Concentration camp
Camp in the concentration camp system of Nazi Germany, located in Lower Saxony near the city of Celle and officially established in April 1943, for persons who were designated for exchange with German nationals in Allied countries. Jewish prisoners from Buchenwald and Natzweiler worked building the camp. Bergen - Belsen came under the SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (Economic - Administrative Main Office; WVHA). It first commandant Adolf Haas, was succeeded by Josef Kramer on December 2, 1944.
Satellite Camps
By the autumn of 1944, five satellite camps were set up, as follows:
1. A "prisoners' camp" for the 500 inmates who had been brought in for construction work. Conditions were terrible and mortality high. The camp was closed on February 23, 1944 and the prisoners were sent to Sachsenhausen.
2. The "special camp, " for two transports of Jews from Poland, some 2,400 people, in possession of various documents, mostly South American. In October 1943, 1,700 of these inmates were deported to their deaths to Auschwitz; 350 more were deported early in 1944. The remaining Jews were not assigned to work teams and had no contact with other sections of the camp.
3. The "neutral camp, " in which 350 Jews were housed from July 1944 until liberation. The inmates, nationals of neutral countries, were treated better than others prisoners.
4. The "star camp", for some 4,000 Jewish prisoners who ostensibly were designated for exchange. Mostly Dutch, these inmates did not wear uniforms, but did wear a yellow badge in the form of a star of David - hence the camp's name.
5. The "Hungarian camp, " in which 1,685 Jews from Hungary, the transport organized by Rezso Kasztner, were housed.
Exchange
Only a few of the Jews who were brought to Bergen - Belsen were set free: on July 10, 1944, 222 Jews reached Palestine; in two parts, in August and December, the Kasztner transport was sent to Switzerland; and on January 25, 1945, 136 Jews with South American passports also reached Switzerland.
Transition to a "Regular" Concentration Camp
Beginning in March 1944, Bergen - Belsen gradually became a "regular" concentration camp, the Germans transferring to it prisoners who were classified as "unfit to work, " from other camps. The first group of 1,000 that arrived from Dora, were housed in terrible conditions in a new part of the camp; nearly all died quickly and at liberation only 57 were alive. More transports arrived and most of the prisoners were housed in the former "prisoners' camp." German convicts were also transferred from Dora, to serve as "block elders" and Kapos; they treated the other inmates very brutally.
The Women's Camp
In August 1944 a women's camp was added. From Buchenwald, 4,000 women prisoners were transferred to the camp and then dispatched to Flossenburg. Most of them returned to Bergen - Belsen, sick or exhausted. Women from Plaszow and Auschwitz also were sent to Bergen - Belsen in October 1944, among them Anne Frank and her sister Margot.
Sharp Decline in Living Conditions
At the end of 1944 and early in 1945, a complete deterioration of living conditions set in when thousands of survivors of Death Marches began to reach the camp. The administration did not even try to house them and a raging typhus epidemic broke out. From January to mid - April 1945, 35,000 prisoners perished.
Liberation and After
On April 15, 1945 the camp was liberated by the British, who were appalled to find most of the sixty thousand inmates in critical condition and who were totally unprepared to deal with the situation. During the next five days fourteen thousand died, and in the following weeks another fourteen thousand succumbed. Bergen - Belsen became the site of a Displaced Persons' camp, which remained in existence until 1951. Forty eight former members of the camp staff were tried by the British. Eleven were sentenced to death, including Josef Kramer; they were executed on December 12, 1945.
Courtesy of:
"Encyclopedia of the Holocaust"
©1990 Macmillan Publishing Company
New York, NY 10022
