I witnessed the dead of Belsen: we must always confront tyranny

London Telegraph ^ | 27 January 2004 | James Molyneaux

[ahadams2]

I witnessed the dead of Belsen: we must always confront tyranny

By James Molyneaux (Filed: 27/01/2004)

My first encounter with Belsen was the sight of dead bodies hanging from the electric fences. These victims had thrown themselves on the fences to end their own unimaginable suffering. The camp authorities had left them where they died. It was May 1945. The Allied and Russian armies were battling to link up in central Germany; Field Marshal Montgomery led his 21st Army Group to Lüneburg, with our RAF Regiment Wing in close support.

On arrival at Tactical Headquarters, we had been briefed on the discovery of the Belsen prison camp nearby. In company with our RAF medical unit and the two 2nd Army Field hospitals, we wasted no time. Briefed though we were, the shock excelled all the horrors of the battles of the 12 months since Normandy.

As we passed through the camp gates, the Royal Military Police requested us to drive very slowly to avoid the numerous disoriented prisoners. We were handed adhesive tape to put over the vehicle horns in order to prevent them going off accidentally, lest the shock would cause still more deaths.

The British liberators were staggered and shocked by the inhuman behaviour of some of the former guards, who continued to abuse and torment prisoners nearing death when they assumed we were looking the other way. I confess that on such occasions I may have breached the Geneva Convention to prevent further ill treatment of helpless victims. Their behaviour after we had arrived contradicted the excuse that the SS had forced them to carry out orders. Our new orders to them were "Stop acting like savages".

The most moving experience came on the second morning as I was walking from what had been the luxury SS barracks which our troops had transformed into a hospital. My attention was drawn to two packing cases covered by a worn red curtain. A young Polish priest was clinging to this makeshift altar with one hand, while celebrating Mass. Between his feet lay the body of another priest who probably died during the night. No one had had the energy to move the body.

I had no difficulty in following the old Latin Mass, having been educated at St James's Roman Catholic School in County Antrim, and, although an Anglican, I had gained a working knowledge of all the rituals. Still supporting himself against the altar, the young priest did his best to distribute the consecrated elements. Some recipients were able to stumble over the rough, scrubby heathland. Others crawled forward to receive the tokens and then crawled back to share them with others unable to move. Some almost certainly passed on to another - probably better - world before sunset. Whatever one's race or religion one can only be uplifted and impressed by that truly remarkable proof of the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

My duties in Belsen were cut short by orders to cross the River Elbe and proceed with haste over the Kiel Canal to Flensberg on the German–Danish frontier. Some days later, before the war ended, we were informed that, before Hitler committed suicide, he had appointed Grand Admiral Doenitz as his successor. By coincidence, we and Doenitz arrived in Flensberg on the same day. We had some difficulty in persuading the Grand Admiral that he was now unemployed.

We then turned to our special mission which was to accept the surrender of about 9,000 Luftwaffe personnel who had fled from the Eastern Front along with their experimental jets. But the Belsen we had left was still very much in our minds when we discovered that we had in our net the mass murderer Himmler and his hard men. Although Himmler committed suicide, his subordinates, when arrested, were consigned to the Nuremberg war trials. Regrettably, those events came too late to relieve the agonies of those who suffered in Belsen and the other death camps.

My mind has often gone back to our arrival in Belsen as I stood beside my commanding officer, a First World War pilot and a man of great integrity. Before us was a huge mound of bodies near the Jewish quarter of the dreadful huts. My CO asked: "Molyneaux, did you ever think you would see such an example of what one group of human beings could do to another set of human beings?" I innocently replied: "Perhaps this evidence will ensure that it doesn't happen again."

Shaking his head, my CO said: "I hate to think you may be mistaken."

I now admit that I was wrong because I didn't realise that the rewards of tyranny and terrorism would be so great, and that therefore authorities and governments would lack the courage and resolution to stamp out such evils.

Now, the usual response of governments is mere condemnation of an atrocity, describing an outrage as "unacceptable". Next come a string of concessions to the offender, leading to a craven suggestion that the victims must share some of the blame, and then concessions to the demands of the perpetrators.

Opinion formers appear to have forgotten Kipling, who warned of the outcome.

"It is always a temptation To a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: 'Though we know we should defeat you, We have not the time to meet you, We will therefore pay you cash to go away.' And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That, if once you have paid him the Dane-geld, You never get rid of the Dane."

Increasingly, the general public weakens in its resolve. Under the label of moderation, it is fashionable to plead for understanding; to do a Chamberlain and settle for a piece of crumpled paper in the mistaken belief that the word of dictators and terrorists can be trusted. Today, we should reflect on our responsibilities, and those of our governments, to stand up to the prejudice and tyranny that can still, today, lead to genocide. These events happened in my lifetime. They are not lost in the past; they could still happen again today.

[Khurkris]

Good read. Thanks.

[pax_et_bonum]

Thank you for posting this.

I remember one photograph in particular which is at the Holocaust Museum in Houston.

A mother and her baby, held next to her heart, have been shot by the guard who is facing her. She and her baby are falling backwards into a mass grave. They were shot together that way in order to save a bullet.

[ahadams2]

you may want to ping your lists for this one even though it's technically an editorial in the News section:

"The most moving experience came on the second morning as I was walking from what had been the luxury SS barracks which our troops had transformed into a hospital. My attention was drawn to two packing cases covered by a worn red curtain. A young Polish priest was clinging to this makeshift altar with one hand, while celebrating Mass. Between his feet lay the body of another priest who probably died during the night. No one had had the energy to move the body."

[connectthedots]

If I recall correctly, I think Bergen Belsen is where Ann Frank was sent. I visited Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the late '70s. Conditions there were so bad, the Allies had to burn it to the ground. The number of huge mounds under which 10-25,000 victims each were buried left one speechless.

[Billthedrill]

Shaking his head, my CO said: "I hate to think you may be mistaken."

Chills. Thanks for posting.

[StarCMC]

Reading thru tears here. Paraphrasing...Evil men succeed because good men stand by and do nothing. Oh that these images and truths we not revised down so as not to shock future generations. I'm with Darryl Worley -- I'd show those pictures of people jumping to their deaths at the WTC every night on the news until it's so burned in their psyche's that it won't be forgotten. Then I'd follow up with a presentation of photos of the people that Saddam gassed to death. Yes it's shocking, awful, horrendous -- whatever you want to call it. But it would strengthen the resolve. It would remind us that there IS a reason for war. It's not revenge as much as a determination that we cannot let this evil continue.

[FormerlyAnotherLurker]

After two years of successfully concealing themselves, and praying for allied advancement through Europe, the Franks were arrested by German officers on August 4, 1944. The long held suspicions of a warehouse worker had finally gained an audience with German officials, who acted promptly once provided with the information. Fortunately, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl, two secretaries who worked at the warehouse and had been assisting the Franks and Van Pels, recovered Anne's diary, which had been discarded by the German soldiers. Anne and her family were taken to the Westerbork transit camp located in Holland, where they were held until transported to Auschwitz on September 2, 1944. As fate would have it, the Franks left Westerbork on the last train to leave for Auschwitz. It was at Auschwitz that the Frank family, in spite of their efforts to remain together through the hardship of persecution, were finally separated. Although Edith and her daughters were able to remain together for a short while longer, Otto Frank would never see his family again.

There is no definitive information concerning Anne at Auschwitz and that which exists is contradictory. Some say that she was introverted and wept uncontrollably at the sight of children being led away for execution. Still, others say that Anne remained a source of strength for her fellow captives and that, in those strange and horrible circumstances, was able to forge a closer bond with her mother and sister. From those that were in the camps with Ann, she reportedly suffered terribly from skin infections after only a few weeks at Auschwitz and was sent to a separate prison block. On October 30, 1944, Anne and her sister were sent to Bergen-Belsen, a German camp in North Germany. Edith remained at Auschwitz, where she would die on January 6, 1945 from starvation. Ironically, Otto Frank would be liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Of the eight who lived secretly in the annex for two years, he was the only one to survive.
FROM;
http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/annefrank_page.htm

Visited her "house" a couple years ago. Incredibly sad and moving.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

My MIL lived through that war..
she was just a young girl, I hope to someday post her story here..on FR...
To this very day..seeing a house on fire, or hearing sirens blaring..brings it all back to her..
Her cousins murdered, for befriending Jewish people..separated from her Mother and finding her again
and by the way, her name is Anne..too.

Nothing like this should have EVER happened..
We must do our best to see that it does not happen again..
I am worried..about the direction this nation is taking..
Kerry doing so well, Dean even CONSIDERED for a candidate,
Clark, with a knife in our Presidents' back...

Watch closely Freepers..fight like HELL, and pray very, very hard..
Ms.B

[FreedomPoster]

My former neighbor's mother bore a tattoo from Bergen-Belsen.

How can you read something like this, and not be glad we took out Saddam, if for no other reason, than to end the mass killings? And there were plenty of other reasons.

[Taliesan]

A mother and her baby, held next to her heart, have been shot by the guard who is facing her. She and her baby are falling backwards into a mass grave. They were shot together that way in order to save a bullet.

Anger. Sorrow. Anger.

[pax_et_bonum]

"Anger. Sorrow. Anger."

I know.

There are no words.

That museum is filled wall-to-wall with inhuman horror, and somehow that picture is the image that remains with me the most...

[Brad’s Gramma]

Watch closely Freepers..fight like HELL, and pray very, very hard..

AMEN! Thank you SO much for the ping, Ms.B.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Howdy Gramma!
How's doing?
Ms.B

[CholeraJoe]

Pat Buchanan and Lyndon LaRouche have denounced this article as propaganda, since the alleged "holocaust" has not been independently verified by impartial observers.

S., ping the usual suspects.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

I get so angry when people try to downplay the Holocaust. I met a woman who was in Bergin-Belsen when she was a young girl. Her 13 year old brother had to bury their father because he died of typhus the day after they were liberated. This women was not spewing propaganda. This was her life.

[ahadams2]

LOL! those who deny the holocaust only exhibit their own ignorance in so-doing and are of no interst whatsoever to me.

[SJackson]

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