Bergen - Belsen concentration camp Bergen - Belsen ( or Belsen ) was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northwestern 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 associated with the concentration camp . From 1941 to 1945 almost 20 , 000 Russian prisoners of war and a further 50 , 000 inmates died there , with up to 35 , 000 of them dying of typhus 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 around 53 , 000 prisoners inside , most of them half - starved and seriously ill , and another 13 , 000 corpses 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 Western countries in the immediate post - 1945 period . Today , there is a memorial with an exhibition hall at the site . Operation . Prisoner of war camp . In 1935 the " Wehrmacht " began to build a large military complex close to 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 . 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 camp . The camp of huts near Fallingbostel became known as Stalag XI - B and was to become one of the " Wehrmacht " s largest prisoner of war ( 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 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 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 . Concentration 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 of facility must be open to inspection by international committees . This " holding 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 " camp . < br > 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 . 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 were brought from other concentration camps . Supposedly , they were in Belsen to recover and then to return to their original camps , and to resume work . However , a large number of them actually died 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 here were Poles , arrested 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 here in March 1945 . In December 1944 " SS - Hauptsturmführer " Josef Kramer , previously at Auschwitz - Birkenau , became the new camp commandant , replacing " SS - Hauptsturmführer " Adolf Haas , 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 or marched to Bergen - Belsen . Before that the number of prisoners at Belsen had been much smaller . In July 1944 there were just 7 , 300 , by December 1944 the number had increased to 15 , 000 and by February 1945 it had risen to 22 , 000 . However , it 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 to starvation and epidemics . There were no gas chamber s at Bergen - Belsen , since the mass executions took place in the camps further east . Nevertheless , an estimated 50 , 000 Jews , Czechs , Poles , anti - Nazi Christians , homosexuals , and Roma and Sinti ( Gypsies ) died in the camp . Among them was Czech painter and writer Josef Čapek ( estimated to be in April 1945 ) . 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 . Liberation . 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 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 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 . When British and Canadian troops finally entered they found thousands of unburied bodies and ( including the satellite camps ) at least 53 , 000 inmates most acutely sick and starving . 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 . The British started to provide emergency medical care , clothing and food . After some difficulty , such as the fact that departing German soldiers " had sabotaged the water supply in the barracks " the supply was reestablished . 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 . Over the 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 remaining SS personnel were now forced by armed Allied troops to bury the bodies in pits . 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 . In spite of massive efforts to help the survivors with food and medical treatment , led by Brigadier Glyn Hughes , Deputy Director of Medical Services of 2nd Army , about another 9 , 000 died in April , and by the end of June 1945 another 4 , 000 had succumbed ( after liberation a total of 13 , 994 people died ) . The British troops and medical staff tried these diets to feed the prisoners , in this order : Aftermath . Legal prosecution . 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 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 , Ilse Lothe , 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 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 . 14 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 . 18 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 . 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 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 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 . Memorial . 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 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 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 . However , for a long time remembering Bergen - Belsen was not a political priority . Periods of attention were followed by long phases of official neglect . For much of the 1950s , Belsen " was increasingly forgotten as a place of remembrance " . Only after 1957 , large groups of young people visited the place where Anne Frank had died . Then , 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 for the very first time visited the site of a former concentration camp . 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 . 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 , 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 cemetery where the interred included members of the " Waffen SS " ( see Bitburg ) . Shortly before Reagan ' s visit on May 5 , there had been a large memorial event on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the camp ' s liberation , which had been attended by German president Richard von Weizsäcker and chancellor Helmut Kohl . In the aftermath of these events , the parliament of Lower Saxony decided to expand the exhibition centre and to hire permanent scientific staff . In 1990 , the permanent exhibition was replaced by a new version and a larger document building was opened . Only in 2000 did the Federal Government of 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 50th 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 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 .