Bergen-Belsen Camp Layout

Because Bergen-Belsen was not a complex originally built from the ground up to be a concentration camp, the camp was quite haphazardly organized, cobbled together over the course of the war. The camp’s physical layout very much so reflected the functional changes Bergen-Belsen underwent over the course of the war. By 1945, the complex was comprised of nine separate camps. The first sub-camp was the Häftlingslager— the remnants of the huts that had originally housed German construction workers. The Häftlingslager, or Prisoner Camp represented a critical early step in the development of Bergen-Belsen; the POWs interred within were used as labor to build a later camp— the exchange camp. (US Holocaust Memorial Museum) As the Jewish prisoners housed in the exchange camp were to be kept, according to Heinrich Himmler, both “healthy and alive” (Himmler), the process of constructing such a camp took up much of early 1943, after which the Häftlingslager would again function as a POW camp as opposed to a labor camp until it was mostly vacated in early 1945.

The Recuperation camp or erholungslager was the second oldest camp still functioning by April of 1945 when the entire Bergen-Belsen complex was liberated. It comprised of 1000 inmates from the Dora-Mittelbau camp who were too sick with tuberculosis to continue to work. Only 57 were alive when the camp was liberated.

Bergen-Belsen also housed Jewish prisoners from neutral countries in the neutralenlager or Neutral Camp This group consisted of prisoners from Greece (although they were Spanish Nationals), Spain, Portugal, Argentina, and Turkey. Unlike the other camps, “these prisoners did not have to work, and conditions were tolerable [until the end of the war]” (Kolb)

            Jewish prisoners who had come from Poland were interred in the sonderlager or Special Camp. Like those in the neutralenlager, they were not required to work, however, the camp was created specifically to keep those Jewish Prisoners who had intimate knowledge of SS atrocities committed in Poland segregated from the rest of the camp. Among these Poles was a group of “around 2,300-2,500” (Kolb) that, “mostly possessed Latin American papers (e.g. from Paraguay and Honduras), which however were not passports in most cases but so-called "promesas." These were letters by consuls of the respective countries saying that citizenship of the state represented by the consul was granted and that a passport would follow soon.” (Kolb) The SS officers in charge of the sonderlager did not honor these documents.

            As mentioned previously, the ungarnlager or Hungarian Camp and sternlager or Star Camps were two distinct sub-camps that respectively housed Jewish Prisoners from Hungary and Jewish Prisoners from the Netherlands. The occupants of the ungarnlager were given preferential treatment, “They were allowed to wear civilian clothes, with a Star of David sewn on. They did not have to work, nor were they forced to attend the endless roll calls. They were given better food and the sick were properly cared for. They were known as Vorzugsjuden or Preferential Jews.” (Kolb) Prisoners in the sternlager, however, were allowed to wear their civilian clothes, but also required to work. “Holders of the so-called "Stamp 120000" were also taken to Bergen-Belsen, i.e. Jews with proven connections to enemy states, Jews who had delivered up large properties, diamond workers and diamond dealers who were held back from transportation to an extermination camp but who were not allowed to go abroad, as well as so-called ‘Jews of merit.’” (Kolb)

            The zeltlager or Tent Camp was originally established in August of 1944 as a transit camp— temporary housing for prisoners who were being transferred. However, the ultimate purpose of the zeltlager was to house “ill but potentially curable” (Kolb) prisoners that were too weak to work. In this capacity, it acted much like the erholungslager, but because of it’s original purpose, was far more rudimentary in its construction— there were no toilets, beds, or lighting— “only a thin layer of straw covering the ground.” (Kolb)

            The remaining two camps at Bergen-Belsen were the kleines frauenlager or Small Women’s Camp, and the grosses frauenlager or Large Women’s Camp. The former existed to hold women until Josef Kramer became the new camp commanding officer at which point it was converted into a general prison camp. The latter was constructed under Kramer’s orders, and would be the main area that housed female Jewish Prisoners at Bergen-Belsen.