Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp (“Reception camp”)
From the spring of 1944, countless sick prisoners who were “unable to work” were transferred to Bergen-Belsen from other concentration camps. In the spring of 1945, many “evacuation transports” reached Bergen-Belsen from other concentration camps that had been cleared as the front approached. Some of these transports carried prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite camps. There was a drastic lack of food, space and hygiene in the completely overcrowded camp, and a typhus epidemic claimed the lives of thousands of men, women and children imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen.
On 15 April 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by British troops. At the time, the camp held nearly 60,000 people, most of whom were in very bad physical condition. The camp was strewn with corpses. Despite the rescue campaign organised for the survivors by the British army, another 13,000 people died after the liberation as a result of their imprisonment in the concentration camp.
Period
Spring 1944 to April 1945
Number of prisoners
unknown
Kind of work
unknown
Slave labour on behalf of
unknown
