Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp near Hanover, in northern Germany, and part of the Holocaust run by the dreaded Nazi SS. It was set up in 1943 on Heinrich Himmler's orders with the designated purpose of holding Jews who were to be (temporarily) exempted from deportation to the extermination camps in the east so that they could be exchanged for German civilians held abroad. Between 1943 and 1945 it changed from being a detention camp to a concentration camp where people were sent to die. The SS operated the