• bergen belsen concentration camp

    Pipers – Liberating Belsen?

    We are grateful to Bruce Hitchings MBE BEM, Kirknewton, Scotland and to Bob Shlaer of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the following story. Last November, Bob read an obituary that appeared in American newspaper, The Week. The deceased was Branko Lustig (87) who, as a 10-year-old Croatian Jew, had been imprisoned at Auschwitz. The obituary describes how one day the youngster was ordered to stand in the front row at a hanging.  5,149 total views

  • Leopold John “Leo” Genn (War Crimes Unit)

    WCIT. War Crimes Unit. Arrived 20th May. Produced initial report 22nd June. 14 page document summarised investigators key findings and made recommendations for the cases against key concentration camp personnel.  5,030 total views

  • M.G. Morrison

    Leslie Hardman

    Reverend Leslie Henry Hardman MBE HCF (18 February 1913 – 7 October 2008) was an Orthodox Rabbi and the first Jewish British Army chaplain to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, an experience “that made him a public figure, both within his community and outside it”.  5,973 total views

  • Bill Millin Bergen Belsen

    Bill Millin

    Branko Lustig. As a 12/13 year old, the future producer of Steven Spielberg’s movie ‘Schindler’s List’, was in Bergen-Belsen and on the brink of dying when he all of a sudden heard a sound he thought might have been produced by angels. It was in fact British Army pipers playing as the camp was liberated.  5,608 total views

  • Major Brian Urquhart

    Brian Urquhart (Major) (Sir)

    I left the airborne business after the Battle of Arnhem because I was pretty unpopular there. It’s unpopular enough to be the one person who opposes something that everybody else wants to do. But if you turn out to be right, you get seriously unpopular, and I was seriously unpopular because I was right.  5,308 total views

  • bergen belsen concentration camp

    Mady Gerrard – Survivor

    On 15th April 1945, British Soldiers entered the gates of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp for the first time. They found more than 50,000 prisoners, suffering from disease, starvation, neglect and torture – as well as the bodies of thousands who had already died. Immediately, a major relief effort began, with British troops trying to save as many lives as possible, but even after liberation, 14,000 more people would die. Today, 75 years on, SSAFA remembers the actions of the British soldiers, who did what they could to rescue and revive the thousands of people on the verge of death, from the worst terror imaginable. The first men to enter the camp…

  • bergen belsen concentration camp

    Report on Belsen Camp by Lt. Col. Taylor

    REPORT ON BELSEN CAMP by Lt-Col. R.I.G. TAYLOR, DSO, MC.   Appendix ‘A’ attached is a short account of the condition of the camp as known before the entry on 15 April. Appendix ‘B’ is a copy of the agreement concluded between representatives of the Allied and German Armies on 12 April 1945.   PART I. On 13 April I received written instructions from B.G.S., 8 Corps that I was to assume control of the area as given in the agreement, that I was to command all enemy troops remaining in the area, and “in principle British troops were to be employed to give authority of enemy forces vis a…

  • medical students Belsen

    Sir James Gowans (1924-2020)

    St Catherine’s College is saddened to share the news that Sir James Gowans, Honorary and Founding Fellow, passed away on 1st April, 2020 aged 95.  5,546 total views