Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp - 'Hell' on Earth

Rare photographs depict the unimaginable brutality of death camps from World War II.

On April 15, 1945, allied soldiers of Russia, Britain and the United States discovered the most terrible scene of World War II at the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. By that time, many concentration camps had been liberated, including Auschwitz, but among them, Bergen-Belsen left the deepest mark on the hearts of the soldiers who discovered the camp. Some veterans are still haunted by the horrifying scene from 80 years ago.

Here, there were about 80,000 corpses and 13,000 other prisoners who had died previously due to poor health.

At each camp, there was always a photographer sent by the US military to document what was seen to report in more detail to the higher commanding officers across the ocean. Originally, in 1940, Bergen-Belsen was established as a POW camp where most of the surrendered allied soldiers were gathered. In 1943, SS soldiers decided to turn it into a death camp.

Most of the prisoners brought here were from other concentration camps that did not have enough room to accommodate them. Some prisoners were transferred to Bergen-Belsen as "death marches" aimed at slow and painful killing. In 1945, as allied forces were pushing back the Germans, the SS troops were ordered to kill as many prisoners as possible before the Allies discovered the camp.

The first person to witness was terrified

Lieutenant John Randall was the first to come into contact with the prisoners at Bergen-Belsen and witness the atrocities. In his book, 'The Last Gentleman of the SAS: The Touching Testimony of the First Allied Officer to Enter Belsen at the End of World War II', Randall explains in great detail the horror he experienced. spent that day. Randall was a seasoned soldier and, in 1945, was a member of the SAS (Special Air Service - SAS) task force.

However, even with specialized training and all these years of experience, he was astounded by what he saw upon entering the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, as he mentions in his book. The young SAS officer commanded a small detachment of the first soldiers of the Western Front. When he saw the metal gates of the camp, he thought it was the entrance to a large farm. Bergen-Belsen was located in the north of Germany and the Allies discovered it quite by accident, having arrived there by chance following a road that curves into a dark forest of pine and birch. bland.

Intrigued, Randall ordered his corporal to turn the Jeep to the left. Randall saw two unarmed SS soldiers who seemed unconcerned about the presence of allied soldiers. They knew English quite well and told Randall that they had been left behind and in that case they had no hope nor the excitement and the courage to fight the war so they waited for their allies, waiting. waiting for their fate even though it may be bleak.

What Randall saw made Randall regret being born into this world. The deeper they went into the camp, the more corpses they found. Not long after, they were approached by several survivors, who were extremely malnourished with bony bodies, pale skin tones, and expressionless faces. The survivors begged the Allied soldiers for help but were unable to provide because they had no supplies. Randall managed to say a few words and advised the survivors to wait, reinforcements would arrive.

Hell on earth

In the camp, there were about 80,000 corpses and 13,000 other prisoners who had died earlier due to poor health. Most of the survivors were found in huts, clustered together and occasionally checking each other for breathing. The smell and the surrounding atmosphere was different from this world. Only recently declassified rare photos can describe this hell on earth.

'The dead and the dying lie close together. I passed corpse after corpse, until I heard a voice above groaning softly. I found a girl - a skeleton. Her age cannot be guessed, as she has practically no hair on her head, and her face is only a sheet of yellow parchment, with two holes in it for her eyes' (words by Corporal Ian Forsyth) .

Some of the survivors were so weak that others died on top of them that they were unable to move the bodies, nor did they have the strength to call for help. Some survivors may have been buried alive along with others. Despite the large number of people murdered at Auschwitz, the massacre at this camp was still felt the most, simply because it was the place where the largest volume of corpses was concentrated in one place during the war.

Bergen-Belsan was one of the very few concentration camps that the Allies burned down.

Most of the photographs taken in Bergen-Belsan of the corpse were taken by Charles Martin King Parsons, a member of the same SAS team. The photos were previously unknown until 2015, when his nephew Tom Marshall decided to publish the photos after the nephew found them inside an old box where Parsons kept the memories. his artifact from the war.

Bergen-Belsan was one of the very few concentration camps that the Allies burned down, but it was the only way to erase some terrible memories. As soon as all the dead had been buried and all the survivors were freed, the British army burned all of the camp's huts.

Bergen-Belsan may have been one of the last concentration camps to be discovered, but it certainly left the deepest mark. This is the moment when the world truly understands the meaning of carnage and evil brought about by Hitler's sick ideology. No matter how terrible the previous wars in human history, nothing compares to the hell created at Bergen-Belsan.