As the evacuation of Auschwitz and other camps in the East began in late 1944, tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners were transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. The resulting overcrowding and lack of food, water and sanitation led to the deaths of more than 35,000 prisoners between the start of 1945 and the camp’s liberation by British troops on 15 April. Norman Turgel was one of the first soldiers to enter the camp.
The scenes which greeted us were like something out of a horror film. People everywhere were dying. In some cases they were so far gone that you couldn’t tell whether they were young or old, woman or man…
As a young soldier who had witnessed the killing of soldiers and animals on many occasions, I found this a shocking experience. I had seen my share of battle casualties... But to see thousands of innocent people in a camp (or prison, as the Germans used to call it) being starved to death, murdered, poisoned, was beyond belief…
We were trying to save lives, but people blamed the British for killing some of the inmates by giving them too much food. This was quite possible. None of us knew what to do until we started getting doctors in. We had no instructions…
We had all been inoculated against typhus and other diseases; so far as possible we were safe. But on April 18, three days after our arrival, I woke up and could not get out of bed. I was paralysed. That happened to two or three of our chaps. We simply could not walk. When the doctor came and stuck pins in our legs, we felt nothing. This lasted for 24 hours, and they put it down to the shock on our nerves from the horrific sights we’d seen.
Norman subsequently fell in love with one of the prisoners, Gena Goldfinger. The couple married in October 1945.
Photo: British soldiers and survivors at Bergen-Belsen, April 1945; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of George Stein
Testimony: Gena Turgel, I Light a Candle (Vallentine Mitchell, 1995)
