How the first report from Belsen concentration camp shocked the world

How the first report from Belsen shocked the world
In April 1945, the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby was the first reporter to enter the liberated Belsen concentration camp.

His report describing the unimaginable horror he found, was the first time many listeners had heard the bleak truth of what it was like to have endured life and death under the Nazis.

Around 70,000 people died in the Bergen-Belsen camp.

The broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby told Witness History how his father broke down recording the report and why the BBC were at first reluctant to broadcast it.

 

Witness History - Richard Dimbleby describes Belsen - BBC Sounds

The BBC’s Richard Dimbleby was the first reporter to enter the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. His report describing the unimaginable horror he found was for many listeners around the world the first time they had heard the truth of what it was like to have endured life and death under the Nazis. An estimated 70,000 people died in the camp. The broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby reflects on the impact of the report on his father and why the BBC was reluctant to broadcast it at first. Produced by Josephine McDermott. This programme contains distressing details.

 

Prompted by an offline exchange with another member recently I am puzzled by the apparent discovery of Bergen-Belsen, near Celle, on 15/4/1945 by British forces.

Was the location and role of the camp known beforehand?

I know there has a debate about whether the Allies could have hindered the extermination camp process and expect knowledge of what was happening was not passed down the command chain to the front line.

The US Army learnt of Buchenwald concentration camp on 8/4/1945 from a broadcast call for help from within the camp and on 11/4/1945 units arrived at the camp. Note the camp was near Weimar, so became part of the Soviet Zone and later the GDR.

The Soviet Army entered Auschwitz, near Cracow, Poland on 27/1/1945, but there was little media coverage. It was only after the UK & US liberated other camps that publicity happened.

I have scanned the threads here and cannot see anything relevant.

 

The Concentration Camp (1943-1945)

The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was part of the official concentration camp system from the time it was established in April 1943. Today, many consider it the embodiment of Nazi crimes. However, Bergen-Belsen differed from all other Nazi concentration camps in several key aspects.

Bergen-Belsen was initially set up for Jewish hostages whom the SS had said they would release - in exchange for Germans interned abroad, foreign currency or commodities valuable to the war effort.

The character of the camp changed in March 1944 when a new section was established for sick male prisoners from other concentration camps who were no longer able to work. A section for female prisoners was set up in August 1944.

 

Clive,

If the official concentration camp system was known from April 1943, why did those who liberated these camps appear to be surprised at their existence? Was there any planning to respond once a camp was liberated? On my reading the response was more akin to "all hands to the pump".

 

Hi David,
I think it was probably the sheer scale of industrialised cruelty that surprised the liberators. I think the first camp liberated was Majdanek in eastern Poland, in July 1944 but what the Russians found there was not widely reported. It took until the end of January 1945 for them to liberate Auschwitz-Birkenau but by then it had been emptied of most of its prisoners. It was the grim discoveries encountered at the liberation of Ohrdruf-Buchenwald on 6 April 1945 that blew the whole thing wide open to the fighting troops and the folks back home. A few days later, on 12 April, the Germans invited the British VIII Corps to take over the camp at Belsen, as they couldn't handle the typhus outbreak there; British units duly arrived on 15 April after the terms of a special localised truce had been worked-out. As you say, from then on it was "all hands to the pumps" for the next month.
There has been a lot of research over the last 25 years that indicates that the Allies did know in 1944 that some concentration camps were in fact extermination camps but I have no idea of who, when and where.
Regards,
Col

 

Thanks to Arron Huberty I have emailed a historian @ Buchenwald Museum for their help, standby.

 

A lengthy reply from a historian @ Buchenwald Museum (lightly edited, with my bold):

 

There is also some limited evidence that the Allies may have known significantly earlier:
chilean-diplomats-learn-about-holocaust-03-20-42.jpg (500×764) - Paragraph 4 from bottom.
What Chilean Diplomats Learned about the Holocaust | National Archives - Source that explains the document.

Secret Churchill Papers Released: The Journal of Holocaust Education: Vol 4, No 2

BR
SH

 

Drama on 4 - The Film - BBC Sounds

The Film by Martin Jameson
April 1945. A Ministry of Information army film crew enters Bergen-Belsen to record the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust that many were already refusing to believe. But faced with all this footage, the head of the unit - Sidney Bernstein, is overwhelmed. He needs to get a film out there as soon as possible, but how to do justice to such suffering? So he summons his friend Alfred Hitchcock from Hollywood. And Bernstein - who later establishes Granada Television - determines that together they can create an irrefutable cinematic testimony.
Sidney Bernstein.........................................Henry Goodman
Alfred Hitchcock.........................................Jeremy Swift
Richard Crossman......................................Geoffrey Streatfeild
Mrs Haig........................................................Fenella Woolgar
Secretary.......................................................Hamilton Berstock
Production Co-ordinator - Vicky Moseley
Sound Design - Sharon Hughes
Technical Producer - Peter Ringrose
Studio Manager - Alison Craig
Producer/ Director - Gary Brown

 

This is currently on iplayer

BBC Two - What They Found, "Belsen was something different"
Sam Mendes tells the story of two members of the British army’s film and photographic unit who accompanied the troops liberating Bergen-Belsen.

 

REPORT ON BELSEN CAMP
By Lt-Col RIG Taylor DSO MC
Five page original typed images plus transcript available at:
Report on the liberation of Bergen-Belsen

Original of report mentioning SAS prisoner Nicholson also discussed at:
British P.O.W in Belsen

 

Press with there staff car visit a concentration camp . You can see part in the background. Photo from my collection.
Keith

 

WW2TV just went live with a program directly relevant to this thread:
The Tommies who discovered Bergen-Belsen

BR
SH

 

Are you Stu Hayward from Leeds? Sorry of not. Happy if yes.

 

Not sure if it's been posted before but these are the relevant pages from the Second Army history. I've left out the photos to discourage ghouls.

 

Sorry for the double hits. Fat thumbs.

 

Wapen,
Thank you for posting the extract from Second Army history. I can't bring myself to hit the 'like', it seems to be mocking inappropriateness but you have done a great service by reminding us all of the degraded level of humanity running the camp and the awful consequences of their callous indifference towards their fellow beings.

 

Does anyone know if this might be Bergen Belsen?

It is a photo from a collection taken by a member of British 9th Infantry Brigade Headquarters where my Dad was "Camp Commandant" and Officer in charge of the Defence Platoon.

He never really spoke about the War but there was a rumour he might have been to Belsen and as the person responsible for 9 Brigade supplies not impossible that may have been draughted in to help out with supplies etc?

However, I can't find any trace of 9 Brigade (officially) visiting Belsen so identification/ruling out of the above would be a big help in narrowing it down...

Thanks.

Quis Separabit

 

Unfortunately, not I am afraid,

Agree with Osborne2's comment, and Wapen also with you're reasoning for leaving out the pictures.

Emotional reading,

BR
SH