Binder 2

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Object 2

Biographical / historical:

This volume contains photographs from the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and the trial of the accused in the Velpke case. Conducted before a British military court in Brunswick between March 20, 1946 and April 3, 1946, the Velpke proceeding tried a series of officials in the treatment, starvation, willful neglect and death of Polish children in the Velpke Children's Home in Welpke, Germany. Henrich Gerike and Georg Hessling, as directors, were found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death. Valentina Billien, an administrator, was sentenced to 15 years. This collection also contains images of Margit Schwartz. In one image, she is shown with her husband and daughter before being arrested by the Gestapo in her hometown of Budapest. A second image shows Margit Schwartz after liberation and in a decayed, physical state.

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