Freed from Horror: 75th Anniversary of the Bergen-Belsen Liberation (Britain at War issue 156)

Marking the Holocaust in some way presented a unique challenge for Britain at War, which generally speaking adopts a fairly upbeat tone, and it’s a challenge I took enormous pride in being able to meet.

My pitch was to mark the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by the British Army, an event which first made the British public aware of the scale of the Holocaust. In order for it to feel comfortable sitting alongside the rest of the content, I chose to focus on the camp’s liberation as a humanitarian disaster which would help the British Army remain in the frame.

I had hoped to speak to a veteran of 113th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, The Royal Artillery - which began life as a battalion of the Durham Light Infantry - who supplied the manpower for the bulk of the relief effort, but unfortunately, the last survivor of the liberation had passed away earlier that year. The veterans’ association were however enormously helpful with documentation, especially a booklet produced by the regiment’s adjutant which broke down the humanitarian effort at a granular level.

Whilst I was unable to get in touch with any veterans of the liberation force itself, I did speak to two veterans who had visited the camp in the immediate aftermath, one - Alan Gibson, Royal Corps of Signals - had been given a bar of chocolate and asked to try and “reach” a traumatised survivor who had withdrawn emotionally, the other - Stanley Fisher, a sergeant in the 4th Wiltshire Regiment - was a British Jew whose unique perspective drove him to experience the camp for himself.

Most importantly I was able to speak at length with a survivor of the camp, Tomi Reichental. As a young boy, Tomi was arrested with his family by Slovakia’s fascist paramilitaries, the Hlinka Guard, and handed over to the Germans. He was able to talk frankly about the devastating typhus epidemic, the callous treatment at the hands of the guards, the death of his grandmother, and of course the liberation, and his book, I Was a Boy in Belsen is available from The O’Brien Press. (I was later delighted to see Tomi revisit the site with Jonathan Dimbleby as part of the ITV documentary, Return to Belsen.)

Freed from Horror appeared in Britain at War issue 156, priced £4.80. Find out more at britainatwar.keypublishing.com.