What the British army found when they entered Bergen-Belsen
In April 1945, Allied forces pushed into Nazi-held territory, uncovering scenes of unimaginable horror. The liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp revealed a scale of human suffering and systemic cruelty that defied the imagination of those who arrived to take control.
On 15 April 1945, the British army liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the closing months of the Second World War [S2:p2]. The takeover was led by Lt-Col. R.I.G. Taylor, DSO, MC, who received orders on 13 April to assume command of the area and manage remaining enemy troops [S2:p3]. Upon entering, Taylor met with the Camp Commandant, Oberst Harries, to establish authority and investigate the conditions of the various military groups present, including the Wehrmacht, S.S., and Hungarian forces [S2:p4, S2:p5].
The scale of the camp's population was immense. According to the S.S. leader, Kramer, there were approximately 40,000 men and women held within the camp, many of whom had recently arrived from another camp that had been overrun [S2:p7]. The camp's infrastructure consisted of six blocks separated by barbed wire, including four women's blocks and two men's blocks, containing roughly 100 huts [S2:p8].
Despite the massive number of prisoners, the administration was shockingly small. While Kramer claimed only 25 S.S. personnel were administering the camp, a nominal roll later revealed 50 names [S2:p7]. The camp's survival was also precarious; the commandant stated there was only enough food to sustain the prisoners for three days [S2:p7].
The liberation also revealed a deliberate attempt to erase evidence of the atrocities. During questioning, it was revealed that all prisoner records had been destroyed following orders from Berlin [S2:p7]. This destruction of paperwork made it difficult to reconstruct the full history of the individuals held within the camp's wire cages [S2:p7].
Source: Face to face with Nazi brutality | Liberating Bergen-Belsen
