Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
The Palgrave Handbook of Britain and the Holocaust
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2020) 153-177
Keywords:
Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
;
Great Britain.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
World War, 1939-1945 Atrocities
;
Nazi concentration camps Liberation
Abstract:
Historians have described the history and changing nature of Belsen in great detail and have written a huge amount about its liberation by British and Canadian (and some American) forces, and the assistance rendered them by doctors, nurses, and charitable organisations. Yet they, like everyone else, remain shocked by what the Nazis did at Belsen. This chapter focuses on the immediate post-liberation period in order to analyse what the British found at Belsen in April 1945 and how the camp was understood by those who saw it in those first days and weeks after ‘liberation’. I examine the British approach to dealing with the survivors, noting that criticism of the feeding regime and medical care needs to be contextualised so that the enormity of the task is better appreciated. But I also show that dealing with the aftermath of the liberation was never just a British affair; rather, everything associated with the administration of Belsen, though it was headed by the British occupation forces and civilian authorities, required international assistance. Drawing on the holdings of the International Tracing Service, I illustrate the international dimension of the relief process, understood in the widest terms.
Note:
Appeared also in his collected articles "Fascism, Nazism and the Holocaust" (2021) 120-142.
DOI:
10.1007/978-3-030-55932-8_8
URL:
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