Bergen-Belsen, or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentration camp. Initially this was an "exchange camp", where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. The camp was later expanded to hold Jews from other concentration camps.
Edward Lasker was a German-American chess and Go player. He was awarded the title of International Master of chess by FIDE. Lasker was an engineer by profession, and an author of books on Go, chess and checkers. Born in Prussia, he emigrated to the United States in 1914. He was distantly related to World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker with whom he is sometimes confused.
Josef Kramer was Hauptsturmführer and the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dubbed the Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British Army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes, and hanged on the gallows in the prison at Hamelin by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint.
Esther Béjarano was one of the last survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. She survived because she was a player in the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. She was active in various ways, including speeches and in music, in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive. She was a regular speaker at the International Youth Meeting organised yearly at the Max Mannheimer Study Center in Dachau.
The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz was formed by order of the SS in 1943, during the Holocaust, in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp in German-occupied Poland. Active for 19 months—from April 1943 until October 1944—the orchestra consisted of mostly young female Jewish and Slavic prisoners, of varying nationalities, who would rehearse for up to ten hours a day to play music regarded as helpful in the daily running of the camp. They also held a concert every Sunday for the SS.
Hanička "Hana" Brady was a Czechoslovak Jewish girl murdered in the gas chambers at German concentration camp at Auschwitz, located in the occupied territory of Poland, during the Holocaust. She is the subject of the 2002 non-fiction children's book Hana's Suitcase, written by Karen Levine.
Alma Maria Rosé was an Austrian violinist of Jewish descent. Her uncle was the composer Gustav Mahler. She was deported by the Nazis to the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, for 10 months, she directed an orchestra of female prisoners who played for their captors to stay alive. As director, Rosé held the status of kapo of the music block.
Fritz Klein was an Austrian Nazi doctor and war criminal, hanged for his role in atrocities at Auschwitz concentration camp and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Fania Fénelon was a French pianist, composer and cabaret singer whose 1976 memoir, Sursis pour l'orchestre, about survival in the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz during the Holocaust was adapted as the 1980 television film, Playing for Time.
Raphael Wallfisch is an English cellist.
Lucille Eichengreen was a survivor of the Łódź (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto and the Nazi German concentration camps of Auschwitz, Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. She moved to the United States in 1946, married, had two sons and worked as an insurance agent. In 1994, she published From Ashes to Life: My Memories of the Holocaust. She frequently lectured on the Holocaust at libraries, schools and universities in the U.S. and Germany. She took part in a documentary from the University of Giessen on life in the Ghetto, for which she was awarded an honorary doctorate.
Hélène Berr was a French woman of Jewish ancestry and faith, who documented her life in a notebook during the time of Nazi occupation of France. In France she is considered to be a "French Anne Frank".
Night Will Fall is a 2014 documentary film directed by Andre Singer that chronicles the making of the 1945 British government documentary German Concentration Camps Factual Survey. The 1945 documentary, which showed gruesome scenes from newly liberated Nazi concentration camps, languished in British archives for nearly seven decades and was only recently completed.
Benjamin Mark Lasker Wallfisch is a British composer, conductor, orchestrator, and record producer, known for his work on film scores. He has contributed over 75 feature films since the mid-2000s, including notable works like: Blade Runner 2049, Shazam!, It, It Chapter Two, The Invisible Man, Hidden Figures, A Cure for Wellness and The Flash.
Gena Turgel was a Jewish Polish author, educator, and Holocaust survivor.
Renate Lasker-Harpprecht was a German author and journalist. She survived the Holocaust, having been imprisoned at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
Maya Lasker-Wallfisch is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, author and educator, specialising in transgenerational trauma.
Claire Monis was a French singer, actress, and Lieutenant in the French resistance. She was a Holocaust survivor as a member of the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra. After WW2, Claire was a producer of movies and TV shows.
Denise Holstein is an Auschwitz concentration camp survivor and Holocaust witness, who was liberated on 15 April 1945. As a Holocaust witness, Holstein tells her story in two books and in a documentary made by a student from the Lycée Corneille in Rouen. For almost fifty years, Holstein never spoke about her life before writing about it. As a Holocaust witness, Holstein visits school children, to describe and share her experiences.
Marianne "Mausi" Grant was a Czech-Scottish Jewish artist,who survived the Holocaust after being imprisoned in three successive concentration camps. Grant was born during the interwar period and came from a prosperous family. From a young age, Grant loved drawing and painting but her plans to study art at university were stymied after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 by Nazi Germany. In June 1939, the Nurember racial laws were implemented and Grant and her family faced increasingly stringent restrictions that lead them to be interred at a camp in Prague and then later deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in May 1942. Grant spent 18 months in the ghetto before being transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp. In Auschwitz, Grant used her painting skills in exchange for food and medicine and to make the children's block where she worked, more homely. However, her work come to the notice of Josef Mengele, who used Grant to paint family trees of dwarfs and twins. After 7 months, Grant was sent to forced labour battalion and later Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. When she was liberated, she was sent to Sweden to recuperate and met her future husband. They married and settled in Glasgow. After the war, she finished her education at the Glasgow School of Art. In 2002, Grant's paintings and drawings were exhibited at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. 22 members of Grant's family died in the Holocaust.
