Belsen is a village within the German borough of

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

in the northern part of

Celle district Celle () is a districts of Germany, district (''Landkreis'') in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Uelzen (district), Uelzen, Gifhorn (district), Gifhorn, Hanover (district), Hanover and Heide ...

on the

Lüneburg Heath Lüneburg Heath (, ) is a large area of heath (habitat), heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen and is ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

. The village, whose original site lies about southwest of Bergen, has 331 inhabitants (as at: 31 December 2000). The Belsen

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

was named after it. Today Belsen is dominated by the former British Army camp of Hohne (German: ''Lager Hohne'') on the edge of the NATO firing ranges.

History

Belsen was first mentioned in the records in 1235 under the name ''Bellenhusen''. Formerly an independent municipality, it is part of the town Bergen since 1971.

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

The

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen (), or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in Northern Germany, northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen, Lower Saxony, Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, ...

was near Belsen. The site of the former concentration camp and the present-day Bergen-Belsen Memorial Centre are mainly within the municipality of Winsen (Aller) and its parish of Walle (Winsen). Between Bergen and Belsen, there were railway ramps onto which prisoners from the incoming goods wagons alighted and from where they had to cover the remaining distance of about to the camp on foot. The original ramps have been replaced and the current ramps are used today to off-load military vehicles of the British, Dutch, French, German, Belgian, Luxembourg and Polish forces in order to take part in exercises on the

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

military training area of Bergen-Hohne. File:Belsen, Fuchsmoorgraben.jpg, The river ''Fuchsmoorgraben'' File: Belsen, Diecksdammweg.jpg, The crossing of the ''Diecksdammweg'' and the ''Im alten Dorf'' roads File: Belsen, Im alten Dorf 2.jpg, Farm

Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp

After the Second World War, a displaced persons (DP) camp was created in the military base of ''Lager Hohne'' (called Bergen-Hohne Station or Hohne Camp during its British tenure), opposite the village. Called the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp. It was in operation from the summer of 1945 until September 1950. For a time, Belsen DP camp was the largest Jewish DP camp in Germany and the only one in the British occupation zone with an exclusively Jewish population.

Politics and administration

Since the merging of local councils as part of the Lower Saxon administrative reforms of 1971, Belsen has been part of the borough of

. Belsen is represented by a local council (''Ortsrat'') and a chairman (''Ortsbürgermeister''). The council is empowered, ''inter alia'', to make decisions about public services in the village, is responsible for maintaining the appearance of the village and for overseeing its clubs and societies, and has to be consulted by the town of Bergen on all important matters affecting the village.Information about the Lower Saxony Community Constitution
/ref> It consists of five elected representatives who, together with the chairman, sit on the Bergen town council. The village council elects its own chairman. The current incumbent is Sven Marquardt.

Footnotes and references

Literature

* Friedrich Barenscheer u.a., ''Bauernbuch'', o.J. (about 1935). In the Bergen Town Archives (''Stadtarchiv Bergen'') * ''Quellensammlung zur Ortsgeschichte Belsen'', In the Bergen Town Archives * ''Lehnsbriefe über Belehnung der Mühle Belsen'', (from 1554), In the Bergen Town Archives {{Authority control Villages in Lower Saxony Bergen, Lower Saxony Celle (district) Holocaust locations in Germany