Belsen

Belsen

Posted: Sep 15, 2021 | Updated: Jun 13, 2022

Think Belson and think mass murder, depravity and inhumanity, though looking at the remains today makes it almost impossible to reconcile them with the images that greeted allied soldiers who entered the gates in 1945.

As depraved as Belson concentration camp was, and just to reinforce how heinous the Nazi regime was, it must not be forgotten that despite the 000s of deaths in Belson, Belson was established as a prisoner of war camp, with part of it in 1943 becoming a concentration camp intended as a detention centre for Jews and other 'undesirables'. It was very different to the industrial scale extermination camps of which Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most famous

Belson Today

With rampaging typhus outbreak, the German Army agreed to hand over the camp to the allied forces, along with an exclusion zone to be considered as neutral territory. A small number of camp guards remained to maintain order and awaited the British and Canadian approach. The German and Hungarian troops who guarded the outside were soon sent to German lines.

Upon entering the camp, the allied soldiers were shocked to discover 13,000 unburied bodies and over 60,000 severely ill or dying inmates. Once they took control, some revenge killings took place of the Kapos (prisoners with supervisory status) by other prisoners, and the guards were put to work on burying the dead in mass graves. Official military photographers documented the horrors and became the iconic images of the crimes committed by the Germans during the Nazi period.

As prisoners were moved out, the camp was burned down to control the epidemic and insanitary conditions. The area of the former camp was neglected and nature left to run its course. Today there are some traces of the camp visible but most of it is now grassland. Monuments and memorials have been erected, and a permanent exhibition occupies the site.


The Highlights

  1. Belson memorial the area that once formed the Belson concentration camp has an exhibition centre but with few visible signs of the camp now remaining, teach yourself about what happened here, and wander the area contemplating how such inhumanity was allowed to thrive.

Posted: May 15, 2011 | Updated: Jun 13, 2022

Comprehending the incomprehensible

The wickedness that pervaded Belsen cannot be comprehended. When people travel to historical locations, they or at least I, look for something that gives you a link to the past; some hook that gives you a momentary glimpse to another age. That could be a street layout, or the buildings, but in Belsen the link is generally not there. On the contrary, it is peaceful. Quiet. Evocative of being alone in the great outdoors. The memory of what happened though has been preserved forever in some shocking scenes documented by the official photographers and the BBC journalists who entered the camp.

I travelled to Belsen for some R & R intrigued at what I might see. After all, 'Belsen' is one of the names that resonates most strongly when one thinks about the horrors of World War 2. I had been to Auschwitz some years previously and much of this is preserved as it was. However, places that become historically important aren't handed down to later generations as the theme parks of the future, and what we see today in Belsen is due to the sickening conditions found at liberation. An emerging humanitarian crisis and six years of a brutal and ongoing war probably pushed thoughts of site preservation to the bottom of the priority list.

Much is now left to the imagination and research to understand the location. The visitor centre is informative and after being shocked, the peaceful site that it is today affords the visitor the space for the contemplation and remembrance that Belson and other locations of humanity's inhumanity deserves. 

1) Belsen - Plan of the camp
2) Belsen - Cookhouse Row
3) Belsen - Water basin in Cookhouse Row
4) Belsen - Kitchen foundations
5) Belsen - Mass grave
6) Belsen - Memorial

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