Memorial “Bergen-Belsen Platform Object”

 memorial, monument

There is a cargo loading platform around two kilometres to the north of the main entrance to the barracks. Between 1940 and 1945, tens of thousands of POWs and concentration camp prisoners arrived at this platform, and numerous transports to other camps left from there as well.

Part of this railway complex was placed under a protection order in 2000 following an initiative from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bergen-Belsen association. The association had a replica goods wagon placed in a fenced-off area near the loading platform. There are also panels with information on the history of the platform and the six-kilometre route the prisoners had to take to reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bergen-Belsen holds a memorial ceremony there each year on the anniversary of the camp’s liberation.

The loading platform is located in a military area that is not publicly accessible. A footpath leading to the wagon runs parallel to the railway tracks outside of the barrier to the military area.

In October 2007, the Rosebusch Verlassenschaften association had a sculpture entitled “Bergen-Belsen Platform Object” installed at the start of the access road to the platform. This sculpture – a 90-tonne, five-metre-high steel funnel holding steel rails with numbers stamped on them – was designed by the artists Almut and Hans Jürgen Breuste from Hanover. It points the way to the platform from the road.
bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/memorial/historical-sit...