BACKGROUND
After the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated by the British Army on 15 April 1945, the survivors were taken to the nearby Wehrmacht barracks where they received medical treatment. The former concentration camp prisoners and forced labourers who had been deported to Germany from all over Europe were given the status of “displaced persons” (DPs) by the Allies.
Most of the survivors returned to their countries of origin, but many – primarily Jewish and Polish former prisoners – remained in Bergen-Belsen, where they restarted their lives.