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Typhus Concentration Camps
About Typhus Concentration Camps
Epidemic typhus, caused by Rickettsia prowazekii and transmitted by body lice, devastated concentration camp prisoners during World War II. Typhus was endemic in Eastern Europe and spread rapidly in the unsanitary conditions of camps including Bergen Belsen, Auschwitz, and Dachau. Anne Frank and her sister Margot likely died of typhus at Bergen Belsen in February or March 1945. When British forces liberated Bergen Belsen in April 1945, they found about 60,000 sick and starving prisoners and some 13,000 unburied corpses. Around 14,000 more prisoners died in the weeks after liberation despite medical efforts. In the interwar years Rudolf Weigl developed a typhus vaccine produced using lice. During the war Weigl operated a vaccine institute in Lwow, now Lviv, Ukraine, employing intellectuals and resistance members as lice feeders, protecting them from Nazi persecution. Typhus remains endemic in parts of Africa, Asia, and South America, with outbreaks linked to war, famine, and displacement.
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