Lohheide, 16 June 2025 On 22 June 1941, Hitler's Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Especially at the beginning of the war, large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war arrived in the German Empire, including Bergen-Belsen.
The first transport of around 2000 Soviet prisoners of war reached Bergen-Belsen in July 1941. By autumn 1941, there were already more than 21,000 prisoners in Prisoner of War base camp (Stalag 311 XI C), the official name for the prisoner of war camp in Bergen-Belsen. As not enough accommodation had been completed, the soldiers had to live in open fields, in leaf huts and burrows. This exposed them mercilessly to the weather conditions. As a result, many of the prisoners of war did not survive.
The Geneva Convention, which also governed the treatment of prisoners of war, was deliberately not applied to these prisoners. The dramatic consequences this had for the Soviet soldiers will be the subject of the tour. Finally, the tour will also look at why the fate of Soviet prisoners of war received relatively little attention in the post-war period, at least in West Germany.
The approximately 90-minute tours start at 2.30 pm and include the Prisoner of War cemeteries in Hörsten, where the deceased prisoners of war were buried. We therefore recommend weatherproof clothing and footwear. All interested people aged 14 and over are invited. Admission is free, registration is not required. The meeting point is the information desk in the Memorial Documentation Centre.
The German-language tour will be led by educationalist Doreen Krohne. Doreen Krohne has been organising educational events at the memorial since 2005, first as a teacher and now as a freelancer. The tour in Russian is conducted by freelancer Elena Grigoryan, who has been working at the memorial since 2021 with Russian-speaking groups, among others.