Today In 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by the British Army.
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, located in northern Germany, was established in 1943 (relatively late as part of the Holocaust). Initially, Jews with dual citizenship or entry permits were sent to foreign countries in preparation for a potential “exchange plan” (in which they would be released from Europe in exchange for German citizens arrested by the British – such as the Templers). When the plan was not implemented, thousands of Jews were sent to the camp for short periods of time, with an estimated 50 thousand Jews going through the camp during the war (including Anne Frank). In the last month of the war, tens of thousands of survivors from the death marches were concentrated there in terrible conditions; the camp was liberated by the advancing British army into Germany on 15 April, and it completely astonished them. Images of the camp were published in Britain and the Western world, and the Allied population was first fully exposed to the horrors of Nazism. The British barely managed to take control of the morbidity and hunger among the survivors (after the liberation, over ten thousand prisoners died), and on 21 May they decided to burn the camp down and wipe it off the face of the earth. On the ruins of the camp, the largest displaced persons camp in Europe was established – an important propaganda move for the Zionist movement.
Photo Source: Wikipedia
