Bergen-Belsen was originally a large training site for Wehrmacht armoured troops and a barracks complex near the towns of Bergen and Belsen on the Lüneburg Heath.^[1] The camp was initially not a labour or extermination camp - there were no gas chambers - and served as a POW camp and 'exchange camp'. From May 1940, French, Belgian, Soviet, and other allied soldiers and resistance fighters from many different countries were imprisoned in the camp.^[2]

Sternlager

In April 1943 , the SS took over a large area of the POW camp from the Wehrmacht to set up the Aufenthaltslager Bergen-Belsen, which housed Jews who could be exchanged with German POWs abroad; something that in the end hardly ever happened.^[3]

The Sternlager was part of the Austauschlager and consisted of about eighteen barrack huts in which many Dutch Jews were imprisoned. In the Sternlager, families were improsoned together and, for a time, conditions were relatively better than in other camps.^[3]

Durchgangslager

In the summer of 1944, Bergen-Belsen also became a Durchgangslager (transit camp) for thousands of women from occupied parts of Eastern Europe who had been transported for forced labour to German sub-camps. In early August 1944, a tent camp was set up on an open plain in the south-west corner of the camp to accommodate the large deportations arriving from mid-August 1944.^[4]

Conditions

Over time, conditions deteriorated throughout the camp. Under camp commander Josef Kramer, who had been transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen on 2 December 1944, the harsh regime hardened even further. Due to overcrowding, ill-treatment, hunger, the cold winter and infectious diseases, Bergen-Belsen eventually became a place where the Nazis brought Jews only to have them die because of the poor conditions there.^[5]

Of the approximately 120,000 prisoners, more than 72,000 perished. Among these were Anne and Margot Frank, who were imprisoned in the camp from 3 November 1944 .