70
years ago on this date, April 15, 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is
liberated. I will post information about this concentration camp from Wikipedia
and other links.
 |
|
Memorial stone at the entrance to the
historical camp area
|
Coordinates
|
52°45′28″N 9°54′28″ECoordinates: 52°45′28″N 9°54′28″E
|
Location
|
Lower Saxony, Northern Germany
|
Operated by
|
German Army, later Schutzstaffel (SS)
|
Commandant
|
|
Original use
|
Prisoner of war camp, later civilian internment camp
|
Operational
|
1940–1945
|
Inmates
|
Jews, Poles, Soviets, Dutch, Czechs, Germans, Austrians
|
Killed
|
unknown (estimated at 50,000 or more in the
concentration camp alone)
|
Liberated by
|
United Kingdom and Canada, April 15, 1945
|
Website
|
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 associated with the
concentration camp. From 1941 to 1945, almost 20,000 Soviet 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 approximately 60,000 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 many countries in the immediate
post-1945 period. Today, there is a memorial with an exhibition hall at the
site.
1
Operation
1.1
Prisoner of war camp
1.2
Concentration camp
1.2.1
Außenlager (satellite camps)
1.2.2
Treatment of prisoners and deaths in the camp
2
Liberation
3
Aftermath
3.1
Legal prosecution
3.2
Memorial
4
Personal accounts
5
Media
- The Relief of Belsen (2007 film)
- Frontline: "Memory of the Camps" (May 7, 1985, Season 3, Episode 18), is a 56-minute television documentary that addresses Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps
- Memorandum (1965 film)
OTHER
LINKS:
No comments:
Post a Comment