Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation

Bergen-Belsen Memorial

Barracks Camp (1945)

In early April 1945 the SS evacuated most of the Mittel-bau-Dora concentration camp in the Harz Mountains. They took around 20,000 prisoners to Bergen-Belsen by train and sometimes on foot. Since the main camp was overcrowded, the SS used the southern section of the Bergen-Hohne barracks as a satellite camp to house most of these prisoners. The majority were political prisoners from the Soviet Union as well as Poland, France and Belgium, but there were also Hungarian and Polish Jews among them, and Sinti and Roma people. The prisoners in the barracks camp were liberated along with their fellow prisoners in main camp on 15 April 1945 by the British Army.

Displaced Persons Camp (1945–1950)

After the liberation, the British took the survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to the nearby Wehrmacht barracks to give them medical attention. The concentration camp prisoners, forced labourers and POWs who had been deported to Germany from all over Europe were given the status of “displaced persons” (DP) by the Allies. This status gave them the right to special care. After the majority of survivors had returned to their countries of origin, most of those who remained in Bergen-Belsen were Jewish former prisoners and non-Jewish Poles. In the second half of 1945, separate living areas were established for these groups. At times, there were more than 10,000 people living in the Polish DP camp in Bergen-Belsen. This camp was disbanded in September 1946. The Jewish DP camp held up to 12,000 people. It was closed in mid-1950.

Places of Remembrance

The Loading Platform The loading platform between Bergen and Belsen was built in 1936 for delivering goods to the military training grounds. Between 1940 and 1945, well over 150,000 prisoners arrived here and were forced into the Bergen- Belsen POW camp and concentration camp. They are commemorated with a replica goods wagon, a memorial stone and a steel sculpture at the entrance to the platform. Parts of the railway complex have been placed under a preservation order.

Cemeteries in the Grounds of the Barracks The prisoners from the barracks camp who died before and immediately after the liberation were buried on the southern edge of the barracks (Small Cemetery). The collective grave here also holds prisoner functionaries (“Kapos”) who were lynched by their fellow prisoners shortly after the liberation. During the construction of a gymnasium in 1982, another collective grave was found nearby with the remains of 64 prisoners from Mittel-bau-Dora. They were reinterred in the so-called Tent Theatre Cemetery not far away. More than 4,000 former prisoners had been buried there in the first weeks after the liberation. Later on this cemetery was also used for the Bergen-Belsen DP camp. Unlike the mass graves in

the grounds of the Memorial, most of the graves here hold the bodies of former prisoners who are known by name.

Bergen-Belsen POW Cemetery Most of the victims of the POW camp were Soviet soldiers. They were buried in the nearby POW camp cemetery. Today they are commemorated by a Soviet monument from 1945 and several memorial stones. Bergen-Belsen Memorial By late May 1945, the British had burned down all of the wooden huts in the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentra-tion camp because of the threat of epidemics. They also dug and marked mass graves. A section of the grounds was designated as a memorial on the orders of the British military government. In 1952, German President Theodor Heuss dedicated a memorial complex with an obelisk and inscription wall. Today Bergen-Belsen is both an international place of remembrance and a centre of education and research with a permanent exhibition, archive, library and wide range of learning opportunities.

Bergen-Belsen and the Bergen-Hohne Barracks

The Memorial is open daily.Exhibition and Documentation Centre:October to March, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April to September, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation Bergen-Belsen Memorial Anne-Frank-Platz29303 LohheideGermanyTel.: +49 (0) 5051 – 47 59-0Fax: +49 (0) 5051 – 47 59-118 E-mail: bergen-belsen@stiftung-ng.de www.bergen-belsen.de S

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View of the liberated barracks camp, 18 April 1945 • Sgt Oakes, Imperial War Museum (Photograph Archive, BU 4037), London

Commemoration ceremony on 17 April 2016 at the Bergen-Belsen POW Cemetery • Helge Krückeberg, Bergen-Belsen Memorial / Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation

Entrance to the Documentation Centre, 2007 • Klemens Ortmeyer, Bergen-Belsen Memorial / Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation

Demonstration in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, 7 September 1947 • Yad Vashem Archive, Jerusalem, The Josef Rosensaft Collection, FA 186-315

Monument on the loading platform, designed by Hans-Jürgen Breuste • Rainer Knäpper, Free Art License (http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/)

View of the so-called Tent Theatre Cemetery • Sabine Bergmann, Bergen-Belsen Memorial / Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation

The Bergen-Hohne barracks and Bergen military training grounds are historical sites that reflect the history of Nazism and its crimes. From the mid-1930s the Bergen military training grounds were used to prepare for war. During the war, around 100,000 people died in four POW camps in the military training grounds and in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was established in 1943. The historical structures in the barracks have largely been preserved. This was the location of the headquarters of the Bergen-Belsen POW camp, a satellite camp of the Ber-gen-Belsen concentration camp and, after the war, the largest camp for Jewish Holocaust survivors in Germany.

Belsen Military Base (1937–1945)

The Wehrmacht set up several troop training grounds in the 1930s as Nazi Germany was preparing for war. The largest new project of this kind was the Bergen military training area, which covered over 280 square kilometres and was used to train armoured units. Large barracks complexes intended to hold 15,000 soldiers each were built on the western and eastern edges of this expanse of land, as was the Belsen military base, which was completed in 1937. Part of the barracks was used as a displaced persons camp from the end of the war until 1950. Today the mil-itary training grounds are used by NATO units. A British garrison was stationed here until 2015. The German armed forces took over the building complex in 2016.

Bergen-Belsen POW Camp (1940–1945)

From 1940 the Wehrmacht housed a work detail made up of French and Belgian POWS in a former construction workers’ camp dating from the construction of the barracks and located about one kilometre south of the military base. In 1941 the camp was expanded and designated as the site of Stalag 311 (XI C), a camp for Soviet POWs. Two other so-called “Russian camps” were set up in the nearby villages of Oerbke and Wietzendorf. By the end of the war, at least 50,000 Soviet POWs had died in these three camps. Stalag XI C in Bergen-Belsen was disbanded in the summer of 1943, and part of the camp – then considered a “branch camp” of Stalag XI B in Fallingbostel – was used as a central hospital for Soviet POWs and Italian military internees until January 1945.

Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp (1943–1945)

In April 1943 the SS took over part of the camp from the Wehrmacht and used it as a concentration camp. It was initially intended for Jewish prisoners who were to be released in exchange for Germans interned abroad or for material rewards. From the spring of 1944 the SS additionally used Bergen-Belsen to house male prisoners from other concentration camps who were no longer able to work, a great many of whom died. A short time later a section was added for female prisoners who were to be sent from here to perform forced labour elsewhere in Germany. At the end of 1944 Bergen-Belsen became the destination for evacuation transports from concentration camps near the front lines. Hunger and epidemics in particular claimed the lives of more than 18,000 victims here in March 1945 alone. British troops liberated the camp on 15 April 1945. Of the 120,000 men, women and children from all over Europe who were imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen, more than 52,000 died.

Belsen

Loading ramp

Bergen-Belsen Memorial

Barracks camp (satellite camp of concentration camp)(1945)

Small Cemetery

Hörsten POW Cemetery

POW camp (1940–1945)Concentration camp(1943–1945)

Tent Theatre Cemetery

Glyn Hughs Hospital(1945)

Displaced Persons Camp(1945–1950)

Belsen military base (1937–1945)

Railway lineWater

Road

Historical designation

Current designation

L298

Meiß

e

Round-house

500m

Bergen

Bergen-Hohne barracks

Forest

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Overleaf: Postcard with the main guardhouse of the Belsen military base, 1936 • From the collection of Hinrich Baumann

Topping out ceremony at the Belsen military base, December 1935 • From the collection of Hinrich Baumann Map • ermisch | Büro für Gestaltung

Belsen military base, circa 1942: Headquarters of the POW camp • From a private collection

View from the watchtower of the camp and dividing strip• Sgt Oakes, Imperial War Museum (Photograph Archive, BU 4711), London