‘What is so ghastly is not so much the individual acts of barbarism that take place in SS camps but the gradual breakdown of civilisation that happens when human beings are hearded like animals behind barbed wire’
Richard Dimbleby, Bergen-Belsen Nazi Concentration Camp, 15th April 1945.
On 15th April 1945 the British 11th Armoured Division liberated the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp near Celle, a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is estimated that over 50,000 prisoners died in the site between 1939 and 1945. When the camp was liberated the British troops found 60,000 prisoners inside and a further 13,000 unburied corpses lying around the camp unburied.
Richard Dimbleby was one of the first journalists to enter Bergen-Belsen with the British Troops and this ‘Collection Highlight’ featured report is a testament to one of the most poignant historical events that has ever occurred. Dimbleby recounts a first hand view of the liberation that is obviously both moving to the listener and to the reporter.
