Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

Scope and content

The collection contains primarily:
Postwar reports, prisoner cards, correspondence of the German Red Cross, lists of personal effects, death certificates, “secondary death books”, death announcements, different lists (transport lists, prisoners lists, deceased lists, liberation lists, cemetery lists, lists of survivors).

History of Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen 1943-1945:
Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen was established on 10 May 1943 approx. 50 km north of Hannover. As “Absorption Camp Bergen-Belsen”, as part of the concept of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of Reich Leader Heinrich Himmler, it was intended as an assembly camp for Jewish hostages. Here those Jews designated as “exchangeable” should be imprisoned, to then be offered to USA and Great Britain in exchange for financial or political compensation and/or the exchange of imprisoned Germans of the Reich. Between July 1943 and August 1944, in a barracks camp which had been used in 1941/42 as a camp for Soviet prisoners of war (Stalag XI C/311), four partial camps were set up: the “special camp“ for Jews from Poland with Palestine certificates and purchased Latin American passes or “Promesas”; the “Neutral camp” for Spanish Jews from Greece; the „Star camp“ for Jews from the Netherlands, France, North Africa, Albania and the German Reich, who also had access to genuine or forged Palestine certificates and/or Latin American passes; the “Hungary camp” for Hungarian and Slovakian Jews that should be transported to Switzerland in the course of the “Kasztner-operations” Of the approx. 10,000 “prisoners for barter” only 2,580 were able to be freed as part of the exchange actions. 1,686 of these individuals were Jews from the “Kasztner-transports”. In August and December 1944, in exchange for jewels and foreign currencies, these people managed to emigrate to Switzerland. From 1944 the SS Economic and Administrative Office added another function in the use of Bergen-Belsen: beginning in March 1944 as a death camp for deathly ill prisoners from other concentration camps (“recuperation camp”), from August 1944 as a transit camp for Polish slave laborers (“tent camp”, “small women’s camp”) and as of December 1944 as absorption camp for the “evacuation transports” from those camps near the front lines (“Large women’s camp”, “Prisoners camps I and II”). This function expansion was not without consequences. By mid-March 1945 up to 47,834 prisoners were in Bergen-Belsen, despite the fact that architectural and hygienic conditions had been inadequate from the start. Chaos and shortages marked this phase. A total of at least 36,400 prisoners fell victim to hunger, thirst, cold, and disease. With the handover of the camp on 15 April 1945 to British troops, which occurred without a struggle, relief measures of the Allies were immediately implemented; despite these efforts a further 13,944 people died from the repercussions of their incarceration.
Source: Wenck, Alexandra: Bergen-Belsen (KZ), in: Lexikon des Holocaust, ed. by Wolfgang Benz, München 2002, p. 27-28 and http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/45/Gedenkstätte-Bergen-Belsen [latest access 2012-08-10].