When British and Canadian troops finally entered Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in northern Germany they found over 13,000 unburied bodies and (including the satellite camps) around 60,000 inmates, most acutely sick and starving. The prisoners had been without food or water for days before the Allied arrival partially due to the allied bombing. In the period immediately preceding and following liberation, prisoners were dying at a rate of around 500 per day, mostly from typhus.
At least 480 people had worked as guards or members of the commandant’s staff, including around 45 women.
Wilhelm Dorr: sentenced to death.
Franz Stöfel: sentenced to death.
Erich Zoddel: sentenced to life imprisonment.
Ignatz Schlomovicz: acquitted.
Ansgar Pichen – He was executed on 13 December 1945 for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Josef Kramer: known as the “Beast of Belsen”, sentenced to death.
Franz Hoessler: sentenced to death.
Oscar Schmitz, acquitted
Dr. Fritz Klein – He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death and hanged along with the other camp personnel in December 1945.
Vladislav Ostrovski: sentenced to life imprisonment.
