Wyzwolenie obozu koncentracyjnego Bergen-Belsen. Relacje świadków

Abstract

On April 15, 1945, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by the British. Over the next few weeks, attempts were made to rescue the prisoners, but in many cases they failed. Reporters, photographers and medical staff as well as former prisoners described the first days in the former camp. From reports, notes, and other documents written on an ongoing basis, as well as memoirs written in the years after the war, emerges the true, tragic condition of the German camp in April 1945. This article compiles the accounts of witnesses: both survivors and the people who contributed to their release, in an attempt to show how the liberation of the camp, as well as the situation in the camp in the following months, looked. The text cites archival materials found during searches conducted in 2019 and 2020 at Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.