Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Bergen-Belsen Liberated on This Day in 1945

It was seventy years ago on this day that the Bergen-Belsen death camp was liberated by incoming British troops.

Hitler's Thousand Year Reich had barely lasted twelve years, and was falling apart at the seams all around him, while he was trapped in his underground bunker in Berlin, knowing the end was near, and essentially preparing to take his own life.

Elsewhere, German troops were still putting up fierce resistance, but it was a lost cause. The Nazi dream of a long-lasting empire was quite literally crumbling all across the nation.

As they were beaten back deeper and deeper inside of the Reich, the Germans had to abandon numerous places and things, including those that recorded Nazi war crimes.

One of those places was the Bergen-Belsen death camp, near Hannover, Germany, which was liberated on this date in 1945, and provided yet still further proof (as if more was needed) of the crimes against humanity that the Nazis were responsible for.

There were survivors, but the camp itself was destroyed, burned to the ground by the British, because of a severe outbreak of typhus and louse epidemic that cost over 13,000 people their lives after liberation.

Also, this is Holocaust Remembrance Week, from April 9th -16th. So, just figured that it would be respectful to honor the victims of the Holocaust in some small way, and I hope that this post, in some small measure, helps some to remember.






Bergen-Belsen liberation: Tank driver John Darby recalls opening gates By Laurence Cawley and Mark Murphy of BBC News, April 15, 2015:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-32314874

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