Video: 'Anne Frank in Bergen-Belsen and her death' (Nov. 1-3, 1944, at 1:10)
(Friday, November 3, 1944; part of The Holocaust during World War II) — The first of three evacuation trains carrying Jewish women from the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland arrived today at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany.
The girls had spent less than two months in Auschwitz, while their parents, Otto and Edith Frank, remain behind at Birkenau.
The names of those transported have not been preserved, but accounts suggest Anne and Margot were likely on the Nov. 1-3, 1944, transport.
Video: 'The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank - English Subtitles' (Nov. 1-3, 1944, at 54:37)
Bergen-Belsen, originally intended as a transit camp for Jews earmarked for potential exchange, has become increasingly overcrowded and plagued by poor conditions.
Despite its earlier reputation as a less brutal camp, hunger and illness have spread rapidly in recent months. Still, many prisoners, including Dutch Jews, held onto the faint hope of exchange or emigration.
The camp, situated on the desolate Lüneburg Heath, has seen an influx of prisoners, and new barracks hastily constructed from materials taken from a concentration camp near Cracow have proven inadequate, infested with lice and offering little protection from the harsh elements.
