Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. About 120,000 people were held in the concentration camp.[1] At least 52,000 people died in the concentration camp or soon after because of how they were treated there.[2] There was also a prisoner of war camp at Bergen-Belsen where at least 19,700 more people died.[2]
Liberation
The camp was liberated on 15 April 1945 by British soldiers.[3] There were around 55,000 people in the concentration camp.[3] They also found more than 13,000 unburied dead bodies.[4]
The scenes were horrific. They were described by the BBC's Richard Dimbleby, who was with the British soldiers:
| “ | Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which ... The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them ... Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live ... A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British [soldier] to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny [baby] into his arms, then ran off, crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.[5] | ” |
—Richard Dimbleby | ||
Notable inmates
Photo gallery
British Army soldiers free the camp on April 15, 1945
After freeing the camp, British soldiers use bulldozers to push dead bodies into mass graves
Women survivors in Bergen-Belsen, April 1945
Former camp guards are forced to load the bodies of dead prisoners onto a truck for burial, April 17–18, 1945
Nazi Dr. Fritz Klein stands amongst corpses in Mass Grave 3
A crowd watches the last camp hut be destroyed
Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp Media
Memorial to Soviet prisoners of war
Bergen Belsen crematorium in April 1945
British and German officers finalize the arrangements for the ending of their temporary truce, April 1945
Some of the 60 tables, each staffed by two German doctors and two German nurses, at which the sick were washed and deloused, May 1–4, 1945
Memorial on the ramp where prisoners arrived
President Reagan's remarks at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in West Germany, May 5, 1985
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Related pages
Other websites
- Investigating Bergen-Belsen | Imperial War Museums on iwm.org.uk
References
- ↑ History of Bergen-Belsen (in en). bergen-belsen.de. Retrieved 27 December 2025.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 History (in en). bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.deGedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen. Retrieved 8 October 2025.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bergen-Belsen | Holocaust Encyclopedia (in en). Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 8 October 2025.
- ↑ The 11th Armoured Division (Great Britain) (in en). www.ushmm.org. Retrieved 8 October 2025.
- ↑ Richard Dimbleby, "Liberation of Belsen", BBC News, April 15, 1945 (April 15, 2005)BBC News. Retrieved May 3, 2013.