S11E9 The Liberation of Bergen Belsen

About this episode

This episode discusses the liberation of Bergen Belsen and the role of Canadian forces in the aftermath.

Names like Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen Belsen immediately bring to mind the horrors of the Nazi concentration camp system. At the liberation of Bergen Belsen in particular, Canadian forces contributed medical staff, engineers, and relief supplies to Allied efforts after that camp was liberated and in the dramatic weeks that followed. They helped treat survivors, bury the dead, and restore sanitation. Governing the camp meant managing disease, displaced persons, trauma, and justice while transforming a site of atrocity into emergency refuge amid shortages, chaos and reckoning.   Dr. Mark Celinscak is the Louis and Frances Blumkin Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies in the Department of History and the Executive Directo of the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is the author of  Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp , winner of a Vine Award for Non-Fiction, and  Kingdom of Night: Witnesses to the Holocaust , winner of a Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Holocaust literature. He is the co-editor of the forthcoming  Two Roses: A Story…

People in this episode

Host: David Borys

Guest: Dr Mark Celinscak

Topics covered

• Bergen Belsen
• liberation
• Nazi concentration camps
• Canadian forces
• Holocaust
• genocide studies

Keywords

• medical staff
• engineers
• relief supplies
• survivors
• sanitation
• displaced persons
• trauma
• justice

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Distance from the Belsen Heap, Kingdom of Night

Books & works: Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp, a Vine Award for Non, a Canadian Jewish Literary Award, Two Roses: A Story of Deception and Determination in Nazi Germany, Punching Above Our Weight

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