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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, [1] in 1943, parts of it became a concentration camp.
German military authorities established the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1940. It was in a location south of the small towns of Bergen and Belsen, about 11 miles north of Celle, Germany. Until 1943, Bergen-Belsen was exclusively a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp.
Oct 3, 2024 · Bergen-Belsen, Nazi German concentration camp near the villages of Bergen and Belsen, about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Celle, Germany. It was established in 1943 on part of the site of a prisoner-of-war camp and was originally intended as a detention camp for Jews who were to be exchanged for.
- Michael Berenbaum
Bergen-Belsen operated near the town of Celle, Lower Saxony in Northern Germany. It consisted of a number of camps, developing into a complex camp system. It became known as Bergen-Belsen in 1943, when it was officially designated a Concentration Camp.
British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. Thousands of bodies lay unburied around the camp and some 60,000 starving and mortally ill people were packed together without food, water or basic sanitation. Many were suffering from typhus, dysentery and starvation.
Transit camps such as Westerbork, Gurs, Mechelen, and Drancy in western Europe and concentration camps like Bolzano and Fossoli di Carpi in Italy were used as collection centers for Jews, who were then deported by rail to the extermination camps.
Learn about the sections of the Bergen-Belsen camp complex during WWII and the Holocaust until the camp's liberation by British forces in April 1945.
