Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp
On 15 April 1945 the British Army liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was handed over by the SS guards without a fight.
[3] Diseases and the terrible unhygienic state of the concentration camp buildings caused the British Army to relocate the former inmates and eventually to burn the prisoner huts.
Initially, British medical staff used buildings in the former Panzertruppenschule (school for Panzer troops) as an emergency hospital to treat the former inmates away from the disastrous conditions of the concentration camp.
[5]: 305 The DP camp was established in July 1945[1] by turning the hospital wards into living quarters.
[1] The name change only stuck after the DP camp was dissolved and the area was returned to military use.
[2]: 60–65 Conditions in the camp were initially quite poor, as the dire situation of the British economy prevented the Army from providing more than the bare necessities at first.
[10] The Poles had established a Camp Committee on the day after liberation — initially its meetings were also attended by Polish Jews.
[5]: 316–317 On 2 November 1945 the Polish DPs had a service in which a wooden cross on the former concentration camp site was dedicated as a memorial.
[1][2]: 34 Although some had left, in late 1945 thousands of Jews who had survived the Holocaust in Poland or Hungary emigrated westward and many of them came to Belsen, although the British initially refused to give them DP status.
[5]: 336–337 In September 1945 and July 1947 the first and second Congress of Liberated Jews in the British Zone took place in the former Wehrmacht officers' mess at Belsen—in the building later known as 'The Roundhouse'.
[12] Under the stewardship of Rosensaft and Norbert Wollheim and Rafael Olewski, the Central Committee grew into an organization that lobbied the British on behalf of the DPs' political, social, and cultural aims, including the right to emigrate to British-controlled Palestine.
International contacts were established, e.g. to the Zionist Congress at Basel or the United Jewish Appeal to gain support abroad.
[5]: 358–359 In October 1945, David Ben-Gurion, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, visited the DP camp.
[1] Nevertheless, the Haganah managed to send in agents who held secret military training programmes on the camp grounds in December 1947.
In March 1946, the British transferred administration of the camp to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA)[1] but remained responsible for security.
[2]: 32 The Jewish Committee established its own court and police force, whose tasks included maintaining public order and to fight black market activities.
[5]: 336–337 Former British soldier and officer in HM Colonial Service, Simon Bloomberg served as both UNRRA Director for Bergen-Belsen as well as European Director of the Jewish Committee For Relief Abroad which helped provide rations for the DPs and facilitate their eventual resettlement.
[2]: 35 Between April 1947 and the founding of the State of Israel in May 1948 around 4,200 Jews from the British zone, most of them from Belsen, emigrated there legally.
[5]: 325 The DP camp at Belsen was closed in September 1950[9] and the remaining 1,000 people transferred to Upjever near Wilhelmshaven.
[1] Many others went to the US (over 2,000) or Canada (close to 800), a minority decided to stay in Germany and helped to rebuild the Jewish communities there.
