from a letter to his mother dated 11 May 1945:
...I really felt rather proud of my Jewish blood at Belsen, and posed as a genuine Jew, but as a result of my ignorance about some religious matters and Jewish songs I was accused of having a "goische Kopp". Soon after the camp was first liberated I was invited to a party in one of the womens blocks. There were only two guests, the Jewish army chaplain and myself because I was the first English soldier to have been seen by them in the camp. It was rather touching, because they had gone to great pains to make their hut look as nice as possible. The padre prayed, Jewish songs were sung, then he prayed again and told a jewish joke and the party broke up. He handled it rather well because in spite of their joy at being free their future is so uncertain and with very few exceptions they have all had their husbands and children gassed. I do hope that something will be done for them and that they will be able to go to Palestine where the majority of them want to go.
A number of the inmates, who occupied positions as camp leaders or hut leaders, behaved very badly, in many cases as badly as the SS, and some have many deaths on their consciences. A lot of these hut leaders were "Aryan" Germans (criminals and prostitutes) but some were Jewish. In this connection the Slovak Jews were critisised a lot, and the Slovak and the Czech Jews kept apart...
Many thanks to Diana Brimblecombe for supplying this information |