Belsen (Bergen)

Belsen (German pronunciation: [ˈbɛlzn̩]) is a village within the German borough of Bergen in the northern part of Celle district on the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony. The village, whose original site lies about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) southwest of Bergen, has 331 inhabitants (as at: 31 December 2000). The Belsen concentration camp 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. 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. The Bergen-Belsen concentration 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 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) 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 military training area of Bergen-Hohne.