After the beginning of the Second World War, the Wehrmacht set up a camp for Belgian and French prisoners of war in barracks on the edge of the Bergen military training area. In the spring of 1941 the camp area was considerably enlarged. After the attack on the Soviet Union, by autumn 1941 more than 21,000 prisoners were brought in from the Soviet Union. In the period from July 1941 to April 1942 alone, 14,000 Soviet prisoners of war died mainly of hunger, epidemics and the cold.

In April 1943, the SS took over the southern part of the camp as an "exchange camp" for Jewish prisoners. In the spring of 1944 the SS decided to use the camp grounds for other purposes and other groups of inmates. As a result, the character of the camp, the structure of the prisoner society and, above all, the living conditions of the prisoners changed dramatically. When the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated on April 15, 1945, British soldiers found thousands of unburied bodies and tens of thousands of terminally ill people.

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irgendwohin 😗 🥾🚶‍♀️⛰ 🚴‍♀️

September 4, 2021

The Documentation House in Bergen Belsen is a must.

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Location: Lohheide, Celle, Lüneburg Heath, Lower Saxony, Germany

Bergen-Belsen Memorial

1. Former Clarification Basin loop from Walle

2. House of Silence loop from Walle

3. Bergen-Belsen Memorial – House of Silence loop from Walle

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