Children in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

The special exhibition Children in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp tells the story of the around 3,500 children under 15 who were imprisoned in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Based on individual life stories, the exhibition presents the specific conditions under which children lived in the Bergen-Belsen camp and the ways in which they tried to cope with them. Topics covered range from family life and games through roll-calls and violence to fear, hunger, disease and death. The exhibition also touches on less well-known aspects such as births in the camp. The relief measures taken for surviving children after the liberation and full biographies of child survivors also get their own exhibition sections. A final section is dedicated to the around 600 children who lost their lives in the Bergen-Belsen camp. The exhibition approaches its subject from multiple perspectives and is based on a broad range of images and documents including prisoners’ diaries, drawings and photographs, autobiographical accounts and documentary footage and audio recordings made only a few days after the liberation. At its core are previously unreleased excerpts from video interviews with child survivors of the Bergen-Belsen camp. They give an insight into the specific experiences of children in the camp and the ways in which they reacted to the conditions of their imprisonment. Around 3,500 children under 15 were among the around 120,000 people from all over Europe who were imprisoned in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Many of these children died of hunger, disease or physical violence. Those who survived carried the burden of their physical and mental suffering for the rest of their lives. The exhibition booklet documents substantial parts of the exhibition. Based on some individual life stories, the specific conditions under which children lived in the Bergen-Belsen camp and the ways in which they tried to cope with them are presented. The relief measures taken for surviving children after the liberation and full biographies of child survivors also get their own sections. Im KZ Bergen-Belsen befanden sich unter den rund 120.000 Häftlingen aus fast allen europäischen Ländern auch etwa 3.500 Kinder. Viele starben an Hunger, Krankheiten, Seuchen und Gewalt. Die Überlebenden waren für ihr ganzes Leben durch die körperlichen und seelischen Qualen geprägt. Die Broschüre dokumentiert die gleichlautende Ausstellung in wesentlichen Teilen. Anhand exemplarischer Einzelschicksale werden die spezifischen Lebensbedingungen und Verhaltensformen von Kindern im KZ Bergen- Belsen dargestellt. Die Hilfsmaßnahmen nach der Befreiung für überlebende Kinder sowie deren oft lebenslange Auseinandersetzung mit dem Erlebten stellen weitere Schwerpunkte dar.