Bergen -Belsen The horror and the beauty

 Bergen -Belsen The horror and the beauty

Leaving Arnhem we drove north into Germany. There were a few places we knew we wanted to visit before crossing into Denmark, It feels wrong to say we wanted to visit. I don’t think ‘wanted to’ is the right word. More that we felt we should visit, to understand more about what took place, to remember the people who were there

Those who survived, and those who did not.

Bergen-Belsen is one of those places.

Following the outbreak of WWII, the Germans set up a camp for Belgian and French prisoners of war in huts at the Bergen Military Training Area.. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union, Soviet POWs were deported to the camp and between July 1941 and April 1942, 14,000 Soviet POWs died there. 

In April 1943,  the southern section of the camp was turned into a camp for Jewish prisoners and in 1944 the SS decided to change the purpose of the camp, it became a concentration camp. A total of 52,000 prisoners from all over Europe were killed in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp or died immediately after its liberation on 15 April 1945 as a result of their imprisonment, mistreatment and malnourishment.

I’m not going to write more about the horrors that took place, others do that in a way I never could, but I will tell you about our visit.

As you arrive at the site you are hit by the size of the memorial building. It is huge. A stunningly stark concrete building that has a presence and dignity about it. Its simplicity is striking. There are very few windows to be seen and enormous doors lead you into the building. They are heavy, it takes effort and determination to enter.  You don’t visit her lightly, the somber atmosphere surrounds you.

The exhibition is moving, emotional, and so human. People tell their stories, photographs tell it for those who never stood a chance. It is silent, everyone visiting is quiet, even the children who don’t understand where they are, are quiet. There’s something about this place that touches you, whoever you are, wherever you come from, we were all experiencing the serenity and solemnity.

As you work your way through the exhibition from prisoner of war to concentration camp the floor rises, you are drawn towards the top of the slope where there is a huge window looking out over the forest, from gloom and darkness into light. It is beautifully done. Respectful, but factual. There’s no shying away from what happened.

One of many stories told is that of Anne Frank who along with her family were transported to Bergen-Belsen. Anne, her sister Margot and her mother all died in the camp. One of the films was of Anne's childhood friend, who found her in the camp, desperately ill, and tried so hard to find food and mittens for her. She eventually managed to gather something together, throw them over a fence to Anne. She never saw her again.

As we headed outside the site is marked by a simple stone sign that so many of us have seen in photos. It is smaller than I imagined, somehow so familiar, yet still shocking to see.

The camp buildings are no longer here, burnt soon after the liberation of the camp to control the lice. The grounds are vast, strewn with great earthworks each with its own stone carving recording how many 1000’s of bodies are below. Grave markers are dotted around, not marking actual graves, but rather as monuments to people who were loved.

The horror of what took place will forever remain impossible to comprehend.