The new exhibition seeks to highlight the stories of survivors

The new exhibition centre at Bergen-Belsen, in the north of Germany, highlights the fates of those who died at the camp during World War II.

Among the exhibits are the drawings and diaries of Jews imprisoned there, plus video statements by survivors.

Some 100 survivors were at the ceremony at the camp, where an estimated 50,000 Jews perished during the Holocaust.

Power of memory

The new exhibition is part of an effort to reconstruct the lives of those sent to Bergen-Belsen during the Nazi occupation of Europe.

It contains photographs, prisoners' records and objects donated by the survivors.

"Use of the new material makes it possible to faithfully recreate the history of the camp," said Christian Wulff, governor of the state of Lower Saxony.

"The genocide of Europe's Jews - a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions - will now and forever keep its paramount place within the German memory," German Culture Minister Bernd Neumann said as he opened the museum.

Liberated by Allied troops in 1945 and later razed, Bergen-Belsen began life as a prisoner of war camp.

From 1943 until the end of the war it was a concentration camp for Jews, gypsies and homosexuals, with an estimated 125,000 people held there.