British World War II veteran shares first-hand account of seeing concentration camp after liberation

by Karen Abeyasekere
100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

4/30/2014 - RAF MILDENHALL, England -- "I remember the stench; there is no other word. It invaded the camp and all surrounding countryside - it was the result of hundreds, if not thousands of bodies lying around in open pits, awaiting burial," said Harold Burgh, World War II veteran and former warrant officer in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. "They were like skeletal, emaciated bodies."

The British veteran, who will be 90 in June, spoke at a Holocaust Remembrance Luncheon April 28, 2014, at the Galaxy Club on RAF Mildenhall, sharing his experiences in the British Army and telling how his unit spent time at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany right after its liberation in 1945.

"We were there to help distribute what food there was, but there wasn't a great deal we could do," he said.

The beginning of the end

In December 1944, Hitler decided to launch a final counter attack, with the aim of driving the Allies back to the channel ports.

They gathered together every serviceable aircraft, tank, truck and artillery piece, and conscripted males between the ages of 14 and 17 years old.

"On the morning of Jan. 1, 1945 - a date I shall never forget - I was crossing the camp with a colleague, when two low-flying aircraft appeared and strafed our camp from one end to the other, and other units in the area," Burgh declared. "The instinctive thing to do is to take cover, any cover; the first available cover was a three-ton truck which stood a few yards away, and we dived underneath it and stayed underneath it for what seemed like an age."

Take cover

"When the aircraft had gone, we came out and the regimental sergeant major happened to be passing. He said, 'Have you been sheltering under that truck?' We said yes. He said, 'Do you know what's in it?' - and he told us it was the unit munitions truck ... loaded from floor to ceiling with explosives of all kinds! One stray bullet, and we would have made a wonderful exit from this world - and a magnificent firework display!"

A few days later, the unit received a signal from their headquarters, informing them that an enemy armored brigade was heading in their direction, and was estimated to be about 10 km away.

"My immediate task was to destroy the unit war diary and all other secret and restricted papers," Burgh said. "Our salvation came from the guards at Armoured Division, who halted the German advance and in the ensuing battle, destroyed four German Tiger tanks. Not for the first time, I felt that somebody up there was looking after me!"

A living hell

Burgh said their entry into Germany resembled a scene from Dante's Inferno.

"Buildings were burning fiercely on both sides of the Rhine bridge, shells were landing all around and snipers were very active," recalled Burgh. "A truck in the convoy just ahead of mine left the road and detonated a land mine, killing all the occupants. We assumed that the night sniper had hit his target."

Thankfully, Burgh and the rest of his unit began to feel that the end of the war was in sight. Having just crossed a river at the point between Hanover and Hamburg, their unit received a signal from the local German commander requesting a temporary cease-fire, as typhus (an acute, infectious bacterial disease spread by lice or fleas) had broken out in the area.

"At first, we suspected this was a tactic to delay our advance, but it was decided to send officers under cover of a white flag, in conjunction with the Geneva Convention, with orders to report back as soon as possible," Burgh said.

It was then they came across Bergen-Belsen and its concentration camp.

Immeasurable suffering

"I have personal memories of Belsen that are as vivid today as they were 70 years ago when these horrors took place," the REME veteran said. "Two Jewish chaplains were present and they worked tirelessly, conducting mass funerals with the aid of Royal Engineers and bulldozers. They comforted the prisoners as far as they could, though language was a problem."

Burgh recalled that German men and women from surrounding villages were brought in to remove the corpses, despite their pleas they had no idea what was happening in the camp.

Faces of evil

"My second recollection was of seeing the two most evil faces I have ever seen or will ever be likely to see - Josef Kramer and Irma Grese; commandants of the men's and women's sections respectively," Burgh said. "They were waiting for an armed escort to take them to a prison camp."

In December 1944, Kramer was transferred from Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen, near the village of Bergen. Originally serving as a temporary camp for those leaving Germany, the Nazis expanded it during the war and made into a convalescent depot for the ill and displaced people from across northwest Europe. Even though the camp had no gas chambers, Kramer's rule was so terrible he became known as the "Beast of Belsen."

During World War II, Grese was the most notorious of the female Nazi war criminals. She became a camp guard at just 19, and in March 1943, she transferred to Auschwitz and rose to the second highest rank that female concentration camp personnel could achieve. After the war, survivors testified to her acts of pure sadism-beatings and erratic shooting of prisoners, savaging of prisoners by her trained but half-starved dogs and her selecting prisoners for the gas chambers.

Kramer and Grese were both executed as war criminals Dec. 13, 1945, after being tried at Nuremberg.

Killing with kindness

When Burgh and his unit descended on the camp right after its liberation, they came bearing food for what was left of the prisoners. He recalled vividly how hundreds of them died as a result of eating the food they had provided.

The food included fresh bread from army bake houses and meat products. The concentration camp prisoners' stomachs simply couldn't cope after such a long period of depravation. The Allies flew in concentrated food (such as the equivalent of modern-day nutritional supplement or weight gain shakes) once they realized the problem.

Too much to bear

"There were no gas chambers in Belsen; prisoners died from starvation, typhus, dysentery or gross mistreatment," said Burgh. "A vast majority of inmates - though not all - were Jewish; innocents whose only crime was to have been born Jewish or to have had a Jewish background.

"At the end of each day we were required to strip and be sprayed with DEET (strong insect repellent and antiseptic) and wear a fresh uniform to prevent the spread of typhus," he said. "Seventy final-year medical students from Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital (in London) volunteered to help the overworked medical corps."

Four of the volunteers later died, having contracted typhus in the camp.

"The entire experience stretched my emotional levels, and I wasn't alone in shedding a few tears over the futility of it all," Burgh said. "The sight of the children was particularly distressing, and one I will never forget."

Going back ...

In April 2005, almost 60 years to the day since the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, Burgh was part of a group of approximately 200 people who traveled to Hanover.

"There were a number of survivors, some liberators, members of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, veterans, and students from both Jewish and non-Jewish schools, along with a number of teachers accompanying the party," the veteran said. "One of the ministers who had been at Belsen, officiated at the remembrance service. Entering the camp after 60 years was a very strange and emotional experience."

He added that on arrival, there were hundreds of people of many nationalities visiting the site.

"Many of the visitors were survivors, and many were from the U.S.A., and they thanked us for giving them back their freedom and their lives," he said. "The contrast in the camp could not have been more profound; Belsen was now an immense stretch of land covered in heather. There were large mounds of earth - 12 in all - each with a small sign, reading 'Here are buried 3,000,' 'Here are buried 8,000,' and so on.

"The wooden house that had held the prisoners had long-since been razed to the ground by the army using flamethrowers," he said.

Following the memorial service, Burgh said floral tributes were laid and everyone lit memorial candles.

And finally, peace ...

"There was a feeling of complete tranquility; it was a beautiful day and the birds were singing. I don't recall any bird song in 1945," Burgh said.

Amongst the Team Mildenhall members who gathered to listen to the stories and experiences of the British World War II veteran was Col. Daniel Merry, 100th Mission Support Group commander.

"Hearing from people who were actually there highlights the relative currency of the issue," Merry said. "We're not so far removed from the atrocities of the Holocaust, either by distance or time; this happened in Europe and there are still people alive who remember it.

"If we don't keep the Holocaust in our near-term memories, we can lose perspective of how quickly hatred escalates and how consuming that pain is for humanity," the 100th MSG commander said.

"Mr. Burgh is to be commended for his continued efforts to get out and share his accounts of the day to enlighten so many - while this must be exhausting, it appears to also refresh his spirit."