大象传媒

I am Kenneth Claude James Knight,now aged 85 and living in Dorset.Educated in Essex and at London University Extention Classes(Under Prof,H.Finder)I served in local government untill listing in 1940,being called up into the R.A.S.C. Basic training at Aldershot was followed by Light Field Abulance in Yorkshire,a magnificent unit as was soon reavealed.

As part of the 27th Armoured Brigade we crossed to Gold Beach and as I landed at Oustreham on D day + 1. (Some of the places the main unit visited,are in the Colonel's order of the day.See the appendix)
This story is however,about my own encounter with the infamous "BELSON"

With my section(Then comanded by Capt Douglas Peterkin)I arrived at Belson(Properly,Bergen Belson) on 17th April 1945.

Mine was not really a military family,although my father had served in the great war and my third Christian name is in memory of an uncle killed around the time I was born.

With a few senior N.C.Os,i wandered round the camp that April evening,the stench in our nostrils,deceased and dying skeletons all around and nobody saying a word, except for those who still had the strengh to utter the words, Ich habe kranke (I am sick)
Their stare through dull and lifeless eyes had to be seen for belief.They were prisoners just because there faith,profession or whatever made them unaceptable to those said to be in authority.

Some of those poor creatures made it clear that they wanted food,sadly we could not give any,they were so emaciated that there bodies could not have coped with anything but special diets, specially administered-again see appendix.
How I initially thought ,can a loving god allow this? In saner moments however,I knew this was a clear example of mans inhumanity to man;but I did write to my father,then a church warden,and recieved a most understanding reply.

Despite witnessing the horrors of war in France,Belgium,Holland and Germany,I found Belson an ordeal beyond reallity.

11th L.F.A.became part of 6th gaurds division(superb Units)Among other thing ,we had exercises with them about crossing the Rhine.
There we dealt with numerous casulties and worked incessantly,all that was not unexpected,but Belson...That was something different.Someone called it 'incomprehensible'-a very apt discription.

The camp was one of a number in that truly beautiful part of Germany.It was not originally an extermination or work camp,like, for instance Dachau,but was for housing prominent persons who could be used as bargaining tools to secure the release of Germans imprisoned abroad.This plan went wrong and within a year Belson had become a concentration camp,without medical facilities and the like.Transfer to Belson became in effect, a death sentence.
After the building of a womens lager and the infamous and detestable Joseph Kramer became commandant,the population increased by 15,000 to over 41,000 and it was at that point that chaos began to reign at Belson,(According to official imformation)

I was also imformed that at the beggining of April with the sound of allied guns getting louder,,S.S.gaurds began to endeavour to conceal some of the 10.000 corpses, but the guards fled before the grusome task was copleted.So the decision was taken at very high level,to bury thousands of dead by means of huge pitts and bulldozers.What a task for those concerned in the REs etc! German doctors and nurses,with Jewish rabbis,Hungarian priests et al, were everywhere;it was a dreadful site!
The last of the pits where dug and filled and then arrangements for repatriation where put in hand and the trials of Kramer and the rest of them implemented.

All of this was to me most painful.It did however assist in me obtaining a greater perspective,for the appreciation of life, what is good and particularly what is bad within it.
The experience of all who were there (Mostly not irreligious)shook us rigid;I was inside the camp boundary for nearly six weeks and all agreed with the colonels word,that life can never feel the same to those who experience something of this enormaty.
But I felt in the years since,that the most important thing is that it should not be allowed to be forgotten.Some too young to have been in the war, but with the sceptisismn bred from a life of comparative peace,have pretended that it did not happen.Perhaps because they find such stories imppossible to believe.I was there,I saw dreadful things,I saw souls on the point of,or acctually dying and even after all these years ,I can still hear the mournful sound of those voices,'Ich habe krank'

The situation in Bosnia etc bought it all back to me.Why dont we ever learn?

Following Belson, most of us went to that wonderful country Norway.I was returned to the U.K.and demobbed from Pembroke.Wiser? Yes,certainly older and more of a man.
Although,like others I complained about everything at the time,I am glad it has been part of my life.
I eventually was employed by a local government association and on retiring to this delighful part of the U.K.got married for the second time,my first wife having died some years before. I became involed again in religious affairs and took up what would have been called 'Civics'and also travel both at home and abroad.Very pleasant times have been spent in Germany,although I have not returned to the Belson area.I have no ill feelings about the German peoples,of course,but let us all ensure that the memory of the evil that gave us the consentration camps shall endure,to do otherwise is to deface the memory of those that suffered and to do so would be to the eternal shame of us all.

APPENDIX.

The colonal was of course the (Old man) He knew it, we all knew it! He used to go around the unit with a kind of buzz,wether in a good mood or bad.Hence his nicknane of Buzz Gonin.

Colonel Gonins order of the day 1945.

THE UNIT WILL ALLWAYS BE REMBERED FOR WHAT SOME OF YOU DID ON D-DAY WITH 27 ARMD BDE,FOR THOSE UNCOMFORTABLE WEEKS AT HERMANVILLE BEFORE CAEN FELL.FOR THE RESTLESS MONTHS FROM COUMONT TO MAAS WHEN YOU MADE FOR YOURSELVES A REPUTATION WITH THE GAURDS THAT ANY UNIT MIGHT ENVY..WITH THE GAURDS YOU HELPED TO CLEAR THE SITTARD TRIANGLE AND WITH THEM TOOK PART IN THE MUDDY BLOODLESS BATTLES OF CLEAVE AND GOCH..SINCE 27 FEB AND THE FORMATION OF THE BANK GROUP YOU HAVE NOT HAD MORE THAN TWO DAYS CONSECUTIVE REST AND AT THE RHINE YOU EVACUATED 1700 CASUALTIES IN 56 HOURS,A ROLE WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN UNDERTAKEN BY ANY UNIT IN THE HISTORY OF WARFARE.FINALLY,AND AGAIN WITH THE 6TH GAURDS ARMOURED BRIGADE YOU SHARED WITH THE AMERICANS IN THE CAPTURE OF MUNSTER.FOR ALL THIS YOU HAVE RECIEVED WELL DESERVED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FROM HIGHER COMMAND.YOU THEN UNDERTOOK WHAT FOR THIS UNIT WAS THE THANKLESS AND UNSPECTACULAR TASK OF CLEARING BELSON CONSENTRATION CAMP.OUR AMERICAN FRIENDS AND YOURSELVES WITH THE B.R.C.S.HAVE MOVED OVER 11.000 SICK FROM BELSON. TO DO THIS 63 OF YOU HAVE WORKED FOR A MONTH AMID THE MOST UNHYGIENIC CONDITOINS,INSIDE HUTS WHERE THE MAJORITY OF INTERNEES WHERE SUFFERING FROM THE MOST VIRULENT DISEASE KNOWN TO MAN.YOU HAVE HAD TO DEAL WITH MASS HYSTERIA AND POLITICAL COMPLICATION REQUIRING THE TACT OF DIPLOMATS AND FIRMNESS OF SENIOR OFFICERS. DURING THE FIRST TEN DAYS IN THE CONSENTRATION CAMP AND BEFORE ANY ORGANISED ATTEMPT HAD BEEN MADE TO LOAD THE SICK IN THOSE HUTS,YOU DISTIBUTED 4.000 MEALS, TWICE DAILY FROM WHAT RSM MARNE COULD SCROUNGE BY INITIATIVE AND SUBTLETY.
BY COLLECTING MEDICAL EQUIPMENT FROM ALL OVER GERMANY YOU PRODUCED A DISPENSARY WHICH HAS SUPPLIED DRUGS FOR 13.000 PATIENTS A DAY AND HAS MET THE DEMANDS OF EXITABLE MEDICAL OFFICERS OF ALL RACES REQUIRNG THE MOST EXOTIC DRUGS,IN HALF A DOZEN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES..YOU HAVE,WITHOUT HESITATION, ACTED AS UNDERTAKERS ,COLLECTING OVER 2.000 CORPSES FROM THE WARDS OF THE HOSPITAL AREA AND REMOVING THEM TO THE MORTUARY-A TASK WHICH THE R.A.M.C. CAN NEVER BEFORE HAVE BEEN ASKED TO FULFILL.
THE COST HAS NOT BEEN LIGHT: TWENTY OF YOU CONTACTED TYPHUS-A DISEASE CAUSING GREAT PERSONAL SUFFERING.THANK GOD ALL THE PATIENTS ARE DOING WELL.
ONE OF US WILL NEVER LEAVE BELSON-A DAWN ATTACK BY THE GERMAN AIR FORCE ON OUR LINES WAS THE PRICE HE PAID TO COME HERE.
LIFE CAN NEVER BE QUITE THE SAME AGAIN FOR THOSE WHO HAVE WORKED IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMP, BUT YOU WILL GO WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE 11(BR)LT FD AMB HAS DONE A GOOD JOB.

BRIG.H.I.GLYN HUGHES,CBE DSO MC AND LT COL J.A.D.JOHNSTON,MC,SMO BELSON CAMP,JOIN ME IN THANKING YOU ALL FOR THE PART YOU HAVE PLAYED IN ACHIEVING THE IMPOSSIBLE.

LIEUT COLONAL M.W GRONIN RAMC
COMANDING NO 11 (BR)LIGHT FIELD AMBULANCE.

LASTLY, I used to organise reunions of the old 11 l.f.a.with which was associated the chaps from RASC.The first reunion had well over half the total(120 something)and we kept going with fewer and fewer ex-soldiers untill the 70s.I still see a few of the chaps including one officer who is nearly 90 and another who was a s/sgt.Happy days!

Ken knight.

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