Belsen Horror Camp: The weak and dying carry the dead bodies to the heap of dead
Object numberM2013/027:002
TitleBelsen Horror Camp: The weak and dying carry the dead bodies to the heap of dead
CreatorBritish War Office
DescriptionThis is a British official photograph titled ‘Belsen Horror Camp’.
According to the photo’s caption this photo depicts “the weak and dying carry the dead bodies to the heap of the dead”.
The foreground of the image depicts five women who are prisoners of the camp – three of which have their hair covered by scarfs on their heads. They carry a make-shift stretcher made from branches, rope and material carrying a covered corpse. These women are shown to be making their way to a large pile of corpses which are strewn across a significant portion of land. In the background, there is a building marked with the number 210, which is surrounded by trees which could possibly be the barracks in which these prisoners had been confined to at the Bergen – Belsen concentration camp.
There is a carbon-copy caption attached on to the back of the image which reads:
“British Official Photograph NO. BU. 3725 XC.
(War Office Photo ? Crown Copyright Reserved)
(Picture issued April 1945).
BELSON (sic.) HORROR CAMP.
During the advance of the 2nd Army the huge concentration camp at Belson (sic.), was relieved. Some 60,000 civilians mostly suffering from Typhus, Typhoid and Dysentery are dying in their hundreds daily, despite the frantic efforts being made by medical services rushed to the camp.
The camp was declared a neutral area before we arrived and the Allied Military Government stood by to reach the camp at the earliest possible moment, to be faced by the most indescribable scenes of 60,000 people starving and without water for over six days. The camps were littered with dead and dying and on closer investigation it was discovered that the huts capable of housing about 30 people in many cases were holding as many as 500, it was impossible to estimate the number of the dead among them, the others were too weak to remove the bodies so they just had to remain. In many cases they had died by suffocation, being too weak to move. Despite all this horror S.S. guards still remained in command of the camp, including the Commandant and now the S.S. men.
The super-men as they call themselves are being made to cart and bury in their thousands, the unfortunate civilians who had been slowly tortured to death. In most cases their only crime being that they were born Jews. Picture shows:
The weak and dying carry the dead bodies to the heap of dead.”
This image is a collection of nine photographs which were taken at the time of the liberation of the Buchenwald and Bergen -Belsen Concentration Camp. They are historically significant as they are official photographs which graphically depict the atrocities that took place in these concentration camps.
According to the photo’s caption this photo depicts “the weak and dying carry the dead bodies to the heap of the dead”.
The foreground of the image depicts five women who are prisoners of the camp – three of which have their hair covered by scarfs on their heads. They carry a make-shift stretcher made from branches, rope and material carrying a covered corpse. These women are shown to be making their way to a large pile of corpses which are strewn across a significant portion of land. In the background, there is a building marked with the number 210, which is surrounded by trees which could possibly be the barracks in which these prisoners had been confined to at the Bergen – Belsen concentration camp.
There is a carbon-copy caption attached on to the back of the image which reads:
“British Official Photograph NO. BU. 3725 XC.
(War Office Photo ? Crown Copyright Reserved)
(Picture issued April 1945).
BELSON (sic.) HORROR CAMP.
During the advance of the 2nd Army the huge concentration camp at Belson (sic.), was relieved. Some 60,000 civilians mostly suffering from Typhus, Typhoid and Dysentery are dying in their hundreds daily, despite the frantic efforts being made by medical services rushed to the camp.
The camp was declared a neutral area before we arrived and the Allied Military Government stood by to reach the camp at the earliest possible moment, to be faced by the most indescribable scenes of 60,000 people starving and without water for over six days. The camps were littered with dead and dying and on closer investigation it was discovered that the huts capable of housing about 30 people in many cases were holding as many as 500, it was impossible to estimate the number of the dead among them, the others were too weak to remove the bodies so they just had to remain. In many cases they had died by suffocation, being too weak to move. Despite all this horror S.S. guards still remained in command of the camp, including the Commandant and now the S.S. men.
The super-men as they call themselves are being made to cart and bury in their thousands, the unfortunate civilians who had been slowly tortured to death. In most cases their only crime being that they were born Jews. Picture shows:
The weak and dying carry the dead bodies to the heap of dead.”
This image is a collection of nine photographs which were taken at the time of the liberation of the Buchenwald and Bergen -Belsen Concentration Camp. They are historically significant as they are official photographs which graphically depict the atrocities that took place in these concentration camps.
Production placeBergen-Belsen concentration camp
Production date circa 1945-04
SubjectHolocaust, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, concentration camps, nazi cruelty, liberation, corpses, death, victims, mass graves
Object namephotographs
Materialpaper
Dimensions
- width: 201.00 mm
height: 151.00 mm
Language
- English
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Mr Timothy Ring