The Executions Of The Female Guards Of Bergen Belsen

Towards the end of the Second World War, the British liberated Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, and they were greeted by a sight of death, disease and depravity. Belsen has gone down in infamy as a place synonymous with Nazi war crimes, but what shocked the liberators was the fact that many of the SS guards had remained inside the camp. Dozens of thousands of prisoners were left at the camp, and were slowly dying of disease and starvation, and around 13,000 dead bodies were unburied around the camp. The British acted to stop the Typhus epidemic that was killing so many, and then forced the Nazi guards to help to bury the dead. Bergen-Belsen was a camp that became hugely overcrowded, and following its liberation a number of the guards who were arrested were brought to trial. What shocked many around the world was the fact many of the guards charged with murder and immense cruelty and brutality were young women. These women were placed on trial at the Belsen Trials, and many received prison sentences,