Holocaust survivors, officials commemorate liberation of concentration camps in Germany

BERLIN – Holocaust survivors and officials have gathered at the memorial site of the former concentration camp Bergen-Belsen in northern Germany to commemorate the liberation of the camp seventy years ago.

The camp was liberated on April 15, 1945 by British soldiers who found some 10,000 dead bodies when they entered the Nazi camp.

German President Joachim Gauck honoured the British soldiers as “ambassadors of a democratic culture who were not looking for revenge.”

Around 200,000 people were deported to Bergen-Belsen. More than 52,000 camp inmates and 20,000 prisoners of war died here — among them the famous teenage diarist Anne Frank.

Ceremonies were also taking place at the former Flossenbuerg camp in southern Germany, where some 30,000 people died between 1938 and 1945.