![]() #Concentration camp photos mmass gravesd freeIf you have any comments about this site or wish to contribute in any way please feel free to contact me. Many of these prisoners died and are buried within the confines of two cemetery's within Bergen-Hohne Camp. After liberation, between 21 April and the British Army evacuated Bergen-Belsen and housed the former prisoners in the same camp, or in the Wehrmacht hospital just to the North East. On 8 April 1945, when Bergen-Belsen could no longer cope with the massive influx of evacuated prisoners, part of the Panzer Training School at Bergen-Belsen Barracks (now Bergen-Hohne) were taken over and used to house 15133 prisoners from Mittelbau-Dora. A commemorative stone was erected by the Germans in 1968. On the other side of the memorial, in Russian, is 'Rest in peace, dear comrades - the memory of you will live on forever in the hearts of the peoples of the Soviet Union'. In the summer of 1946 the Soviet Military Mission had a memorial erected with the inscription in both Russain and English 'Here are buried 50000 Soviet prisoners of war tortured to death in German - Fascist captivity'. Immediately after the end of World War 2 the first measures were taken to lay out the Cemetery. The single grave of a Polish female soldier can also be found in the Cemetery. Most of the dozens of mass graves were dug in the winter of 1941/42 when 18000 POW's died. They died of starvation, froze to death or succumbed to disease. In 1941 Stalag XI C/311 was extended to include a camp and Lazarett (field hospital) for the influx of Soviet POW's caught during Operation Barbarossa.īetween 19 an estimated 30-50000 Soviet soldiers died in Bergen-Belsen due to the totally inadeqaute living conditions. Until such time the last is identified I have listed it alphabetically. I have managed, from maps, photograph comparisons and film footage, to identify all but one of them. The British Army gave each of these graves an identity number, the amount of bodies they contained and the date they were completed. On two occasions a bulldozer was needed to push the bodies into the graves as they could not be handled due to their advanced state of decomposition. Former SS staff, prisoners and Hungarian soldiers were used to dig the graves and bury the dead. Two of these graves, containing unknown totals, were established by the camp administration in early 1945 when the number of dead increased to such an extent that the small crematorium could no longer cope.Īfter liberation the British Army immediately set to work clearing the estimated 10000 corpses that lay strewn across the site. Within the boundary of the memorial site Bergen-Belsen has 14 mass graves containing at least 23200 former prisoners. ![]()
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