Editing Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (section)

==Aftermath==
===Legal prosecution===
{{main|Belsen trial}}
Many of the former SS staff who survived the typhus epidemic were tried by the British military at the [[Belsen trial]]. Over the period in which Bergen-Belsen operated as a concentration camp, at least 480 people had worked as guards or members of the commandant's staff, including around 45 women.<ref name="Memorial website7">{{cite web|url=http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/prosecution-of-perpetrators.html|title=The Prosecution of the Perpetrators|access-date=December 20, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130421052828/http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/prosecution-of-perpetrators.html|archive-date=April 21, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref> From September 17 to November 17, 1945, 45 of those were tried by a military tribunal in Lüneburg. They included former commandant Josef Kramer, 16 other SS male members, 16 female SS guards and 12 former kapos (one of whom became ill during the trial).<ref name="Memorial website8">{{cite web|url=http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/prosecution-of-perpetrators/belsen-trial.html|title=Belsen Trial|access-date=December 20, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130329050106/http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/prosecution-of-perpetrators/belsen-trial.html|archive-date=March 29, 2013|df=mdy-all|website=bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de}}</ref> Among them were [[Irma Grese]], [[Elisabeth Volkenrath]], [[Herta Ehlert|Hertha Ehlert]], {{Interlanguage link|Ilse Lothe|de}}, [[Juana Bormann|Johanna Bormann]] and [[Fritz Klein]]. Many of the defendants were not just charged with crimes committed at Belsen but also earlier ones at Auschwitz. Their activities at other concentration camps such as [[Mittelbau-Dora]], [[Ravensbrück]], [[Neuengamme concentration camp|Neuengamme]], the [[Gross Rosen]] subcamps at [[Neusalz]] and [[Langenleuba]], and the Mittelbau-Dora subcamp at [[Gross Werther]] were not subject of the trial. It was based on British military law and the charges were thus limited to war crimes.<ref name="Memorial website8"/> Substantial media coverage of the trial provided the German and international public with detailed information on the mass killings at Belsen as well as on the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.<ref name="Memorial website8"/>

Eleven of the defendants were sentenced to death.<ref name="Memorial website8" /> They included Kramer, Volkenrath and Klein. The executions by hanging took place on December 13, 1945, in Hamelin.<ref name="Memorial website8"/> Fourteen defendants were acquitted (one was excluded from the trial due to illness). Of the remaining 19, one was sentenced to life in prison but he was executed for another crime. Eighteen were sentenced to prison for periods of one to 15 years; however, most of these sentences were subsequently reduced significantly on appeals or pleas for clemency.<ref name="Memorial website8"/> By June 1955, the last of those sentenced in the Belsen trial had been released.<ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|37}} Ten other members of the Belsen personnel were tried by later military tribunals in 1946 and 1948, with five of them being executed.<ref name="Memorial website8"/>

[[Denazification]] courts were created by the Allies to try members of the SS and other Nazi organisations. Between 1947 and 1949 these courts initiated proceedings against at least 46 former SS staff at Belsen. Around half of these were discontinued, mostly because the defendants were considered to have been forced to join the SS.<ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|39}} Those who were sentenced received prison terms of between four and 36 months or were fined. As the judges decided to count the time the defendants had spent in Allied internment towards the sentence, the terms were considered to have already been fully served.<ref name="Memorial website9"/>

Only one trial was ever held by a German court for crimes committed at Belsen, at Jena in 1949; the defendant was acquitted. More than 200 other SS members who were at Belsen have been known by name but never had to stand trial.<ref name="Memorial website9">{{cite web|url=http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/prosecution-of-perpetrators/german-proceedings.html|title=German proceedings|access-date=December 20, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016091715/http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/prosecution-of-perpetrators/german-proceedings.html|archive-date=October 16, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref> No German soldier was ever put on trial for crimes committed against the inmates of the POW camps at Bergen-Belsen, although some were tried for participating in death marches headed towards Bergen-Belsen and in the region around it,<ref name="Memorial website7"/> despite the fact that the [[International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg]] had found in 1946 that the treatment of Soviet POWs by the ''Wehrmacht'' constituted a war crime.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Prosecution of the Perpetrators |url=https://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/theprosecutionoftheperpetrators/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |website=bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|39}}

===Memorial===
[[File:Denkmal Rampe Bergen Belsen IMGP4318 wp.jpg|thumb|Memorial on the ramp where prisoners arrived]]
[[File:Anne frank memorial bergen belsen.jpg|thumb|alt=A Memorial for Margot and Anne Frank shows a Star of David and the full names and birthdates and year of death of each of the sisters, in white lettering on a large black stone. The stone sits alone in a grassy field, and the ground beneath the stone is covered with floral tributes and photographs of Anne Frank|Memorial for [[Margot Frank|Margot]] and [[Anne Frank]] at the Bergen-Belsen site]]
The area of the former Bergen-Belsen camp fell into neglect after the burning of the buildings and the closure of the nearby displaced persons' camp in the summer of 1950. The area reverted to heath; few traces of the camp remained. However, as early as May 1945, the British had erected large signs at the former camp site. Ex-prisoners began to set up monuments.<ref name="Memorial website6">{{cite web|url=http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/place-of-remembrance.html|title=Place_of_Remembrance|access-date=December 21, 2012}}</ref> A first wooden memorial was built by Jewish DPs in September 1945, followed by one made in stone, dedicated on the first anniversary of the liberation in 1946. On November 2, 1945, a large wooden cross was dedicated as a memorial to the murdered Polish prisoners.{{cn|date=November 2024}} In addition, by the end of 1945, the Soviets had built a memorial at the entrance to the POW cemetery. A memorial to the Italian POWs followed in 1950, but was removed when the bodies were reinterred in a Hamburg cemetery.{{cn|date=November 2024}}
[[File:Mass grave at Bergen-Belsen.jpg|thumb|One of several mass graves on the site of the former camp; the sign simply reads: '"Here lie 5,000 dead. April 1945"]]

The British military authorities ordered the construction of a permanent memorial in September 1945 after having been lambasted by the press for the desolate state of the camp.<ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|41}} In the summer of 1946, a commission presented the design plan, which included the obelisk and memorial walls. The memorial was finally inaugurated in a large ceremony in November 1952, with the participation of Germany's president [[Theodor Heuss]], who called on the Germans never to forget what had happened at Belsen.<ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|41}}

For a long time, however, remembering Bergen-Belsen was not a political priority. Periods of attention were followed by long phases of official neglect. For much of the 1950s, Belsen "was increasingly forgotten as a place of remembrance".<ref name="Memorial website6"/> Only after 1957 did large groups of young people visit the place where Anne Frank had died. After anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled on the Cologne synagogue over Christmas 1959, German chancellor [[Konrad Adenauer]] followed a suggestion by [[Nahum Goldmann]], president of the [[World Jewish Congress]], and visited the site of a former concentration camp for the first time. In a speech at the Bergen-Belsen memorial, Adenauer assured the Jews still living in Germany that they would have the same respect and security as everyone else.<ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|42}} Afterwards, the German public saw the Belsen memorial as primarily a Jewish place of remembrance. Nevertheless, the memorial was redesigned in 1960–61. In 1966, a document centre was opened which offered a permanent exhibition on the persecution of the Jews, with a focus on events in the nearby Netherlands – where Anne Frank and her family had been arrested in 1944. This was complemented by an overview of the history of the Bergen-Belsen camp. This was the first ever permanent exhibit anywhere in Germany on the topic of Nazi crimes.<ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|42}} However, there was still no scientific personnel at the site, with only a caretaker as permanent staff. Memorial events were only organized by the survivors themselves.

In October 1979, the president of the [[European Parliament]] [[Simone Veil]], herself a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, came to the memorial for a speech which focused on the Nazi persecution of Roma and Sinti. This was the first time that an official event in Germany acknowledged this aspect of the Nazi era.

[[File:President Reagan's remarks at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in West Germany, May 5, 1985.webm|thumb|right|200px|President Reagan's remarks at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in West Germany, May 5, 1985]]
In 1985, international attention was focused on Bergen-Belsen.<ref>[[Richard J. Jensen]], ''Reagan at Bergen-Belsen and Bitburg'' (Texas A&M UP, 2007) [https://www.questia.com/library/120081629/reagan-at-bergen-belsen-and-bitburg online]</ref> The camp was hastily included in [[Ronald Reagan]]'s itinerary when he visited West Germany after a controversy about a visit to a cemetery where the interred included members of the ''Waffen SS'' (see [[Bitburg controversy]]). Shortly before Reagan's visit on May 5, there had been a large memorial event on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the camp's liberation, which had been attended by German president [[Richard von Weizsäcker]] and chancellor [[Helmut Kohl]].<ref name="Memorial Guide"/>{{rp|44}} In the aftermath of these events, the parliament of Lower Saxony decided to expand the exhibition centre and to hire permanent scientific staff. In 1990, the permanent exhibition was replaced by a new version and a larger document building was opened.

Only in 2000 did the Federal Government of Germany begin to financially support the memorial. Co-financed by the state of Lower Saxony, a complete redesign was planned which was intended to be more in line with contemporary thought on exhibition design.<ref>"''The Holocaust, Viewed Not From Then but From the Here and Now''", The New York Times, viewed January 22, 2009 [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/arts/design/22abro.html]</ref> On April 15, 2005, there was a ceremony, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation and many ex-prisoners and ex-liberating troops attended.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4445529.stm Liberation of Belsen commemorated]. BBC News, April 15, 2005</ref><ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1488109/Horrors-of-Belsen-flood-back-for-survivors.html Horrors of Belsen flood back for survivors], ''The Telegraph'', April 19, 2005</ref> In October 2007, the redesigned memorial site was opened, including a large new Documentation Centre and permanent exhibition on the edge of the newly redefined camp, whose structure and layout can now be traced. Since 2009, the memorial has been receiving funding from the Federal government on an ongoing basis.<ref name="Memorial website10">{{cite web|url=http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/place-of-remembrance/redesign.html|title=Memorial redesign|access-date=December 20, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150619012035/http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/place-of-remembrance/redesign.html|archive-date=June 19, 2015|df=mdy-all}}</ref>
[[File:Jewish Memorial at Bergen-Belsen.JPG|thumb|The Jewish Memorial at the site of the former camp, decorated with wreaths on Liberation Day, April 15, 2012]]

The site is open to the public and includes monuments to the dead, including a successor to the wooden cross of 1945, some individual memorial stones and a "House of Silence" for reflection. In addition to the Jewish, Polish and Dutch national memorials, a memorial to eight Turkish citizens who were killed at Belsen was dedicated in December 2012.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/109752--memorial-in-memory-of-8-turkish-citizens-killed-during-wwii-opens-in-germany | title=Memorial in memory of 8 Turkish citizens killed during WWII opens in Germany}}</ref>