The British army forced the SS guards at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to help bury thousands of bodies in mass graves. British guards watched as the bodies were loaded onto trucks to be transported to the mass graves.

 　The British Army forced former SS personnel from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to assist in burying the bodies of thousands of people they had murdered in mass graves. British military guards watched as SS personnel loaded the bodies of the dead onto trucks to be transported to mass graves. In the background, surviving children looked on. On April 15, 1945, soldiers from the British 11th Armored Division liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Of the approximately 120,000 prisoners, at least 52,000 died in the camp.

　　Bergen-Belsen was established as a prisoner-of-war camp in 1940. From 1943, it was used to hold Jewish citizens with foreign passports, who were held as “bargaining chips” to be exchanged for Germans detained by the Allies or to obtain money. It later became a concentration camp and was used as a collection center for survivors of the death marches. The camp was consistently overcrowded, and due to the negligence of the German military, conditions deteriorated further toward the end of the war, resulting in numerous deaths.

　　On April 15, 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was occupied following an agreement for a peaceful surrender with the retreating German forces on April 12. Approximately 60,000 prisoners were liberated by the British Army's 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment and the 11th Armored Division. The camp housed over 60,000 emaciated and sick prisoners in need of medical care. Over 13,000 bodies in various stages of decomposition were scattered throughout the camp. The prisoners had gone without food or water for several days prior to the arrival of Allied forces. On April 20, four German fighter planes attacked the camp, damaging water supplies and killing three British medical personnel. Despite large-scale food and medical relief efforts, approximately 9,000 more died in April, and another 4,000 died by the end of June 1945 (13,994 died after liberation).