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British and American Voluntary Organizations in Liberated Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp: An Unknown Story

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The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Public

Part of the book series: The Holocaust and its Contexts ((HOLC))

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Abstract

When the first British troops entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 15 April 1945 it was obvious the liberators had no idea about what was to confront them. During the following days and weeks, specialized military units, six relief teams provided by the British Red Cross and the Society of Friends, two platoons from the American Field Service and around one hundred medical students, among others, were called to take care of the 60,000 dying, sick, starving, and exhausted people at the camp. While the role the British military and medical students played in providing emergency relief in Belsen has been the focus of intensive research, little is known about the contribution of voluntary organizations. Based on widely unknown archival documents and personal papers, this chapter will examine the work of British and American voluntary organizations in Belsen immediately after liberation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dan Stone, The liberation of the camps. The end of the Holocaust and its aftermath (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015), 82.

  2. 2.

    Johannes-Dieter Steinert, “British relief teams in Belsen concentration camp: Emergency relief and the perception of survivors,” in Belsen 1945: New historical perspectives edited by Suzanne Bardgett and David Cesarani (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006), 62–78; Johannes-Dieter Steinert, Nach Holocaust und Zwangsarbeit. Britische humanitäre Hilfe in Deutschland. Die Helfer, die Befreiten und die Deutschen (Osnabrück: Secolo, 2007).

  3. 3.

    Johannes-Dieter Steinert, Holocaust und Zwangsarbeit. Erinnerungen jüdischer Kinder 1938–1945 (Essen: Klartext, 2018).

  4. 4.

    Joanne Reilly, Belsen. The liberation of a concentration camp (London: Routledge, 1998), 28. Ben Shephard, After daybreak. The liberation of Belsen, 1945 (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005), 31–32.

  5. 5.

    Paul Kemp, “The liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945: The testimony of those involved”, Imperial War Museum Review, 5 (1990), 40.

  6. 6.

    F. S. V. Donnison, Civil affairs and military government North-West Europe 1944–1946 (London: H. M. S. Office, 1961), 219.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., p. 221; Imperial War Museum ed., The Relief of Belsen, April 1945: Eyewitness accounts (London, 1991), 31.

  8. 8.

    Shephard, After Daybreak, 34.

  9. 9.

    D. T. Prescott, “Reflections of forty years ago—Belsen 1945”, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 132 (1986), 48.

  10. 10.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Lt. Colonel Gonin, The RAMC at Belsen Concentration Camp.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Ben Shephard, “The medical relief effort at Belsen”. In Belsen 1945. New historical perspectives edited by Suzanne Bardgett and David Cesarani (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006), 36.

  13. 13.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Lt. Colonel Gonin, The RAMC at Belsen Concentration Camp.

  14. 14.

    Ibid.

  15. 15.

    Shephard, “Medical relief”, 37.

  16. 16.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Lt. Colonel Gonin, The RAMC at Belsen Concentration Camp. Schlichting, “Glyn Hughes Hospital”, 58.

  17. 17.

    Steinert, Nach Holocaust, 21f.

  18. 18.

    Shoah Foundation, 35381, Interview Elizabeth Dearden.

  19. 19.

    Friends Library, FRS/1992/Box 8, Friends Relief Service. Digest of Overseas Reports No. 3, Week ending 5 May 1945.

  20. 20.

    Imperial War Museum, 99/86/1, J McFarlane, Talk given to CDA. M. C. Carey, “Progress at Belsen camp”, The British Red Cross Quarterly Review, 7 (1945), 103.

  21. 21.

    Imperial War Museum, 85/38/1, Lt. Colonel Gonin, The R.A.M.C. at Belsen Concentration Camp.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    M. F. Beardwell, Aftermath (Ilfracombe: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1953), 40.

  24. 24.

    Carey, “Progress”, 104.

  25. 25.

    British Red Cross Archive, Acc 96/29, Belsen Letters. Letters sent from Miss Margaret Wyndham Ward M.B.E. to her Mother Sarah Langlands Ward from 24 February 1945–14 August 1945, here: 23 April 1945.

  26. 26.

    Shoah Foundation, 41325, Interview John Eryl Hall-Williams.

  27. 27.

    Carey, “Progress”, 1945, p. 106. Museum of the Order of St. John, SJO/6/3/3, Ada Evelyn Brown papers.

  28. 28.

    Shoah Foundation, 41325, Interview John Eryl Hall-Williams.

  29. 29.

    Friends Library, FRS/1992/Box 8, Friends Relief Service. Digest of Overseas Reports No. 3, Week ending 5 May 1945.

  30. 30.

    Carey, “Progress”, 103.

  31. 31.

    Ibid. Beardwell, Aftermath, 42.

  32. 32.

    Evelyn Bark, No time to kill (London: Hale, 1960), 51.

  33. 33.

    George Rock, The history of the American Field Service 1920–1955 (New York: Platen Press, 1956); American Field Service, “Timeline”. Accessed March 13, 2019, https://afs.org/archives/timeline/#afs-nav-1945.

  34. 34.

    Rock, The history, 416f; Shoah Foundation, 48200, Interview Bruce Kendall.

  35. 35.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 8, Box 111, War diary, D Platoon, 567 Coy, April 1945.

  36. 36.

    Rock, The history, 421; AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 8, Box 111, HQ 567 Coy to ADMS, 29 April 1945. RG 2/005, Box 1, The American Field Service at Bergen-Belsen April–May 1945, Album, May 1995.

  37. 37.

    AFS Archives RG 2/001, Series 1, Box 52, AFS Letters, August 1945, Photo 41. AFS, Interview Bayard D. Clarkson, World War II Oral History Project, accessed online March 13, 2019, http://brandcenter.afs.org/CMS/sharedbin/afs-history-and-archives/oral-history-platform/4_002_2A_Clarkson.mp3.

  38. 38.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 8, Box 111, War diary, C Platoon, 567 Coy, May 1945.

  39. 39.

    AFS Archives RG 2/001, Series 1, Box 52, AFS Letters, August 1945, 7 May 1945.

  40. 40.

    AFS, Interview Bayard D. Clarkson, World War II Oral History Project, accessed March 13, 2019, http://brandcenter.afs.org/CMS/sharedbin/afs-history-and-archives/oral-history-platform/4_002_2A_Clarkson.mp3.

  41. 41.

    Peterkin, Douglas Brock, “Observations on the outbreak of louse-borne Typhus fever at Belsen concentration camp, April, 1945,” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1947), 51.

  42. 42.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 1, Box 42, Vol. Carl F. Zeigler, AFS, Belgium, to Stephen Galatti.

  43. 43.

    Rock, The history, 424.

  44. 44.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 1, Box 42, Vol. Carl F. Zeigler, AFS, Belgium, to Stephen Galatti.

  45. 45.

    National Archive, WO177/849, Lt. Colonel Gonin to Second Army, 13.6.1945.

  46. 46.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Lt. Gonin, The RAMC at Belsen Concentration Camp.

  47. 47.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 8, Box 111, War diary, C Platoon, 567 Coy, May 1945.

  48. 48.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 8, Box 111, Letter, C Platoon, 567 AFS Amb Car, to Colonel, Belsen, 13 May 1945.

  49. 49.

    National Archive, WO222/201, Verbatim accounts of talks on Belsen camp at the Royal Society of Medicine Inter Allied Conference on 4 June 1945. WO219/3944, What the Army did at Belsen concentration camp, undated, 119–149.

  50. 50.

    Robert Collins and Han Hogerzeil, Straight on (London: Methuen & Co, 1947), 52.

  51. 51.

    National Archive, WO219/3944, What the Army did at Belsen concentration camp, undated, 119–149.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.; Imperial War Museum, Misc 104/1650, Belsen. Report by HQ Garrison on period 18–30 April 1945.

  53. 53.

    Prescott, “Reflections”, 49.

  54. 54.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Lt. Colonel Gonin, The RAMC at Belsen Concentration Camp.

  55. 55.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 8, Box 111, War diary, D Platoon, 567 Coy, May 1945.

  56. 56.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/005, Box 1, The American Field Service at Bergen-Belsen April–May 1945, Album, May 1995.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/001, Series 8, Box 111, 567 Coy, June 1945.

  59. 59.

    National Archive, WO177/849, Special order of the day by Lt. Colonel Gonin, RAMC, 23 May 1945.

  60. 60.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Lt. Colonel Gonin, The RAMC at Belsen Concentration Camp.

  61. 61.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/005, Box 1, The horror camp, in: AFS What’s New?, July 1995, 6–9, 12, here 6f.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Norman Shelter, Belsen—Little Compton, 23 April 1995.

  64. 64.

    Norman C. Kunkel and Georgie Bright Kunkel, WWII liberator’s life. AFS ambulance driver chooses peace (Seattle: Bright Kunkel Books, 2006), 159.

  65. 65.

    Imperial War Museum, Documents 9550, Diary, Jean McFarlane, BRCS Civilian Relief team RS104.

  66. 66.

    Museum of the Order of St. John, SJO/6/3/3, Ada Evelyn Brown papers.

  67. 67.

    Imperial War Museum, Documents 11454, Diary, M J Blackman, Civilian Relief team RS114.

  68. 68.

    Imperial War Museum, Documents 9550, Diary, Molly Jones, BRCS Civilian Relief team RS104.

  69. 69.

    Imperial War Museum, Documents. 11454, Diary, M J Blackman, Civilian Relief team RS114.

  70. 70.

    Wiener Library, Henriques Archive 3/13, Jane Leverson: Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, 6 May 1945.

  71. 71.

    “Red Cross in Belsen. Battle Against Death”, in The Times, 16 May 1945.

  72. 72.

    Eva Kolinsky, “Jewish Holocaust Survivors between Liberation and Resettlement” in European immigrants in Britain 1933-1950, edited by Johannes-Dieter Steinert and Inge Weber-Newth (Munich: Saur, 2003), 123.

  73. 73.

    Brenda McBryde, A nurse’s war (Saffron Walden: Cakebreads, 1993), 168.

  74. 74.

    “Work of the Jewish Relief Unit”, 1947, 17.

  75. 75.

    McBryde, A Nurse’s War, 92.

  76. 76.

    Wyman, DPs, 1989, 133.

  77. 77.

    Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Inherit the truth, 1939–1945. The documented experiences of a survivor of Auschwitz and Belsen (London: Giles de la Mare, 1996), 96.

  78. 78.

    Shoah Foundation, 38219, Interview Jane Levy.

  79. 79.

    Neil Belton, The good listener. Helen Bamber: A life against cruelty (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), 109.

  80. 80.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/023, Series 1, Box 1, Lt. Colonel Gonin, The RAMC at Belsen Concentration Camp.

  81. 81.

    AFS Archives, RG 2/005, Box 1, The horror camp, in: AFS What’s New?, July 1995, 6–9, 12, here 9.

  82. 82.

    Ibid.

  83. 83.

    Shoah Foundation, 35381, Interview Elizabeth Dearden.

  84. 84.

    Stone, Liberation, 82.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK

    Johannes-Dieter Steinert

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  1. University of Derby, Derby, UK

    Larissa Allwork

  2. King’s College London, London, UK

    Rachel Pistol

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Steinert, JD. (2019). British and American Voluntary Organizations in Liberated Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp: An Unknown Story. In: Allwork, L., Pistol, R. (eds) The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Public. The Holocaust and its Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28675-0_9

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