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Ian Forsyth – Polands Top Honour
ONE of the first Allied soldiers to witness the horror of Belsen will today join in Poland’s Remembrance Day after being given the country’s highest honour. Ian Forsyth, 85, has become one of only 15 people and the first Scot to receive Poland’s Officer’s Cross of Merit for his role in liberating the notorious concentration camp in north-western Germany. Today, he will wear his medal for the first time in public when he joins a special service at St Simon’s RC Church in Partick, Glasgow. The church was the focus of the Polish community in exile during World War II and masses are still said today in Polish. Ian vowed…
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Canadians at Belsen
We’d love to hear from anyone with details of any service personnel from Canada serving in UK units or within any Canadian units. 25 total views
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Rabbi Dr. Arthur Saul Super
Rabbi Dr. Arthur Saul Super, a Chaplain with the British army, was present at the liberation of Belsen. (He was my late wife’s uncle). 80 total views
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Edmond (Eddie) Williams 32nd CCS
Edmond (Eddie) Williams 32nd CCS (32nd Casualty Clearing Station) 1916-1998 seen nere on his wedding day. 32 total views
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Maj Gen James Johnston
A plaque has been unveiled in memory of an Army medical officer who treated prisoners at a German concentration camp in 1945 following its liberation. 29 total views
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Janet Vaughan
Dame Janet Vaughan, (1899–1993) the well-connected daughter of the headmaster of Rugby, great great niece of Sir Henry Halford (1766–1844), president of the Royal College of Physicians, and second cousin of Virginia Woolf, was an expert on blood disorders, specifically pernicious anaemia. 33 total views
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Alex Paton – Medical Student
My friend Alex Paton, who has died aged 91, was a distinguished physician who never sought high office in medicine but did good quietly, mentoring junior doctors, influencing the profession, and using his knowledge of liver disease to improve alcoholism treatment. When still a medical student, he spent May 1945 assisting in the liberation of Belsen. 32 total views
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Ian Forsyth and Julien Wieciech
As a young soldier in April 1945, Ian Forsyth faced the gates of Belsen concentration camp from the confines of an army tank as allied troops prepared to liberate it and for the first time in his life he understood what he was actually fighting for. 6 total views
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James Gosling
An extract from a 1986 interview with Norfolk born James Gosling, describing his memories of the Second World War. During his interviews, Mr Gosling shared his first-hand experiences of assisting with the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in northern Germany. 41 total views
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Harold Pearsall
My dad, Harold Pearsall, 97, landed on Juno beach during the D-Day landings as an anti-tank gunner and took part in the assault on Caen. 42 total views
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