Aufenthaltslager" ("holding camp"), since the Geneva Conventions stipulated that the former type

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: ever put on trial for crimes committed against the inmates of the POW camps at Bergen-Belsen and in the region around it, despite the fact that the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg had found in 1946 that the treatment of Soviet POWs by the "Wehrmacht" constituted a war crime. The area of the former Bergen-Belsen camp fell into neglect after the burning of the buildings and the closure of the nearby displaced persons' camp in the summer of 1950. The area reverted to heath; few traces of the camp remained. However, as early as May 1945, the British had erected

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 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 the NATO armed forces. The workers who constructed the original buildings were housed in camps near Fallingbostel and Bergen, the latter being the so-called Bergen-Belsen Army Construction Camp. 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 (POW) camp. The camp of huts near Fallingbostel became known

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 35,000. Another 14,000 died after liberation between April 15 and the end of June 1945 (see below). After the war, there were allegations that the camp (or possibly a section of it), was "of a privileged nature", compared to others. A lawsuit filed by the Jewish community in Thessaloniki against 55 alleged collaborators claims that 53 of them were sent to Bergen-Belsen "as a special favor" granted by the Germans. When the British and Canadians advanced on Bergen-Belsen in 1945, the German army negotiated a truce and exclusion zone around the camp to prevent the spread of typhus. On April

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: of No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit documented the conditions in the camp and the measures of the British Army to ameliorate them. Many of the pictures they took and the films they made from April 15 to June 9, 1945 were published or shown abroad. Today, the originals are in the Imperial War Museum. These documents had a lasting impact on the international perception and memory of Nazi concentration camps to this day. According to Habbo Knoch, head of the institution that runs the memorial today: "Bergen-Belsen [...] became a synonym world-wide for German crimes committed during the

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: next days the surviving prisoners were deloused and moved to a nearby German Panzer army camp, which became the Bergen-Belsen DP (displaced persons) camp. Over a period of four weeks, almost 29,000 of the survivors were moved there. 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. Some civil servants from Celle and "Landkreis Celle" were brought to Belsen and confronted with the crimes committed on their doorstep. Military photographers and cameramen

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 350 prisoners from the "special camp" were sent to Auschwitz. Thus, out of the total of 14,600 prisoners in the exchange camp, at least 3,550 died, more than 1,400 of them at Belsen, and around 2,150 at Auschwitz. In the "Männerlager" (the male section of the "recovery camp"), inmates suffered even more from lack of care, malnourishment, disease and mistreatment by the guards. Thousands of them died. In the summer of 1944, at least 200 men were killed by orders of the SS by being injected with phenol. There were no gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, since the mass killings took

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 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. Most of those who were able to work stayed only for a short while and were then sent on to other concentration camps or slave-labour camps. The first women interned there were Poles, arrested

title: Belsen (Bergen)

text: Belsen (Bergen) Belsen is a village within the German borough of Bergen in the northern part of Celle district on the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony. The village, whose original site lies about southwest of Bergen, has 331 inhabitants . The Belsen concentration camp was named after it. Today Belsen is dominated by the former British Army camp of Hohne (German: "Lager Hohne") on the edge of the NATO firing ranges. Belsen was first mentioned in the records in 1235 under the name "Bellenhusen". Since the district reforms of the early 1970s it has fallen administratively under the town of

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: of facility must be open to inspection by international committees. This "holding camp" or "exchange camp" was for Jews who were intended to be exchanged for German civilians interned in other countries, or for hard currency. The SS divided this camp into subsections for individual groups (the "Hungarian camp", the "special camp" for Polish Jews, the "neutrals camp" for citizens of neutral countries and the "Star camp" for Dutch Jews). Between the summer of 1943 and December 1944 at least 14,600 Jews, including 2,750 children and minors were transported to the Bergen-Belsen "holding" or exchange camp. Inmates were made to

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: March 1942, some 41,000 Soviet POWs had died in these three camps of starvation, exhaustion, and disease. By the end of the war, the total number of dead had increased to 50,000. When the POW camp in Bergen ceased operation in early 1945, as the "Wehrmacht" handed it over to the SS, the cemetery contained over 19,500 dead Soviet prisoners. In the summer of 1943, Stalag XI-C (311) was dissolved and Bergen-Belsen became a branch camp of Stalag XI-B. It served as the hospital for all Soviet POWs in the region until January 1945. Other inmates/patients were Italian military internees

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: camp is a Bundeswehr barracks, having been a British Army base (see Hohne Station) until 2015. On 15 April 1945 the British Army liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was handed over by the SS guards without a fight. Diseases and the terrible unhygienic state of the concentration camp buildings caused the British Army to relocate the former inmates and eventually to burn the prisoner huts. The survivors of the concentration camp became the first residents of the future DP camp, which was around 2 kilometres from the main concentration camp area, in a former German Army barracks, that later

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: or marched to Bergen-Belsen. Before that the number of prisoners at Belsen had been much smaller. In July 1944 there were 7,300; by December 1944 the number had increased to 15,000; and by February 1945 it had risen to 22,000. Numbers then soared to around 60,000 by April 15, 1945. This overcrowding led to a vast increase in deaths from disease: particularly typhus, as well as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, dysentery and malnutrition in a camp originally designed to hold about 10,000 inmates. At this point also, the special status of the exchange prisoners no longer applied. All inmates were subject

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: German troops. Due to heavy fighting near Winsen and Walle, the British were unable to reach Bergen-Belsen on April 14, as originally planned. The camp was liberated on the afternoon of April 15, 1945. The first two to reach the camp were a British Special Air Service officer, Lieutenant John Randall, and his jeep driver, who were on a reconnaissance mission and discovered the camp by chance. When British and Canadian troops finally entered they found over 13,000 unburied bodies and (including the satellite camps) around 60,000 inmates, most acutely sick and starving. The prisoners had been without food or

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: Wehrmacht hospital, around a kilometre from the barracks, was still used as a hospital. The British authorities renamed the camp "Hohne", after a nearby abandoned settlement on the training area, in order to avoid the association with Nazi genocide at the concentration camp nearby, but the Holocaust survivors who were residents ("Sh'erit ha-Pletah") in the camp refused to accept the name change and persisted in calling the DP camp "Bergen-Belsen". The name change only stuck after the DP camp was dissolved and the area was returned to military use. Today, the location of the former DP camp remains off-limits to

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: included former commandant Josef Kramer, 16 other SS male members, 16 female SS guards and 12 former kapos (one of whom became ill during the trial). 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. Their activities at other concentration camps such as Mittelbau-Dora, Ravensbrück, Neuengamme, the Gross Rosen subcamps at Neusalz and Langenleuba, and the Mittelbau-Dora subcamp at Gross Werther were not subject of the trial. It was based on British military law and

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 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. Nine other members of the Belsen personnel were tried by later military tribunals in 1946 and 1948. 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

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: the camp to the United Nations Relief and Rehalibitation Agency (UNRRA) but remained responsible for security. The British (and later the UNRRA), supported by other organisations like the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) or Jewish Relief Unit (JRU), supplied food, clothing and medicines. But the camp inhabitants otherwise ran their own affairs. The Jewish Committee established its own court and police force, whose tasks included maintaining public order and to fight black market activities. Former British soldier and officer in HM Colonial Service, Simon Bloomberg served as both UNRRA Director for Bergen-Belsen as well as European Director of the

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: to have been forced to join the SS. Those who were sentenced received prison terms of between four and 36 months or were fined. As the judges decided to count the time the defendants had spent in Allied internment towards the sentence, the terms were considered to have already been fully served. Only one trial was ever held by a German court for crimes committed at Belsen, at Jena in 1949; the defendant was acquitted. More than 200 other SS members who were at Belsen have been known by name but never had to stand trial. No "Wehrmacht" soldier was

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: place in the camps further east. Nevertheless, current estimates put the number of deaths at Belsen at more than 50,000 Jews, Czechs, Poles, anti-Nazi Christians, homosexuals, and Roma and Sinti (Gypsies). Among them was Czech painter and writer Josef Čapek (estimated to be in April 1945). He had coined the word "robot", popularised by his brother Karel Čapek. The rate at which inmates died at Belsen accelerated notably after the mass transport of prisoners from other camps began in December 1944. From 1943 to the end of 1944 around 3,100 died. From January to mid-April 1945 this rose to around

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 1944 to February 4, 1945. It was an abandoned potash mine, now intended as an underground production site for Bremen plane manufacturer Focke-Wulf. Around 400 prisoners, mostly female Polish or Hungarian Jews, were forced to prepare the facility and to help lay train tracks to it. This was done for the company Hochtief. "Außenlager Unterlüß-Altensothrieth" (Tannenberglager) east of Bergen was in use from late August 1944 to April 13, 1945. It was located at Unterlüß, where the Rheinmetall-Borsig AG had a large test site. Up to 900 female Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Yugoslavian and Czech Jews had to clear forest, do

title: Belsen (Bergen)

text: has been part of the borough of Bergen. Belsen is represented by a local council ("Ortsrat") and a chairman ("Ortsbürgermeister"). The council is empowered, "inter alia", to make decisions about public services in the village, is responsible for maintaining the appearance of the village and for overseeing its clubs and societies, and has to be consulted by the town of Bergen on all important matters affecting the village. It consists of five elected representatives who, together with the chairman, sit on the Bergen town council. The village council elects its own chairman. The current incumbent is Sven Marquardt. Belsen (Bergen)

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: On 2 November 1945 the Polish DPs had a service in which a wooden cross on the former concentration camp site was dedicated as a memorial. The Polish camp was disbanded in September 1946. The remaining 4,500 Polish DPs were transferred to other camps in the British zone, as many still hesitated to return to (now communist) Poland or to Soviet-occupied eastern Poland. Eventually, around two thirds of Polish DPs in the British zone returned to Poland, others went to the US and Canada. With the closure of the Polish section, Belsen became the only exclusively Jewish facility in the

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: to civilian hospitals and added the "Reservelazarett" to their hospital space. This raised the number of available beds by a further 1,600. Within the first four weeks almost 29,000 survivors from Belsen concentration camp were moved to the emergency hospital. Around 14,000 former inmates died after liberation despite the best efforts of the British Army, the British Red Cross and many others of various nationalities. By June 1945, around 11,000 of the former inmates still required emergency treatment. The DP camp was established in July 1945 by turning the hospital wards into living quarters. After summer 1945, only the former

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: associated with the concentration camp. From 1941 to 1945, almost 20,000 Soviet prisoners of war and a further 50,000 inmates died there. Overcrowding, lack of food and poor sanitary conditions caused outbreaks of typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever and dysentery, leading to the deaths of more than 35,000 people in the first few months of 1945, shortly before and after the liberation. The camp was liberated on April 15, 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, including those of Anne and Margot Frank,

title: Belsen trial

text: later trials are also referred to as "Belsen Trials". Officially called the "Trial of Josef Kramer and 44 others", the trial began in a Lüneburg gymnasium on 17 September 1945. The defendants were 45 former SS men, women and "kapos" (prisoner functionaries) from the Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camps. Josef Kramer had been camp commandant at Bergen-Belsen and before that at Auschwitz. Of the other defendants, 12 were kapos, 16 female SS members and 16 male SS members. Although the SS was an all-male organisation, women were able to enlist as members of the "SS-Gefolge", a form of civilian employee.

title: Helmbrechts concentration camp

text: the 167 Jewish women. The camp at Helmbrechts was liberated the same day as Bergen Belsen, April 15, but no inmates remained behind. The non-Jews had been left at the Zwodau camp. In 1996 renewed attention focused on the Helmbrechts sub-concentration camp. Two stories broke about former SS-"Aufseherin" ("Overseer") Ingeborg Schimming-Assmuss who was accused of killing four prisoners at the camp and on the death march into Czechoslovakia. One article began "DEATH FORSTALLED the LAW." "The [camp] called her 'the Terrible Inge'- Inge Assmuss, earlier Schimming, one of 27 [female guards] inside the external bearing Helmbrechts." She was hidden from

title: Belsen trial

text: Klein, who had been camp doctor at Belsen, and Franz Hössler, deputy camp commandant. Elisabeth Volkenrath had been "Oberaufseherin" (head warden or supervising wardress) at Auschwitz, before she came to Belsen. Many of the defendants had arrived in Bergen-Belsen only after February 1945, some as late as two days before liberation. However, most had been active in similar functions in other concentration camps before that. The trial took place before a British military tribunal. The judges were Major-General H.M.P. Berney-Ficklin (presiding), Brigadier A. de L. Casonove, Colonel G.J. Richards, Lt.-Colonel R.B. Moriush and Lt.-Colonel R. McLay. C.L. Stirling was Judge

title: Ohrdruf concentration camp

text: of this is speculative. Those unable to work were moved by the SS to "Sterbelager": 4,300 sick inmates were moved to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp or the "Kleines Lager" at Buchenwald. In late March 1945, the camp had a prisoner population of some 11,700 to 13,000. As the American troops advanced towards Ohrdruf, the SS began evacuating almost all the prisoners on death marches to Buchenwald on April 1. During these marches, SS, Volkssturm and members of the Hitler-Jugend killed an estimated 1,000 prisoners. Mass graves were re-opened and SS men tried to burn the corpses. The SS guards killed many

title: The Relief of Belsen

text: The Relief of Belsen The Relief of Belsen is a feature-length drama that was first shown on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 15 October 2007. It depicts events that unfolded at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp following the liberation of the camp by British troops in April 1945. Written by Justin Hardy and Peter Guinness, it nevertheless cites its sources from eye witness accounts of people who were there at the time. These accounts are referred to throughout the film. It was directed by Justin Hardy, and produced in association with the Wellcome Trust. An ambulance crew are diverted away

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: construction work or work in munitions production. Prisoners were guarded by SS staff and received no wages for their work. The companies instead reimbursed the SS for the labour supplied. Wage taxes were also levied by local authorities. Current estimates put the number of prisoners who passed through the concentration camp during its period of operation from 1943 to 1945 at around 120,000. Due to the destruction of the camp's files by the SS, not even half of them, around 55,000, are known by name. As mentioned above, treatment of prisoners by the SS varied between individual sections of the

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: government on an ongoing basis. The site is open to the public and includes monuments to the dead, including a successor to the wooden cross of 1945, some individual memorial stones and a "House of Silence" for reflection. In addition to the Jewish, Polish and Dutch national memorials, a memorial to eight Turkish citizens who were killed at Belsen was dedicated in December 2012. Millions of words have been written about these horror camps, many of them by inmates of those unbelievable places. I've tried, without success, to describe it from my own point of view, but the words won't

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: the charges were thus limited to war crimes. Substantial media coverage of the trial provided the German and international public with detailed information on the mass killings at Belsen as well as on the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Eleven of the defendants were sentenced to death. They included Kramer, Volkenrath and Klein. The executions by hanging took place on December 13, 1945 in Hamelin. Fourteen defendants were acquitted (one was excluded from the trial due to illness). Of the remaining 19, one was sentenced to life in prison but he was executed for another crime. Eighteen were sentenced to prison

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: camp, with the inmates of the exchange camp generally being better treated than other prisoners, at least initially. However, in October 1943 the SS selected 1,800 men and women from the "Sonderlager" ("special camp"), Jews from Poland who held passports from Latin American countries. Since the governments of these nations mostly refused to honour the passports, these people had lost their value to the regime. Under the pretext of sending them to a fictitious "Lager Bergau", the SS had them transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were sent directly to the gas chambers and killed. In February and May 1944 another

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: British Zone (headed by Olewski, Trepman, & Rosenthal). Large numbers of DPs began leaving the camp in 1947 as opportunities for emigration improved. Beginning in the spring of 1947, the British government allocated 300 certificates a month to Jews in the British occupation zone — these allowed legal emigration to Palestine. Between April 1947 and the founding of the State of Israel in May 1948 around 4,200 Jews from the British zone, most of them from Belsen, emigrated there legally. By March 1949, the population was down to 4,500. The DP camp at Belsen was closed in September 1950 and

title: Espeland concentration camp

text: the war it was used for prisoners with relations to the now-succumbed Nazi rule. According to Kjell Fjørtoft, abuse occurred in the camp. The number of people killed in this camp is unknown. Espeland concentration camp Espeland concentration camp ("Espeland fangeleir") was established at the village of Espeland in the borough of Arna in Bergen, Norway by the Nazi authorities of occupied Norway in the summer of 1943. It was largely built by slave labor from the other concentration camp near Bergen, Ulven concentration camp. All prisoners from Ulven were transferred to this camp, which quickly became overcrowded. Prisoners were

title: Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp

text: in three of those confined here did not survive. Transports from Mittelbau arrived at Bergen-Belsen between 8 and 11 April 1945. Several thousand men were housed in the so-called "Kasernenlager" around 2 kilometres north of the main camp, which was already overflowing with prisoners. Of the approximately 15,000 prisoners from Mittelbau, about half were from the Soviet Union and Poland. Although not in good health, these men were much healthier than most of the prisoners in the Belsen main camp. When the British Army liberated Belsen on 15 April, many of the inmates turned on their former overseers at Mittelbau.

title: Bergen, Lower Saxony

text: Middle Ages and the early part of the Modern Age, due mainly to fires in 1354, 1585 and 1796, the agricultural reform in the 19th century and the town's connection to the Celle–Soltau railway led to far-reaching changes. In particular, the creation of the military training area that is today the Bergen-Hohne Training Area in 1935 encouraged the beginning of a period of urbanisation that has led to Bergen's transformation from an agriculturally based village into the small town it is today, characterised by trade and commerce with agriculture having largely lost its significance. The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is located

title: Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp

text: from hunger, thirst, cold and overwork. During the first months, most of the work done was heavy construction and transport. Only in January 1944, when production of the A4/V-2 began, were the first prisoners moved to the new above-ground camp on the south side of the mountain. Many had to sleep until May 1944 in the underground tunnels. In these initial months, from October 1943 to March 1944, out of a total of 17,500 slave labourers, almost 2,900 died at Dora. Another 3,000 who were very ill or dying were sent to Lublin-Majdanek and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. Few of them

title: Espeland concentration camp

text: Espeland concentration camp Espeland concentration camp ("Espeland fangeleir") was established at the village of Espeland in the borough of Arna in Bergen, Norway by the Nazi authorities of occupied Norway in the summer of 1943. It was largely built by slave labor from the other concentration camp near Bergen, Ulven concentration camp. All prisoners from Ulven were transferred to this camp, which quickly became overcrowded. Prisoners were mistreated and often brutalized, and the camp had a separate section for chain gangs and prisoners who were kept in solitary confinement. When liberated in 1945, there were 200 prisoners at Espeland. After

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: 11, 1945 Heinrich Himmler (the "Reichsführer SS") agreed to have the camp handed over without a fight. SS guards ordered prisoners to bury some of the dead. The next day, "Wehrmacht" representatives approached the British and were brought to VIII Corps. At around 1 a.m. on April 13, an agreement was signed, designating an area of around the camp as a neutral zone. Most of the SS were allowed to leave. Only a small number of SS men and women, including the camp commandant Kramer, remained to "uphold order inside the camp". The outside was guarded by Hungarian and regular

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: food. Immediately following the liberation, revenge killings took place in the satellite camp the SS had created in the area of the army barracks that later became Hohne-Camp. Around 15,000 prisoners from Mittelbau-Dora had been relocated there in early April. These prisoners were in much better physical condition than most of the others. Some of these men turned on those who had been their overseers at Mittelbau. About 170 of these "Kapos" were killed on April 15, 1945. On April 20, four German fighter planes attacked the camp, damaging the water supply and killing three British medical orderlies. Over the

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: and concentration camps, written by himself, as well as older Yiddish plays from Eastern Europe. Kazet was in operation until the summer of 1947. In 1946, Abraham Sandman founded the Socialist-Zionist "Jiddische Arbeiterbühne". A Zionist newspaper known as "Unzer Sztyme" (Yiddish for "Our Voice") was published by the DPs of Belsen and became the main Jewish newspaper in the British sector. It was edited by Paul Trepman, David Rosenthal, and Rafael Olewski and had been published initially by the Jewish Committee in Celle and then by the Culture & History Committee of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the

title: Gena Turgel

text: of the last forced march from Płaszów to Auschwitz-Birkenau in December 1944. Months later she was part of the "death march" to Buchenwald before finally being sent to the Bergen-Belsen camp. She survived the bombing of Poland and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she nursed a dying Anne Frank. She married a British soldier, Norman Turgel, after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and the British press called her "the Bride of Belsen." The ceremony was officiated by Jewish British Army chaplain Padre Capt. Leslie Henry Hardman Her wedding dress, made from a British army parachute, is an exhibit in the Imperial

title: Hetty Verolme

text: Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. When Hetty was twelve years old, the Werkendam family were taken from their home in Amsterdam. Hetty and her family were transported to Bergen- Belsen concentration camp after a short stay at the Westerbork camp. Hetty and her brothers, Max and Jack, were separated from their parents and taken to a different group within the Bergen-Belsen camp. Hetty and her brothers were taken to the section for children, experiencing emotions of abandonment and were left scared and alone in the dark, feeling hungry in freezing conditions. The three of them were moved to Barrack 211

title: Herta Ehlert

text: job until the final liquidation of the Plaszów camp. She, too, was on the death march when the time came for us to retreat along with Germans.” Ehlert was later moved to the Auschwitz concentration camp as an "Aufseherin" where she oversaw women commanding "Kommando"s (slave labor groups). Ehlert later served as a guard at the Auschwitz subcamp in Rajsko, Poland, before she was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she became deputy wardress under "Oberaufseherinnen" Elisabeth Volkenrath and Irma Grese. When the British Army liberated the Belsen camp, Ehlert was arrested and tried at the Belsen Trial. She

title: Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

text: large signs at the former camp site. Ex-prisoners began to set up monuments. 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 November 2, 1945, a large wooden cross was dedicated as a memorial to the murdered Polish prisoners. Also by the end of 1945 the Soviets had built a memorial at the entrance to the POW cemetery. A memorial to the Italian POWs followed in 1950, but was removed when the bodies were reinterred in a Hamburg cemetery. The

title: Lucille Eichengreen

text: doctor Josef Mengele sending her to the satellite camp Dessauer Ufer of KZ Neuengamme, where she was forced to heavy labour, working in construction and removing detritus from bomb damages. Later, she was assigned to the physically less straining task in an office, though she was still exposed to mistreatment from supervisors. In March 1945, she was deported to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Lucille Eichengreen was the only member of her immediate family to survive the Holocaust period, though she only gained certainty about her sister's death in 1947. After the liberation of the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen by the

title: Erich Zoddel

text: Erich Zoddel Erich Zoddel (August 9, 1913 – November 30, 1945) was a prisoner functionary at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In 1941, Zoddel was sentenced to a year in prison for theft before being transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1942. He worked as a forced laborer in the Heinkel factory in Oranienburg until October 1943. In November 1943, after a brief stay at Buchenwald concentration camp, he was taken to Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. On 27 March 1944, Zoddel and 1,000 other prisoners from Mittelbau-Dora arrived at Bergen-Belsen. By January 1945, Zoddel had risen in the ranks to a camp

title: Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp

text: About 170 of these "Kapos" were killed that day. Some of the SS personnel who had come from Auschwitz with the evacuation trains went on to Bergen-Belsen when Mitelbau was itself evacuated. A few of them, notably Franz Hössler, were prosecuted by the British military authorities at the Belsen trial in Lüneburg in September 1945. However, charges at this trial related only to crimes committed either at Auschwitz or at Bergen-Belsen, not at Mittelbau. Hössler was among those found guilty and executed on 13 December 1945. Following the June 1945 Fedden Mission investigation of conditions at Dora, the trial "The

title: Ischa Meijer

text: Ischa Meijer Israël Chaim "Ischa" Meijer (14 February 1943 – 14 February 1995) was a Dutch journalist, television presenter, radio presenter, critic and author. He survived the Nazi concentration camp Bergen Belsen along with his parents. Ischa Meijer was born as the oldest child of historian Jaap Meijer and Liesbeth Voet. He was deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a baby along with his parents. They managed to survive, and returned to Amsterdam after the war, where Ischa's siblings Mirjam and Job were born. The family emigrated to Paramaribo in Surinam in the 1950s, fearing a communist take-over. After

title: Lepoglava concentration camp

text: Lepoglava concentration camp The Lepoglava concentration camp was concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia during the World War II. It was located 25 km southwest of Varaždin and operated by Ustaše. In terms of atrocities against its inmates, this camp was no different than other concentration camps in Croatia. In July 1943 it was briefly captured by Yugoslav Partisans. In March and April 1945 about 1,300 inmates of Lepoglava were transported to Jasenovac where they all were killed. In Lepoglava on 30 April 1945 Ustaše murdered 961 young people near the camp, mostly students. The Lepoglava prison was

title: Franz Stofel

text: to escape or slow down the march. On 11 April 1945, the remaining 590 prisoners arrived at Bergen-Belsen. On 15 April 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by British troops, where they found 60,000 survivors and 10,000 dead bodies. The SS camp personnel were detained and forced to carry away all the corpses and bury them in mass graves. Stärfl was then arrested by British military personnel and interrogated. In the Belsen Trial, held between 17 September and 17 November 1945, he was indicted for the murders of prisoners during the death march. Stärfl was convicted on 17 November

title: Georges Valois

text: in February 1945 of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Georges Valois Georges Valois (real name "Alfred-Georges Gressent"; 7 October 1878 – February 1945) was a French journalist and politician, born in Paris. He was a member of the French resistance and died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Born in a working-class and peasant family, Georges Valois went to Singapore at the age of 17, returning to Paris in 1898. In his early years he was an Anarcho-syndicalist. He found work as a secretary at "L'Humanité Nouvelle" where he met Georges Sorel. Later, after a stay in Imperial Russia (1903),

title: Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex

text: canteen, as well as a separate room inside most barracks. On Himmler's order of June 1941, a brothel was opened in the Mauthausen and Gusen I camps in 1942. The Kapos formed the main part of the so-called "Prominents" (), or prisoners who were given a much better treatment than the average inmate. Although the Mauthausen camp complex was mostly a labour camp for men, a women's camp was opened in Mauthausen, in September 1944, with the first transport of female prisoners from Auschwitz. Eventually, more women and children came to Mauthausen from Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen, Gross-Rosen, and Buchenwald. Along with

title: Boelcke-Kaserne concentration camp

text: and transports to Bergen-Belsen could not be arranged. Seriously ill prisoners from incoming transports and other subcamps of Mittelbau-Dora were transported to Boelcke-Kaserne to die; some forced laborers were also sent there after becoming unable to work. Daily trains shuttled between Dora and Boelcke-Kaserne, bringing incapacitated prisoners and removing the corpses for cremation at Dora. On 1 April, there were 5,700 prisoners in the camp; the death rate approached one hundred per day. On 2 April, 3,000 prisoners were transported to the Mittelbau main camp and to Ellrich, a subcamp of Mittelbau. On the afternoon of 3 April and again

title: Buchenwald concentration camp

text: and Bergen Belsen. Only one barracks was set aside for them; this was overseen by the female block leader ("Blockführerin") Franziska Hoengesberg, who came from Essen when it was evacuated. All the women prisoners were later shipped out to one of Buchenwald's many female satellite camps in Sömmerda, Buttelstedt, Mühlhausen, Gotha, Gelsenkirchen, Essen, Lippstadt, Weimar, Magdeburg, and Penig, to name a few. No female guards were permanently stationed at Buchenwald. When the Buchenwald camp was evacuated, the SS sent the male prisoners to other camps, and the five hundred remaining women (including one of the secret annex members who lived

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: on 18 April 1945. Democratic elections were held in September 1945. The leader of the Jewish survivors, Josef Rosensaft became president of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone which represented not just the Belsen DPs but all Jewish DPs in the British zone. In September 1945 and July 1947 the first and second Congress of Liberated Jews in the British Zone took place in the former Wehrmacht officers' mess at Belsen — in the building later known as "The Roundhouse". Under the stewardship of Rosensaft and Norbert Wollheim and Rafael Olewski, the Central Committee grew into

title: The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank

text: had died in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and Mr van Daan was gassed by the Nazis in Auschwitz. However, Anne, Margot and Mrs van Daan were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was not a death camp, and Otto has high hopes for them. But a few days later, a letter comes to Otto informing him that Anne and Margot died in Bergen-Belsen. Otto tells Miep, who is distraught. Miep takes Anne's diary, which she has not read, from her drawer and gives it to Otto Frank. While Otto reads Anne's diary, Miep goes to Anne's room in the

title: Shaul Ladany

text: I actually went into the gas chamber, but was reprieved. God knows why. Describing the concentration camp, Major Dick Williams, one of the first British soldiers to enter and liberate the camp, said: "It was an evil, filthy place; a hell on Earth." Ladany was one of the few of Yugoslavia's 70,000 Jews who survived the Holocaust. He visits the concentration camp every time he is in Europe. He was also there for the 50th anniversary of liberation, and when a Bergen-Belsen museum was dedicated. He was brought on the Kastner train from Bergen-Belsen to Switzerland. After the war ended,

title: Kaechon concentration camp

text: Kaechon concentration camp Kaechon concentration camp (also spelled Kae'chŏn or "Gaecheon") is a prison in North Korea with many political prisoners. The official name is Kyo-hwa-so (Reeducation camp) No. 1. It is not to be confused with Kaechon internment camp (Kwan-li-so Nr. 14), which is located to the south-east. The camp is located in Kae'chŏn county, P'yŏngan-namdo province in North Korea. It is situated on the outskirts of Kaechon city, around east of the city center, behind a little hill. Kaechon concentration camp is a large prison compound, around 300 m (1000 feet) long and 300 m (1000 feet) wide,

title: Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

text: became a British Army camp, known as Hohne Station. Initially, the British medical staff used buildings in the former "Panzertruppenschule" (school for Panzer troops) as an emergency hospital to treat the former inmates away from the disastrous conditions of the concentration camp. On 21 April the first patients were moved to the new location, disinfected and issued with new clothing. This movement of people was completed by 18 May and at that point the former barracks had around 12,000 hospital beds. The British also moved the wounded German soldiers from the Wehrmacht "Reservelazarett" (reserve hospital, in a nearby spruce forest)