As we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day one little known incident connects the North-East very closely with the Holocaust, the Liberation of Bergan-Belsen, saving thousands of lives, an act for which the Jewish community still remains grateful today.
This was carried out by a Territorial Army unit from County Durham. In 1938 war was looming, so to increase the numbers of troops available 5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, a Territorial Army unit, was split into two and converted to searchlight units to defend against air raids.
1/5th Battalion was based at Stockton-on-Tees and Darlington with 2/5th Battalion based at West Hartlepool, Horden & Easington. On mobilisation on 23 Aug 1939 2/5th Bn was deployed in Teesside and North Yorkshire, where in1940 it transferred to the Royal Artillery
In Jan 1942 it was armed with 40mm AA guns, and re-designated as 113th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, (The DLI)(TA),
It landed in Europe on 17th June 1944 and fought through France , Belgium, Holland & Germany. It was deployed on the Rhine March 1945 to support the crossing. After the crossing there was little German air activity as the Germans were in a disorganised retreat, so they handed in their AA guns and prepared to be deployed on occupation duties in Germany
They moved to Haldern not far from Nijmegen in Holland at 48 hrs notice to move and received a Warning Order to move to Bergen-Belsen on 17 April.
Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp around 200 miles behind German lines, where the inmates were worked to death. There were no gas chambers at the camp, but little food was supplied and there was no medical provision.
Typhus had broken out in the camp and the local German Wehrmacht Military Commander at Bergen-Belsen approached the Commander British 8th Corps to arrange a temporary limited truce. He realised the danger of Typhus spreading into the general population if the camp was overwhelmed.
The British agreed to come in and take over the camp on being given safe conduct through German territory. A Neutral area was defined around Bergen-Belsen with German and Hungarian guards to remain until the arrival of the British.
The first British forces arrived on 15 April, Brigadier Glyn Hughes (DDMS) from 2nd Army to direct the Relief Operation. He was followed by a small number of troops from 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment RA on 16 April, with a Casualty Clearing Station and 11 Field Ambulance arriving on 17 April.
113 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment was tasked on 17 April and arrived at Bergen-Belsen on 18 April having travelled 238 miles in 22 hours through German lines into what was still enemy territory. Indeed, showing the fragility of the truce, there was a Luftwaffe raid on the tented camp that was acting as one of the Casualty Clearing Centres on 20 April!
There they found 60,000 prisoners in a camp designed for 10,000. They were tasked to run the camp, with the main priority to evacuate it, as there were at least 10,000 typhus infected corpses lying about the camp in the grounds and inside the huts.
The Regiment created reception offices to allocate accommodation and clothing for those inmates not needing hospital treatment. Their REME workshops repaired the electricity and water supply, as well as the camp bakery. 5 cookhouses were created to feed the former prisoners, with one feeding 16,000 meals in a day.
However, the immediate task was dealing with the dead.
It was not possible to move many of these bodies individually as decomposition was in an advanced state. The use of bulldozers was necessary to get them to massive communal graves.
The work of digging these graves was at first allocated to Hungarian Prison Guards, but the task was beyond them and completed using bulldozers.
The maximum number of bodies buried in one day was 1700, where between 19 – 26 April 9,200 bodies were buried. In all 23,000.
All graves were decently enclosed, funeral services were read daily and notices were erected stating the date and a record of the number of graves established.
Most inmates required immediate hospital treatment. At least 50% were suffering from a variety of diseases in addition to typhus which was rampant.
They were stripped of their rags, wrapped in blankets and moved to a hospital established in nearby German army accommodation. Many died during the treatment but 28 900 were evacuated of which 2000 later died.
This daily death rate was terribly high, but steadily decreased, on 30 Apr 548 people died but on 17 May only 19 died
All the inmates were in an advanced state of malnutrition and needed to be fed. Many inmates had lost all self-respect and been degraded morally to the level of beasts. Their clothes were in rags and teeming with lice; they had no eating utensils or plates, and at the time of the food distribution they behaved more like ravenous wolves than human beings.
Cannibalism had taken place.
They had been without food at all for 7 seven days.
An invalid cookhouse was established to prepare a special ‘Bengal Famine Diet’ to avoid damage by inmates overeating and causing themselves damage. Volunteer medical student were allocated to feed those too weak to feed themselves.
On the arrival of the Regiment people were sleeping 3 in a bed, mainly treblebunk beds, in huts which would normally accommodate 60. They were housing 600.
113 supervised and guarded large working parties of Hungarian and German PoWs cleaning out and refitting of all barrack blocks at the nearby Panzer Training Camp and refitting them with beds etc as hospitals or reception areas.
First the inmates had to be treated against lice. Lice were universal. The new compound DDT was obtained and used. (There was no knowledge of its dangers at the time. It was widely used.)
100 medical student volunteers from the UK were brought in to assist the hospital.
A Maternity Home and Children’s Ward were set up.
RA joiners made children’s cots and child swings in a playground.
Ablutions, water points and latrine were set up the Field Hygiene Section. RA water tankers supplied water before the repair of mains water supply, and during the periodic breakdowns of the electricity supply.
2 Troops of 113 Regt (about 100) men provided guards for the hospital area which they enclosed behind barbed wire and guarded to prevent unauthorised movement ‘in’ or ‘out’. There was a risk looters breaking into the camp where conditions were thought to be better than outside
Russians were thought to be more reliable than the Hungarians as guards. As a result Russian PoW were organised by 10 Garrison into a battalion with their own officers, issued with British Rifles and British rations. They then superseded the Hungarian Camp Guards.
The camp was burned down hut by hut under the supervision of 113 Regt, the last hut burning to the ground on 21 May. The Regiment left Bergen-Belsen on 24 May1945 and deployed to Harburg near Hanover.
If you asked them to build a battleship overnight they’d produce it for you at
breakfast.
Such was an expression of praise by Army authorities on the magnificent work of 113 LAA
Regt (The DLI) Royal Artillery at Bergen-Belsen.
The North-East Regiment had travelled around 200 miles behind enemy lines, surrounded by enemy soldiers, found a sight so horrific never seen before of over 10,000 corpses and over 60,000 inmates.
They respectfully dealt with the dead, as best they could, then administered the camp to seek to save as many of the inmates as possible, creating cookhouses, latrines, ablutions and repairing the water and electricity supply, in effect for the population of a small town, whilst also guarding German prisoners – all done by around 800 men in around 4 weeks.
This action deserves to be more widely known, being a true humanitarian mission when they knew not if they would be attacked by the German military surrounding them.