Saturday, March 29, 2025
Eighty years after British and Canadian troops liberated Bergen-Belsen, survivors and families returned to the site on Sunday to honor the memories of the tens of thousands who perished in one of Nazi Germany’s darkest chapters.
The camp, located near Hanover in northern Germany, became a haunting symbol of the Holocaust’s brutal reality. When Allied forces arrived in April 1945, they found a harrowing scene of mass death and unimaginable human suffering.
Though whispers of atrocities had surfaced through aerial photos and escapee testimonies, nothing prepared the troops for what awaited them at Belsen.
In a chilling landscape, 13,000 corpses lay unburied, and about 60,000 sick and skeletal survivors remained trapped within the camp’s barbed-wire fences.
British soldier Michael Bentine later described Belsen as “the ultimate blasphemy.” Journalists, soldiers, and filmmakers struggled to capture the sheer horror, while BBC reporter Richard Dimbleby famously declared it “the most horrible day” of his life during his historic broadcast from the site.
Unlike other camps further east — many of which were destroyed by retreating Nazis — Belsen was left largely intact. The huts, barracks, and human witnesses offered undeniable evidence of the atrocities committed.
Belsen became the final destination for many prisoners transferred from other camps, leading to overcrowding, typhus outbreaks, starvation, and dysentery.
While there were no gas chambers at Belsen, more than 500 people died daily during the final weeks of the war, victims of neglect, disease, and extreme malnutrition.
Among the thousands who perished was Anne Frank, the young diarist whose story would later become a symbol of Holocaust remembrance. Anne and her sister Margot both died at Belsen in early 1945, just weeks before liberation.
Between January and April 1945 alone, around 30,000 people died at the camp. Even after liberation, an additional 14,000 succumbed — their weakened bodies unable to cope with the rich food initially provided by rescuers.
While most victims were Jewish, the camp also claimed the lives of Soviet prisoners, Sinti, homosexuals, and others deemed undesirable by the Nazi regime.
Today, little of the original Bergen-Belsen camp remains. British forces were forced to burn the huts to prevent the spread of disease. Now, a visitor center, scattered memorial stones, and grass-covered mass graves mark the location.
On Sunday, more than a thousand survivors, descendants, and dignitaries gathered to lay wreaths and recite prayers. Among them were 180 British Jews, whose visit was organized by AJEX, the Jewish Military Association.
UK Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis read a psalm, while Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner attended the solemn ceremony in Lower Saxony’s now-peaceful fields — fields that still whisper the memories of the dead.
A stark memorial bears the words: Hier ruhen 5,000 Toten — Here rest 5,000 dead — a sobering reminder of the lives lost and the horrors that must never be forgotten.
