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.
Irma Ilse Ida Grese was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women's section of Bergen-Belsen. She was a volunteer member of the SS.
Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss was a German SS officer and the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II, he was convicted in Poland and executed for war crimes committed on the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp and for his role in the Holocaust.
Maria Mandl was an Austrian SS-Helferin and a war criminal known for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she is believed to have been directly complicit in the deaths of over 500,000 prisoners. She was executed for war crimes.
Herta Bothe was a German concentration camp guard during World War II. She was imprisoned for war crimes after the defeat of Nazi Germany, and was subsequently released early from prison on 22 December 1951.
Arthur Liebehenschel was a German commandant at the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps during the Holocaust. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes by the Polish government and executed in 1948.
Josef Kramer was a 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.
The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been represented in the arts and popular culture.
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 a Romanian-German 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.
Night Will Fall is a 2014 documentary film directed by Andre Singer that chronicles the production of the 1945 British government documentary German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, which showed gruesome scenes from newly liberated Nazi concentration camps. The 1945 documentary, which was based on the work of combat cameramen serving with the armed forces and newsreel footage, was produced by Sidney Bernstein, then a British government official, with participation by Alfred Hitchcock. It languished in British archives for nearly seven decades before being completed in 2014. About 12 minutes of footage in the 75-minute Night Will Fall is from the earlier documentary.
Benjamin Mark Lasker Wallfisch is a British composer, conductor, and producer—known for his work on film scores. He has contributed to over 50 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, The Flash, Twisters, Alien: Romulus, and Kraven the Hunter.
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.
The Commandant's Shadow is a 2024 documentary film directed and produced by Daniela Völker. The film focuses on the story of Jurgen Höss, the son of Auschwitz concentration camp director Rudolf Höss, and his boyhood home life in the villa adjacent to it. The film also stars Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, an Auschwitz survivor who meets face-to-face with Jurgen Höss decades later. The Commandant's Shadow drew media comparisons to the 2023 film The Zone of Interest, a dramatization similarly focusing on the Höss family's life adjacent to Auschwitz.
