Bergen Belsen As A Nazi Concentration Camp

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overview
Bergen-Belsen was a nazi concentration camp. It was not a death camp but many people or prisoners died there during the camp. Located in the small towns of bergen and Belsen .It was originally a prisoner war camp but in 1943 parts of it started becoming a concentration camp. After the whole camp was given over to the SS it was built into three main components with were the:
"POW (prisoners of war) camp" which went on from 1940-Jan 1945.
The"residence camp" started around April 1943 to April 1945, it was composed of 4 sub camps.
The "prisoners camp" went on since 1943-April 194, also had many more sub camps.
Overall Bergen-Belsen consisted of Jews,POW's , political prisoners, roman gypsies, "asocial" criminals, Jehovah witnesses, and homosexuals.

how bergen-belsen became a concentration camp
The camp was first being ran by SS; Hauptsturmfűhrer Adolf Hass. But in 1944 Hass was replaced by SS; Hauptsturmfűhrer Josef Kramer. Kramer had past experience with concentration camp, he had been involved in concentration camps since 1934 and before Bergen Belsen Kramer was at Auschwitz-Birkenau. While he was in Bergen Belsen he was nicknamed; "beast" because of the way he would kill prisoner or let them starve. One guy who survived wrote “Kramer lost his calm. A strange gleam lurked in his small eyes, and he worked like a madman. I saw him throw himself at one unfortunate woman and with a single stroke of his truncheon shatter her skull.” In 1943 is when Bergen Belsen was officially a concentration camp. it was a camp mainly for Jews. The prisoners were sectioned off for their beliefs. This camp was not mainly forced labor but in 1944 the situation changed because other prisoners were transfored, there were around 7,300 prisoner tra...

... middle of paper ...

...945. Anne dies a few days later, the camp was liberated only a few weeks after.

liberation
On April 15 1945, British troops liberate the German concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen. Inside the camp, the soldiers were horrified of all the rotting corpses they found and more starving people over crowding the dead ones. This camp was the first one to be liberated by the British. Huge graves were dug up to hold 5,000 corpses at a time. Brigadier Llewellyn Glyn-Hughes was in charge of cleaning up the camp, he put many workers to help. 28,00 out of the 38,500 in the camp died after and before liberation. The whole camp was burned down because of the typhus disease spreading. The last hut was burned down on May 21, 1945. On December 1945 the leader of the camp Josef Kramer was hanged beacuse he was found guilty at Luneberg of war crimes. The camp is now a landscaped park.

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