Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Also known as KZ Bergen-Belsen, Belsen, Bergen-Belsen
Nazi concentration camp
AI overview
Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp operated by Nazi Germany during World War II, located in northern Germany. It has become a significant historical symbol of the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities, particularly remembered for the horrific conditions and mass deaths that occurred there, especially during the final months of the war.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Location
- Lower Saxony , Northern Germany
- Operated by
- SS-Totenkopfverbände
- Commandant
- List Adolf Haas [ de ] (April 1943 – December 2, 1944) Josef Kramer (December 2, 1944 – April 15, 1945)
- Original use
- Prisoner-of-war camp
- Operational
- 1940–1945
- Inmates
- Jews, Poles, Soviets, Dutch, Czechs, Germans, Austrians
- Number of inmates
- 120,000
- Killed
- 70,000 or more
- Liberated by
- United Kingdom and Canada, April 15, 1945
- Notable inmates
- Anne and Margot Frank
- Website
- bergen-belsen .stiftung-ng .de /en /
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Article
Bergen-Belsen ( pronounced [ˈbɛʁɡn̩ˌbɛlsn̩]), 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 hold 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 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.