A new memorial exhibition center at a former Nazi camp in central Germany reflects the experiences of inmates when it was a prisoner of war facility, a concentration camp and then a holding center for displaced Jews after World War II.
The new center, which opened Sunday, is the first stage in an overall makeover of the Bergen-Belsen camp — razed by the Allies in the postwar years — to more accurately document prisoners' experiences there. It draws on archive material that came to light in the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, as well as contributions from around 340 survivors.
The new exhibit contains photographs, prisoners' records and objects from the camp donated by the survivors themselves, as well as many oral histories from the former inmates.
"Use of the new material makes it possible to faithfully recreate the history of the camp in it's three major phases — as a prisoner of war camp from 1939 to 1945, a concentration camp from 1943 to 1945 and a Displaced Persons Camp from 1945 to 1950 — and to more closely follow individual fates," North-Rhine Westphalia state Gov. Christian Wulff said at the opening ceremony.
Some 100 survivors were at the ceremony at the camp, where an estimated 50,000 Jews perished during the Holocaust.
Changes to the camp's memorial came after survivor complaints that the original postwar version — set up by the British, in whose sector it sat — failed to accurately document their experience.(IHT)
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