| Bergen-Belsen |
| Established: March 27, 1944 Liberated: April 15, 1945 by the British Survivors: 60,985 at liberation Total Inmates: 95,000 Estimated Number of Deaths: 35,000* |
| * After liberation, most of the prisoners were dying of starvation and/or typhus and typhoid. 28,000 prisoners died after they were liberated by the British, about 13,000 Jews remained alive. Bergen-Belsen was located in Germany. Toward the end of the war, prisoners were marched to Bergen-Belsen to escape approaching Allies. Bergen-Belsen doubled in population in the last months. Bergen-Belsen was the location of one of the worst typhus plagues in the concentration camp history. Most of the inmates died from either starvation or typhus. Bergen-Belsen had no modern crematorium equipment. The camp was not a secret to residents in the town of Bergen, located 4 km from the camp. Bergen-Belsen was never given concentration camp status. Bergen-Belsen had five different purposes in the early months of existence: it was a small Russian POW camp, a convalescence camp, a transit center, an exchange camp, and a collection center for interned American citizens. With the flood of prisoners entering from the closed concentration camps, camp administration in Bergen-Belsen broke down. An estimated 39,000 Polish and Hungarian Jews died in Camp I - the plague compound in Bergen-Belsen. 12 April 1945 - an agreement was reached to let guards surrender the camp intact to the British in order to keep typhus area under control. 15 April 1945 - British entered the camp and found: 10,000 unburied bodies, 40,000 bodies buried in mass graves, 500 survivors perishing per day from starvation and typhus. The British forced the SS guards to bury the 10,000 unburied bodies. |
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