Remembering the horrors of Belsen

BERGEN-BELSEN was the first camp liberated by the British on April 15, 1945. At the time Soviet forces were advancing on Berlin from the east and US and British and Commonwealth troops from the west. It was the Allies’ 11th Armoured Division that first reached Belsen on that never-to-be forgotten day a little over seventy years ago.

The soldiers found about 50,000 men, women and children suffering from disease and malnutrition. Many would die within a month, but others would be saved thanks to the efforts of British soldiers and medical staff as well as German civilian nurses, Hungarians who had been fighting with the German Army and Soviet prisoners-of-war. The main threat was typhus and many were also suffering from TB, but by far the greatest killer was starvation.

Such was the extent of the challenge facing the liberators that reinforcements had to be quickly summoned. Personnel of the 113th. Light Anti-Aircraft Battalion of the Royal Artillery, which included a significant number of men from the 5th Battalion, the Durham Light Infantry covered more than 230 miles in less than twenty four hours to reach Belsen on April 18 1945. 

The courageous and selfless actions of the Durham soldiers saved countless lives in the month that they were stationed at Belsen. This famous North-East regiment had distinguished itself in conflicts from the Crimean War to its final campaign in Borneo in the 1960s. Countless medals were won, including eleven Victoria Crosses, and the regiment was described by Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, the victor of the battle of El Alemain in which the DLI took part, as one of the finest in the British Army.

The first of the German concentration camps was Dachau which opened in 1933. Six million Jews would ultimately be exterminated by the Nazis in such camps. A substantial number of detainees in Belsen had arrived after Auschwitz had been evacuated before the arrival of the advancing Russians. They included 15 year-old Dutch girl Anne Frank whose Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most poignant reminders of the Holocaust.

The men from North-East England were just ordinary soldiers being asked to carry out extraordinary duties, mostly without complaint. One of the striking things was the great restraint they showed when faced with the evidence of Nazi atrocities. There were many examples of revenge being taken on the Nazis by liberators elsewhere, reports of SS officers being shot, or troops handing guns to prisoners to take their revenge on their captors, but not at Belsen where the Durham soldiers just got on with their job of saving lives and were praised for doing so.

The front cover of David Lowther's book which reveals the DLI's involvement in uncovering the atrocities that took place in Belsen. It contains a variety of contemporary and historical photographs and a selection of maps by Durham cartographer Kevin Sheehan

We know just how appalled and angry they were from interviews recorded by the Imperial War Museum at the beginning of this century. These sound recordings also reveal the traumatic effect on the rest of their lives which their Belsen experiences had on the soldiers. They wanted the world to know what had happened there, but equally wanted to get on with their lives and not speak of it again. Indeed some refused to visit Germany in their later years.

The liberation of Belsen had an enormous impact on the attitude of the British people. From war correspondent Richard Dimbleby’s eye witness account of the camp, through the cinema newsreels to newspaper reports – nobody was left in any doubt that the Second World War was a ‘just’ war which had to be fought to destroy the evil of Nazism. Some of the Nazi guards at Belsen were the first to be prosecuted for war crimes and following their trial in September 1945 11 were hanged in Hamelin three months later. It was at these trials that the horrors of Auschwitz were first revealed to a world traumatised by the war. The media played a significant role in bringing the world’s attention to Nazis atrocities. Footage shot by the Army Film Unit was used by the prosecution at the Belsen trials.

Despite the fact that these events occurred just 70 years ago it can be difficult to believe they actually happened. This is why the memories cannot be allowed to fade and young people in particular must be made of aware of what happened at places like Belsen and the other Nazi death camps in order to ensure that it never happens again.

David Lowther is a former teacher living in Durham. His book Liberating Belsen – Remembering the Soldiers of the Durham Light Infantry is published by Sacristy Press and is available to order from sacristy.co.uk