Overview of historical sites in the surrounding area
Here we present some historical sites in the vicinity of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial.
Loading platform
There is a freight loading platform about six kilometres from the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Between 1940 and 1945, tens of thousands of prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates arrived there, and numerous transports also departed for other camps.
Part of the railway facility has been a listed building since 2000 at the request of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft (AG) Bergen-Belsen (Bergen-Belsen Working Group). The AG designed a demarcated area next to the loading platform with a replica of a historic freight train wagon. Plaques provide information about the history of the platform and the prisoners' journey to the Bergen-Belsen camp. A commemoration ceremony organised by the AG Bergen-Belsen takes place there every year on Liberation Day.
The exit from the road to the ramp is marked by a metal sculpture by Hanoverian artists Almut and Hans Jürgen Breuste.
Barracks
After their liberation by the British Army on 15 April 1945, the survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were taken to the nearby former military barracks where they received medical care. The former concentration camp prisoners and forced labourers deported to Germany from all over Europe were given the legal status of "Displaced Persons" (DP) by the Allies. For a time, up to 12,000 survivors formed the largest post-war Jewish community in Europe on the barracks site.
After 1945, the military barracks became the British Bergen-Hohne Camp. Since the withdrawal of British troops in 2015, soldiers from the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) and other NATO countries have lived and trained here. As a military security area, the barracks are not open to the public. One exception is the M.B. 89 learning centre, which is fenced off from the rest of the barracks and is freely accessible to anyone interested.
Evacuation transports
In April 1945, shortly before the arrival of British troops, the Schutzstaffel SS ("Protection Squadron") largely evacuated the Bergen-Belsen exchange camp. Around 6,700 Jewish women, men and children were to be transferred by three railway transports, presumably to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic. Most of the prisoners were ill and the supplies were completely inadequate for the long journeys. Many died during the journey or after liberation.
Only one train reached Theresienstadt. The other two trains were liberated by American troops near Farsleben north of Magdeburg and by Soviet troops near Tröbitz in Lower Lusatia. Cemeteries, Memorial plaques and memorials commemorate the events there.
Prisoners of War cemeteries
The Bergen-Belsen Prisoners of War cemetery
The cemetery with the victims of the Bergen-Belsen POW camp is located around 600 metres from the former camp. Between 1941 and 1945, at least 19,580 Soviet prisoners of war were buried there, mostly in mass graves; most of them died of malnutrition and disease in the winter of 1941/42. In addition, 142 Italian military internees and nine Polish prisoners of war were buried in individual graves at the cemetery.
The cemetery was given its current appearance by remodelling measures between 1964 and 1968, when it was given a new entrance, the graves were visually grouped together by flat mounds and new paths were laid out, some of which crossed the graves. The Soviet monument was moved to a remote location at the edge of the cemetery.
The Prisoners of War cemetery in Oerbke
The cemetery with the victims of the Fallingbostel and Oerbke POW camps is located on the western edge of the Bergen military training area. At least 14,000 Soviet prisoners of war are buried there, mostly in mass graves, as well as 232 soldiers from various nations in individual graves who died in the two camps between 1940 and 1945.
The Prisoners of War cemetery in Wietzendorf
The cemetery containing the 16,000 Soviet victims of the Wietzendorf POW camp from 1941 to 1943 is located on the southern edge of the Munster military training area. During the mass deaths in the winter of 1941/42, around 14,500 Red Army soldiers died in Wietzendorf due to malnutrition and disease.