Dachau and Bergen-Belson Concentration Camps

By Olivia Stiles and Maya Hopkins

During World War II, many terrible things happened, including concentration camps in Germany that were run by Hitler. One of those concentration camps was Dachau. Even though the facts about Dachau are upsetting, people need this knowledge so history will not repeat itself.

At Dachau, the violence was horrible. Many of the murders at Dachau were from tests to learn things for the German army. Doctors would perform tests on the prisoners. All of the prisoners had to wear the same uniform. The uniform was a striped sweat suit with a number on it; the uniforms were usually infested with lice.

The way that prisoners lived at Dachau was terrible, and they did not deserve it at all.

Bergen-Belson got its name from its location, which was found in between the villages of Bergen and Belson.

Bergen-Belson was one of the worst places to be during World War II. It was a place of sickness, death, pain and unhappiness. The deaths at Bergen-Belson were brutal. People either got typhus, were starved, or beaten to death. Bergen-Belson was crammed with people. It was made to hold 10,000 people, and at the end of the war, it had more that 60,000 people! About 500 people died daily at Bergen-Belson. There were so many dead bodies from the camp that the workers had to make mass graves to hold all of the bodies. Bulldozers were used to transport the dead bodies into the graves.

There were so many people at Bergen-Belson that Hitler ordered that there would be another Bergen-Belson opened. The two camps were 1.5 miles apart.  

Bergen-Belson was liberated on April 15^th, 1945. It was the first major camp liberated by the Allies. More than 35,000 people died at Bergen-Belson.

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