A high number of children were among the inmates of the concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northern Germany from 1943 to 1945. Their traumatic experiences are documented in a new special exhibition entitled "Children in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp." Many of these children who survived were never able to talk about their traumatic stay there; others wrote books about their experiences.

Lous Steenhuis was only three years old when she was brought from the Dutch camp Westenbork to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Somebody had revealed her hiding place with foster parents. The little Jewish girl from Bussum, in the Netherlands, was completely alone in the camp, without her parents or other relatives. Her doll called "Mies" was the only one to accompany her.

Lous Steenhuis-Hoepelman, who is now 76 years old, finds her "Mies" rather ugly. But the doll was the only thing she had. The two of them have spent their lives together for 73 years now — and that odd doll provided support through the unimaginable terror she had to endure as a child.

Anne Frank, author of the famous posthumously published diary, died in February 1945 in Bergen-Belsen when she was only 15 years old. Already in 1934, she and her family had fled from the Nazis to the Netherlands. When they occupied the country, Anne had to live in a hiding place. But somebody revealed it to the Nazis. Her diary is seen as one of the most outstanding documents of the era.

It's estimated that a total of 120,000 inmates were kept in Bergen-Belsen. When British troops liberated the camp they encountered roughly 60,000 inmates. Almost one out of four of them died after being liberated. A total of 50,000 inmates died there, among them roughly 600 children. Mass graves are silent witnesses of the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.

The organizers of the memorial site are highly pleased about the fact that 20 survivors from all over the world came to see the exhibition "Children in the Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen." Although horrible pictures of corpses are not among the items, the show shocks many people. That's why children should be well prepared before being confronted with it.

Born in Prague in 1894, Erwin Schulhoff was a protege of Antonin Dvorak. "He saw in Schulhoff the next big promise of the European musical scene," said Amit Weiner, who founded the project "Music in Times of Tragedy." His music combined many avant-garde styles with jazz." Schulhoff was a professor of music in Prague before he was murdered in 1942 in a concentration camp.

The youngest Jewish composer murdered during the Holocaust, Gideon Klein was only 26 when he perished in the Fürstengrube sub-camp near Auschwitz. His oeuvre fuses Jewish themes with modern composition techniques. In 1940, he was offered a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. "This could have saved his life, but he was not allowed to travel from Prague," explained Weiner.

"I find it very interesting that Krasa's music is always so happy and optimistic. Even the music he wrote in Theresienstadt is very lively," said Weiner about the Czech composer and author of the children's opera "Brundibar," who died in 1944 in Auschwitz. "Even in such dark times and horrible conditions, he saw hope and was optimistic about the future."

The Czech poet had published several books of fairy tales in German before being transported to Theresienstadt in 1942. Weber started writing songs when she worked in the camp's children's hospital, and her music survived only thanks to her husband Willi, who discovered her songs after the war. Ilse and their son, Tommy, were murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

"He was not a professional musician — in fact, he was a carpenter who did not even know how to read notes. All the songs he composed were written down by his friend, a clockmaker," said Weiner about Gebertig, who, despite being just an avid amateur, remains one of the most popular singer-songwriters in Israel. The Polish composer died in the Cracow ghetto in 1942.

Prior to his deportation to Theresienstadt, Pavel Haas had written film scores and orchestrations but also destroyed much of his work. "He was very depressed at first, but composers such as Klein or Krasa encouraged him to keep on writing," said Weiner. Paradoxically, the work he created in Theresienstadt surpassed what he had done before the war. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

"If he hadn't been imprisoned and later murdered in Auschwitz in 1944, I am sure he would have become one of the most important musical forces of the 20th century," said Weiner about the Austrian Jewish composer who had been appointed conductor of the Prague State Opera before the war. The three years he spent in Theresienestadt were paradoxically the most prolific years of his career.