Editing Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (section)

===Concentration camp===
In April 1943, a part of the Bergen-Belsen camp was taken over by the SS Economic-Administration Main Office (''SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA''). It thus became part of the [[concentration camp]] system, run by the ''SS [[Schutzstaffel]]'', but it was a special case.<ref name="USHMM website">{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005224|title=Bergen-Belsen|access-date=April 3, 2012}}</ref> Having initially been designated a ''Zivilinterniertenlager'' ("civilian internment camp"), in June 1943 it was redesignated ''Aufenthaltslager'' ("holding camp"), since the [[Geneva Conventions]] stipulated that the former type of facility must be open to inspection by international committees.<ref name="Exhibition guide">{{cite book|editor-last=Godeke|editor-first=Monika |title=Bergen-Belsen Memorial 2007: Guide to the Exhibition|publisher=Scherrer|year=2007|isbn=978-3-9811617-3-1}}</ref> This "holding camp" or "exchange camp" was for Jews who were intended to be exchanged for German civilians interned in other countries, or for hard currency.<ref name="Memorial website3">{{cite web|url=http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/concentration-camp/exchange-camp.html|title=The Exchange Camp|access-date=April 3, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130421052736/http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/concentration-camp/exchange-camp.html|archive-date=April 21, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref> The SS divided this camp into subsections for individual groups (the "Hungarian camp", the "special camp" for Polish Jews, the "neutrals camp" for citizens of neutral countries and the "Star camp" for [[History of the Jews in the Netherlands|Dutch]] Jews). Between the summer of 1943 and December 1944 at least 14,600 Jews, including 2,750 minors, were transported to the Bergen-Belsen "holding" or exchange camp.<ref name="New Exhibition Guide"/>{{rp|160}} Inmates were made to work, many of them in the "shoe commando" which salvaged usable pieces of leather from shoes collected and brought to the camp from all over Germany and occupied Europe. In general, the prisoners of this part of the camp were treated less harshly than some other classes of Bergen-Belsen prisoner until fairly late in the war, due to their perceived potential exchange value.<ref name="Memorial website3" /> However, only around 2,560 Jewish prisoners were ever actually released from Bergen-Belsen and allowed to leave Germany.<ref name="Memorial website3"/>

In March 1944, part of the camp was redesignated as an ''Erholungslager'' ("recovery camp"),{{citation needed|date=April 2023}} where prisoners too sick to work were brought from other concentration camps. They were in Belsen supposedly to recover and then return to their original camps and resume work, but many of them died in Belsen of disease, starvation, exhaustion and lack of medical attention.<ref name="Memorial website4">{{cite web|url=http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/concentration-camp/mens-and-womens-camps.html|title=Men's and Women's Camps|access-date=April 3, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130421052948/http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/concentration-camp/mens-and-womens-camps.html|archive-date=April 21, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

In August 1944, a new section was created, and this became the so-called "women's camp". By November 1944 this camp received around 9,000 women and young girls. Most of those who were able to work stayed only for a short while and were then sent on to other concentration camps or slave-labour camps. The first women interned there were Poles, arrested after the failed Warsaw Uprising. Others were Jewish women from Poland or Hungary, transferred from Auschwitz.<ref name="Memorial website4" /> [[Margot Frank|Margot]] and [[Anne Frank]] died there in February or March 1945.<ref name="DeathResearch">{{cite web |title=Anne Frank’s last months |url=https://www.annefrank.org/en/about-us/news-and-press/news/2015/3/31/anne-franks-last-months/ |website=AnneFrank.org |publisher=Anne Frank House |access-date=29 April 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923172629/https://www.annefrank.org/en/News/News/2015/Maart/Anne-Franks-last-months/ |archive-date=23 September 2015 |date=31 March 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>