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1945: Liberation and Rebuilding
 pg. 601 
 
Known as "the SS woman without uniform," Hilde Lobauer embodied evil to the prisoners of Bergen-Belsen. A political prisoner of the Nazis, Lobauer chose to side with her captors, indulging her penchant for cruelty with a leather whip and a cane. Her sadism earned her a promotion to internee in charge of a section of the camp. Following the war, she was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to ten years in prison, though she was released in July 1950.
Photo: AP/Wide World
This survivor of Bergen-Belsen was found in agony at liberation. Internment in Hitler's camps had long-term--often calamitous--psychological and physical effects upon survivors.
Photo: Yad Vashem
By April 1945 the camp system at Bergen-Belsen had broken down completely beneath a flood of new inmates (for example, 28,000 arrivals in just ten days, April 3-14). Food rations were cut off, roll ceased to be called, and prisoners were left to their own devices. And yet some staff members remained at Bergen-Belsen to the end, such as these female SS guards, who had earned reputations for being as cruel as their male counterparts. Thousands of average Germans became active perpetrators of the Holocaust.
Photo: AP/Wide World
 
1945: Liberation and Rebuilding
 pg. 601 
The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.