Today marks 75 years since British forces liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

r00fie1

r00fie1

Well-known member
Lest we forget the evil which man can do to man.
Evil.jpeg
British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. Thousands of bodies lay unburied around the camp and some 60,000 starving and mortally ill people were packed together without food, water or basic sanitation. Many were suffering from typhus, dysentery and starvation.
 
My Grandad was a pilot in the RAF delivering supplies etc to the front line during the Allied invasion of Germany, an officer he was returning home for leave told him of the horrors he had witnessed at Bergen-Belsen, my Grandad thought the officer was insane as nobody could possibly treat other humans in that way, it was only when he later saw the footage of the bulldozer clearing the bodies he realised the man was telling the truth.
 
I visited there when I was in the army. A strange surreal experience. Eerily quiet. One thing that stuck in my mind and still does to this day. There was a stone over a small square of grass. On the stone was inscribed "Here lies 2000 Russian soldiers."- I can't imagine so many bodies in such a tiny area.
 
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I was based at the Hohne garrison for a couple of years back in the 70's. Hohne being the garrison for the guards at Belsen.
We had a married quarter which was a portable home, on the edge of the camp and out of our back window, less than 10m's away, was a cemetery with some of those from Belsen who died later and were identified. A wander around that was quite sobering.
A group of us went for a wander around Belsen, it was everything that anyone has ever said about it.
 
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We panded to these far right groups too long in the 1930s - it was clear from 1933 the Nazis in Germany were highly dangerous and on our doorstep. They opened their first concentration camp in 1933. How could a British PM let Germany invade AustrIa and Czechoslovakia. Not support the second Spanish Republic against a military right wing qunta, joyfully attend the Nazi Olympics of 1936. Not restrict the activities of the Black Shirts in this country such as marching in Jewish areas. Well at Belsen you see the result.
 
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My married quarter was on the 7th floor of a block of flats in Hohne. My balcony looked out over the grounds of Belsen.
 
Some years ago we decided that it's be a good idea if we drove to Venice for a holiday (actually on the lido, but you know what I mean). Me, Mrs Gnome and our 4-y-0 and 2-y-0 offsprings. It was as relaxing as it sounds. On the way we camped at Lindau-am-see. It was a really nice camp site on the shores of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) - a short walk from the Austrian border and with views across the lake to the Swiss Alps. In the bar we got talking to a Brit husband and wife who'd been to a Harley Davison gathering in Munich. He said to me - "You see the water fountain thing over there? Circular with taps overhead? We went to Dachau and they're the same as the ones there." Did a bit of digging when we got back to Teesside - turns out our camp site was repurposed from a satellite concentration camp from the infamous Dachau. Not been back. It's on trip advisor nowadays, have a look
 
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