The term “banality of evil,” introduced by political theorist Hannah Arendt, expresses the unsettling idea that entirely ordinary people can commit cruel acts.

The portraits of the Bergen-Belsen camp guards illustrate this concept in a striking way.

Despite their banal, unassuming appearance in photographs, these individuals played a key role in carrying out genocide, underscoring the alarming reality of how ordinary people can become instruments of evil.

View of the camp after liberation.

Bergen-Belsen was a National Socialist German concentration camp near the villages of Bergen and Belsen, about 16 km (10 miles) northwest of Celle, Germany.

Established in 1943, the camp was originally intended as an internment camp for Jews who were to be exchanged for Germans held in Allied territory. It was built on part of an existing prisoner-of-war camp.

Bergen-Belsen comprised five subcamps: a prisoner camp; a special camp for Jews with papers from South American countries; a “star camp,” where inmates wore yellow Stars of David but no uniforms and were designated for exchange with the West; a camp for Jews with citizenship papers from neutral countries; and a camp for Hungarian Jews.

Wilhelm Dorr, sentenced to death.

According to current estimates, during its operation from 1943 to 1945 about 120,000 inmates passed through the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Because of the destruction of the camp records by the SS, only about 55,000 of these people are known by name.

The conditions and the treatment of the prisoners differed considerably in the various sections of the camp.

The inmates in the exchange camp were generally treated better than those in other sections, especially in the early period.

Franz Stöfel, sentenced to death.

There were no gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, since mass executions were carried out in other camps.

However, conditions at Bergen-Belsen deteriorated dramatically after the death marches in the winter of 1945—the forced evacuation of prisoners from concentration and extermination camps in the East.

Originally, the camp was designed to accommodate around 10,000 prisoners, but by the end of the war the capacity had risen to around 60,000 due to the influx of Jewish prisoners who had been evacuated from Auschwitz and other camps in the East.

These newly arrived prisoners were confronted with an acute shortage of food and shelter.

Erich Zoddel, sentenced to life imprisonment.

From January to mid-April 1945, more than 35,000 people died in Bergen-Belsen from hunger, overwork, diseases, and a severe typhus epidemic.

The living conditions were among the most horrific in all Nazi camps and contributed to the high number of deaths.

Anne Frank, whose wartime diary later became world-famous, died in March 1945 in Bergen-Belsen of typhus.

Ignatz Schlomovicz, acquitted.

In the weeks after the liberation of the camp by the British Army on 15 April 1945, about 28,000 prisoners died of disease and other causes.

The British were forced to bury thousands of bodies in mass graves that had been hastily dug at the site.

Bergen-Belsen was the first major Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by the Western Allies, and its horrors immediately became infamous.

Ansgar Pichen, executed on 13 December 1945 for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The scenes that confronted the liberating British troops were described by Richard Dimbleby of the BBC, who accompanied them:

…Here, over an acre of land, lay dead and dying people. You could not tell who was who…

The living lay with their heads against the corpses, and around them moved the terrible, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people who had nothing to do and no hope of life, unable to get out of your way, unable to look at the dreadful sight around them …

Here babies had been born, tiny, wrinkled creatures that could not live …

A mother driven mad shouted at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, pushed the little child into his arms, and then ran away, weeping terribly.

He opened the bundle and found that the baby had been dead for days. That day in Belsen was the most terrible of my life.

Josef Kramer, known as the “Beast of Belsen,” sentenced to death.

Many former SS members who survived the typhus epidemic in Bergen-Belsen were prosecuted by the British military in the Belsen Trial.

Throughout its entire period of operation as a concentration camp, at least 480 people were employed at Bergen-Belsen as guards or members of the commandant’s staff, including about 45 women.

Franz Hößler, sentenced to death.

From 17 September to 17 November 1945, 45 of these individuals were tried before a military court in Lüneburg.

The defendants included Josef Kramer, the former camp commandant, as well as 16 other male SS members, 16 female SS guards, and 12 former kapos—one of whom fell ill during the proceedings.

Among them were Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Hertha Ehlert, Ilse Lothe, Johanna Bormann, and Fritz Klein.

Franz Hößler was sentenced to death.

Between 17 September and 17 November 1945, forty-five individuals were tried before a British military court in Lüneburg.

The defendants included Josef Kramer, the former camp commandant, along with sixteen other male SS personnel, sixteen female SS guards, and twelve former kapos—one of whom fell ill during the proceedings.

Among them were Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Hertha Ehlert, Ilse Lothe, Johanna Bormann, and Fritz Klein.

Dr. Fritz Klein. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, sentenced to death, and hanged in December 1945 together with the remaining camp personnel.

Vladislav Ostrovski, sentenced to life imprisonment.

Josef Kramer, photographed in leg irons at Belsen before being taken to the prisoner-of-war cage in Celle, 17 April 1945.

Surviving women at Bergen-Belsen, April 1945.

A crowd watches the destruction of the last camp barrack.