When the British army arrived at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 15 April 1945, they found around 53,000 prisoners, 15,000 of whom were in a supplementary camp in the nearby Wehrmacht barracks. However, there were no records of the prisoners. The SS had burnt the camp registry a few days earlier, which meant that transport lists, death lists and individual prisoner records had been irretrievably destroyed. Over the course of decades of research, a lot of information about the deceased inmates of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp has been compiled from other sources. The most comprehensive sources are listed below.
Bergen-Belsen camp registry office / register of deaths created in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp 1943–1945 and subsequent notarisations
Hessian State Archives Marburg, Special Registry Office Bad Arolsen
https://arcinsys.hessen.de/arcinsys/detailAction.action?detailid=v511587
(also Arolsen Archives, Bestand Bergen-Belsen)
Note: The death registers were made as official copies in the special registry office of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and regularly handed over to the Fallingbostel registry office during the war. The main death registers remained in Bergen-Belsen and were destroyed by the SS together with the camp registry in April 1945. In the post-war period, the death registers were given to the special registry office in Bad Arolsen, where, based on research conducted here, further deaths were also recorded.
Death lists compiled by Josef Weiss on the “Star Camp” and the evacuation transports in April 1945
Ghetto Fighters House, Israel, Dutch Archive Section
https://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebook_ext.asp?item=62353&site=gfh&lang=ENG&menu=1
Death list compiled by Dr Ferdinand Szende for the “Hungarian Camp” and the evacuation transports in April 1945
Jewish Historical Museum, Belgrad
Lists compiled by Ladislaus Török for the “Hungarian Camp”
Archiv Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen
Lists of deceased, missing and buried Polish citizens / Polish Camp Committee Bergen-Belsen, 1945–1946
Arolsen Archives, Bestand Bergen-Belsen
List dated 12 July 1945 of Belgian nationals who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp / Belgian liaison officers Lt. Lechat and Lt. Bontemps
Archive Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Famille, Brüssel
List of Dutch nationals who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp January to April 1945
NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam
List of French nationals who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp / Henri Francois-Ponçet, Officier de Recherche, Mission Françaises de Repatriement et des Recherches
Arolsen Archives, Bestand Bergen-Belsen
Glyn Hughes Hospital death register in the nearby former Wehrmacht barracks
Ceges/Soma Brüssel
Book of the Dead of the Chewra Kadischa chaired by Hanina Walzer on the deceased buried in the large cemetery (“Zelttheaterfriedhof”) in the former Wehrmacht barracks (now the Niedersachsen-Kaserne)
Besitz Familie A. Walzer
Camp cemetery directory, cemetery in the British barracks Belsen/Hohne (now the Niedersachsen-Kaserne)
Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv Hannover
List of names of the dead (concentration camp victims) buried in the cemetery “Am Zelttheater” in the Hohne camp, Lohheide estate district, by Felix Hohl (now the Niedersachsen-Kaserne)
Archiv Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen
Many relevant publications, memorial books and websites were also consulted, including:
Significant contributions to the list of prisoners’ names and the Book of the Dead came from associations of survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and other camps in Belgium, Canada, France, Hungary, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, the Russian Federation, the Ukraine and the USA.
Many regional researchers also contributed to the clarification of grave locations in other places through their research, for example in Tröbitz or Lüneburg on the evacuation transports from the exchange camp in April 1945.
In addition to the sources mentioned above, other memorial sites, archives and institutions as well as numerous survivors, family members and researchers have contributed to the information. It would not have been possible to obtain this information in any other way. We would like to express our gratitude to all who helped us in this undertaking.
Due to the destruction of sources by the perpetrators, it will never be possible to compile a complete list of all the names of the more than 52,000 people who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.