The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos- BERGEN-BELSEN MAIN CAMP
Item
Title
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos-
BERGEN-BELSEN MAIN CAMP
BERGEN-BELSEN MAIN CAMP
Description
The “detention camp (Aufenthaltslager) Bergen-Belsen” the official name for the camp, established in the spring of 1943, was to fulfill a very specific function within the National Socialist concentration camp system. It was to function as a transit camp for specific groups of Jewish prisoners who (initially) were excluded from the deportation into the extermination camps. They would be held to be exchanged for Germans interned in Western countries, as more Germans had been interned overseas than had foreigners in countries under German control. Although the Foreign Affairs Office was involved in the initiative to establish the camp, it was, despite
Creator
Geoffrey P. Megargee