Not Every Concentration Camp Looked Like Auschwitz
Bettmann/Getty Images
Bettmann/Getty Images
Although Poland’s infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp is infamous for the chilling efficiency through which its prisoners were exterminated, other concentration camps inflicted their death tolls through neglect and disease rather than Zyklon B.
That was clearly the case in this stark, disturbing photo from the Belsen camp as it was liberated by Britain’s 2nd Army. Although huts like these were intended for 30 people, some held up to 500. That crowding was lethal due to the spread of typhoid and dysentery at Belsen, especially as prisoners were weakened by intentional starvation.