Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp

The Bergen-Belsen Camp was established in 1940, by German Military Authorities. In April 1943, the S.S. Economic-Administration Main Office had administered the concentration camp system. They took a portion of the camp and converted it into a civilian residence camp. Later, they had made it into a concentration camp. The camp was a prisoner of war (POW) camp from April 1943, to April 1945.

The benefit of this camp was the area had transport connections, the camp was at a railway junction. It was easy to close off from the outside world. (Steinbacher 22). “The camp being easily closed off from the outside world made it easier for the people running the Holocaust to keep it hidden for so long from the outside world; other people in the world didn’t know what was going on along with security. This is why it went on for so long” (22). According to Robson “ In the camp’s first year of operation, only one escape was attempted.” (68). “Prisoners that tried to escape from the camps were usually shot” (Robson 68). “In 1941 seventeen other escape plans were hatched but did not succeed.” (Robson 68). “The security in these camps were very high and clearly made it hard for the prisoners to try to escape, so this is why there were very few prisoners that actually were successful at escaping” (Robson 68). The people in these camps were treated awful by the

Bergen-Belsen had tens of thousands of prisoners in it and had 60,000 prisoners in a very critical condition. Bergen-Belsen was full of unsanitary conditions, the prisoners had lack of food, shelter, and they died because of overcrowded areas. The Nazis starved the prisoners so much that some couldn’t even move. “Moving vaguely on rickety skeleton legs were too ill to eat.”(ushmm.org) Most of the survivors were too hungry to even move to get food. The Nazis wanted prisoners to suffer, so they put them to work everyday, giving them one meal to eat.

This camp, I can’t explain to you the amount of people and sickness that is in Haftling Lager camp (Bergen-Belsen Holocaust). There are so many people dying every day of sickness and hunger, there is very little food and water (Bergen-Belsen Holocaust). There are bodies everywhere, just lying on the ground rotting, they didn’t even bother to bury them (Bergen-Belsen Eastern). There were so many dying in here that they moved some of us out to a new camp called Sternen Lager or “Star” camp as most people call it, (Bergen-Belsen Holocaust) it is better than the last camp I was at, there are about 4,100 Jews alone (Bergen-Belsen

Countless events in the world have been caught in history books but between the ones that have held to the memory of people is the holocaust. The Holocaust was a very disturbing event that triggered an eye-opener for individuals about how harsh humans can be. The purpose for this is since the vast number of victims and questions as to what was the actual motive behind the need to defeat a whole community. Holocaust is an organized, state financed torment and slaying of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi government run by Adolf Hitler. Separately from Jews, other groups considered lesser or anti-establishment, such as Polish, Gypsies, and Romans were killed. There were numerous reasons for these gruesome murders, insensitive imprisonment and enslavements of victims who were forced into labor while starving.

Concentration camps came a long way from 1933 to 1945. The purpose of concentration camps was slightly different in the beginning than they were at the end. Concentration camps were originally set up in Germany to punish anyone who disagreed with the Nazis(The Holocaust Explained Staff). The first concentration camp was called Dachau and was established in 1933, in the beginning of Hitler’s takeover(Project Aladdin). After Dachau was created, many more camps were established. “From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazi regime built a series of detention facilities to imprison and eliminate so-called ‘enemies of the state’”(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Many of the camps that were originally created to stop the opposition of the Nazis, eventually became much more than that. For example, Dachau eventually was transitioned into a death camp where many people died. The first concentration camps were not the same as the camps in the last years of the holocaust. Camps changed their purpose and motives throughout the years of the

What is a concentration camp to you? Most likely you would say a horrible place where they followed Jews. To the many Jewish people who had nowhere to go, this was more or less a place to stay and not a place to die. So in other words to the many people that were being shipped to these camps, they almost had no choice. If you had no food water or shelter, most likely you would turn to the first person to help you, and the first person they turned to wasn’t the right one at all. But how could someone like Hitler, a failure in school, become such a feared warlord? Well from research I learned that Hitler had a meeting to create a group that would eventually slaughter the Jews through thorough planning and most likely through the start of a war.

The holocaust began in 1933 and lasted until the late 1940’s. The word ‘Holocaust’ comes from the greek words ‘holos’ which means whole, and ‘kaustos’ which means burned, and that is what typically happened during this time period to primarily Jews. Auschwitz-Birkenau was one of the most remembered, suicidal camp during the holocaust, especially throughout World War II. Many individuals had considered that Auschwitz was the worst concentration camp all across Europe. The number of victims that died viciously at Auschwitz specifically was estimated to be around 1-1.5 million in the camps existence. The reason why Auschwitz was considered the worst camp in the history of the holocaust is because of the lack of sanitation, how their individualism was lost, and their

Auschwitz consisted of three main camps, which consisted of killing centers, and forced labor. Auschwitz initially served as a detention center, but soon it was turned into a human-killing machine. Auschwitz I was made in April of 1940, while Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau) was made in October of 1941, then Auschwitz III (Auschwitz-Monowitz) was made in October of 1942. Upon arrival in Auschwitz, you were either sent to the left or to the right. If you did not meet the expectations of the SS, you were sent to the left. People sent to the left included mothers or fathers with children, the elderly, those too sick to work, or those who just did not meet

After the invasion of Poland, from Germany, the Nazi’s opened up concentration camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau had three camps all in one. It had a concentration camp, a slave labor complex and a killing center mainly for Jews, although it was that was not said. Added in October 1941, Auschwitz II “killing center for mainly Jews, confused the allies which helped to conceal its most lethal purpose.” (Rogers 90) Located in a southern town in Oswieam, Poland. Auschwitz was a prime location because it was located at a railway junction, a means of transportation spot for all the people transferred to these camps all throughout Europe.

Auschwitz - Birkenau was a concentration camp built in nineteen forty controlled by the nazi party, built five months after germany invaded poland. The camp was selected to be used a death camp in february nineteen forty because of the location near another death camp called Birkenau. Auschwitz was intended to be a short term holding camp until the prisoners could be shipped to the gassing facility at nearby birkenau. “Although prisoners were supposed to be there for less than a month, in nineteen forty one the camp housed over eleven thousand prisoners, by the end of the year the camp housed around eighteen thousand prisoners.” ( Deem 7). The camp was run by Rudolf Hoss, the first commandant at Auschwitz. The camp had a gate in which new prisoners entered which bore a phrase “ Work will set you free”. In the beginning prisoners were instructed to run through the gates in groups of five and the ones who couldn’t keep up were shot.

Jewish people weren’t the only people singled out, Gypsies, and black people were also singled out, but Jews were the majority. When it all started, Jews were forced to work and basically got all of their human rights taken away. It eventually got worse, and Nazi’s believed that they should be exterminated instead. Nazi’s beleived that Jews strived for world domination, and they thought that this would prevent German dominance and destory the German “race”. The Nazi’s also believed that all of history was a fight against the races. The Nazi leaders thought that the only way to survive was to kill all Jews. According to the Nazis, the Jews, as an “inferior” race, would use their supposed control of world finances and of world mass media to

Established in 1940, Bergen-Belsen was originally a prisoner-of-war camp. It was formerly named Stalag 311 until 1943 when the camp was converted into a concentration camp and renamed Bergen-Belsen. Bergen-Belsen was divided into eight different sub-camps: a special camp (Sonderlager), neutral's camp (Nuetralenlager), a tent camp (Zeltlager), small women’s camp (Kleines Fravenlager), large women’s camp (Grosses Fravenlager), star camp (Sternlager), a Hungarian camp (Ungarnlager), and a recuperation camp (Ernolungslager). Bergen-Belsen was only built to hold around 10,000 prisoners, but by the end of the war the camp held more than 60,000 prisoners. This concentration camp had good living standards compared to other camps like Auschwitz. However,

The Holocaust was a terrible time to be alive, especially for the Jewish people. But one

While doing this project, I learned more about concentration camps, because it was the main subject of our research.I knew stuff about the most important concentration camp, but I didn’t know about the others. We learned about Dachau, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. Each camp had