Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp By: Adam Brown Ms.Wharmby's 3rd block

                Bergen-Belsen was mainly served as a holding camp for the Jewish prisoners.

 The Eight Camps of Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen was split into eight camps

  •  Detention camp
  •  Two women’s camps
  •  Special camp
  •  Neutrals camp
  •  Star camp (mainly Dutch prisoners who wore a Star of David on their clothing instead of the camp uniform)
  •  Hungarian camp
  •  Tent camp

                                    Death March                          

     The camps were designed to hold 10,000 prisoners, however, by the war's end more than 60,000 prisoners were detained there. It was chronically overcrowded due to the large numbers of those evacuated from Auschwitz and other camps from the East. Tens of thousands of prisoners from other camps came to Bergen-Belsen after agonizing death marches.

 

 

 Location of Bergen-Belsen

 

      Bergen-Belsen is near Hanover in northwest Germany, located in between the two cities Bergen and Belsen. Bergen-Belsen is about 11 miles north of Celle, Germany.

Conditions at Camp

 

 

        Bergen-Belsen started off semi clean providing soup and bread, but throughout the year it got worse. They started out with three meals a day but ended up going to coffee and bread with maybe cheese and sausage or one liter of vegetable stew. More than 60,000 Jews were housed at Bergen-Belsen so that made it very uncomfortable, muggy and hot. 12,000 Jews died just because of sickness, starvation, stress and some even committed suicide. Families lived together but single men and women had separate barracks. There were 500 Jewish children. Lack of food, water and shelter led to an outbreak of diseases such as typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever and dysentery. Prisoners weren’t forced to labor such as harvesting fields and doing soldiers work.

 

                                                                       

                                                    

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The Liberation at Bergen-Belsen

 

       Bergen-Belen was the first concentration camp to be liberated. It was liberated on April 15, 1945.  60,000 prisoners saw the camp become liberated. Afterward, 500 people died daily of starvation and typhus, reaching nearly 14,000 deaths. The camps SS commandant, Josef Kramer, known as the “Beast of Belsen”, was tried and found guilty by a British military court and was executed. British Forces liberated Bergen-Belsen. British Forces then found all prisoners, most of them very ill. Thousands of corpses lay on the ground unburied which caused some of the diseases to spread from the bones and decay. The camp was then burned to the ground by flamethrowers. The total number of deaths was about 50,000.  

 

Josef Krammer, known as the              Bergen-Belsen being burned to the ground by flamethrowers

"Beast of Belsen".                         

    Thousands of dead bodies on the ground                    

 

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Anne Frank
 
 
         Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were  transferred to Bergen-Belsen from Auschwitz. They both died in Bergen-Belsen due to the dieases of Typhus. Anne Frank had a diary that she wrote in about the camps and her daily life of her past and future. Anne and Margot started off  in Auschwitz and were soon sent to Bergen-Belsen. They were evacuated due to space issues. Anne Frank's diary has been one of the only things left from concentration camps. Anne Frank's diary is still very famous today.
 
 
 
 
 
             Anne Frank's diary        Anne Frank grown up     Anne Frank and Margot Franks        Anne Frank as a girl                                                                                                       Memorial         
 
  
 
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Moshe Peer
 
       Moshe Peer, now 67, was held captive as a boy at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II. He has spent many years writing a first-person account of the horror he witnessed at Bergen-Belsen. Moshe Peer and all his siblings were fortunate to have survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Peer recalled, “Bergen-Belsen was worse than Auschwitz because there people were gassed right away so they didn't suffer a long time ...” Russian prisoners were kept in an open-air camp and were given no food or water. “Some people went mad with hunger and turned to cannibalism". Moshe Peer was very lucky to have lived through Bergen-Belsen.
 
 
 
       Moshe Peer cramped on a fence with other children       Moshe Peer grown up                   Moshe Peer still alive today
 
 
     
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bergen-Belsen's Memorial
The Bergen-Belsen Memorial is marked sixty kilometres north-east of Hannover, in the Luneburg Heath. Located on grounds of the former P.O.W. (Prisoner of War) and concentration camps, marked graves and monuments hold reminders of the suffering and deaths of it's prisoners.
 
Bergen-Belsen Memorial
             
 
 
 
 

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