大象传媒

I'm Dutch. You can find my personal page in the contribution titled: 'My WW2 stories and questions' ; My Personal Page: 'Winds of change'

Both my parents were involved in WW2. During the war my father was a P.O.W. in Stanislaw. He had a younger brother, a student who joined the resistance and was arrested in '44 by the S.D. It is said that he was sent from Sachsenhausen to Bergen Belsen in February '45. He could not be traced after the war.

I would like to recommend to you a book that in my opinion will give you trustworthy information on the subject of the camp, about what happened there, and what did not happen there.
It's Eberhard Kolb's 'Bergen-Belsen from 1943 to 1945'.
This book by E.Kolb was sent to me by a historian of the Gedenkst盲tte Bergen-Belsen.
In 2004 I emailed the Gedenkst盲tte and asked them if they probably had any information about my uncle.
The names of my uncle and two of his comrades who accompagnied him from Sachsenhausen satellite 'Haselhorst' to Belsen end of February or early in March '45 are in the latest edition of the 'Book of Remembrance' edited by the historian.

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each men's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. "
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882
(I found this one on the intro of the 'Merry Christmas'-movie website!)

On Friday, September 1, Hitler invaded Poland. Democracy itself was in danger around the world; economics were in collapse; communism and totalitarianism seemed to have much to recommend them. There was even talk of revolution in America. John Maynard Keynes was asked if there had been anything like the Great Depression before. 'Yes' he said, 'It was called the Dark Ages, and it lasted four hundred years.'
Roosevelt and Churchill had not crossed paths since 1918. On September 11 1939 Roosevelt wrote Churchill a letter. It was Thursday, October 5, 1939 that Roosevelt's letter reached London. Churchill was having supper in his apartment with the third sea lord, Rear Admiral Bruce Fraser, and the director of naval constructions when the phone rang....The substance of the [President's] call says a good deal about the confusions of the first days of war. The Germans had sent word to Washington that an American liner then at sea, the Iroquois, was to be sunk by the British or the French as it neared the United States-and the British would then blame Germany for the attack to manufacture a provocation to bring America into war.....A quarter past eleven on Sunday morning September 3, 1939 Prime minister Neville Chamberlain went on the radio to announce that the United Kingdom was at war with Germany. Churchill and Clementine listened to the broadcast at their London apartment. A moment later the first air-raid warning rang out across the capital.Later that day, Chamberlain, who would remain prime minister for almost nine more months, offered him [Churchill] the post of first lord of the Admirality: Chamberlain could no longer keep the prophetic Churchill out of the cabinet. The appointment alarmed the Germans. Hitler, Albert Speer remembered, reacted with 'consternation.' Speer, Hitler's architect, described the Third Reich's inner circle absorbing the news. 'With this ill-omened press report in his hand,'Speer wrote, ' Goering stepped out of the door of Hitler's salon. He dropped into the nearest chair and said wearily: 'Churchill in the Cabinet. That means that the war is really on. Now we shall have war with England.' '
(Jon Meacham : 'Franklin and Winston;Part 1, In God's Good Time')

Considering the historically unequalled crumbling to pieces of a so-called Government of the State the question rises of course after it's cause. The cradle of Poland was in Versailles. Born from unmeasurable bloody sacrifices made by German and Russian soldiers not by Polish soldiers.
What had proven to be not viable for many centuries before was procreated by an equally not viable German government of the State in 1916 and, again equally artificial, born in 1919 . Ignoring an experience of practically half a millenium, ignoring a historical development of several centuries, without respecting the ethnographic circumstances and without any economical adequacy, they constructed a State that inevitably sooner or later would be the cause of the most severe kind of crises.
The man, unfortunately today again our grimly opponent, forsighted this already : Lloyd George. Just like many others he not only warned when the construction came into being , but also during expansion of the State later on. An expension that has been executed against all law. He mentioned that he feared that the construction of Poland was likely to provocate affairs of heavy conflict in Europe sooner or later.
And the fact is that the structure of the nationalities of this so called State could not be explained up to this day.

One has to be familiar with Polish census to know how far beyond truth and therefore without importance the statistics of population-composition of this region have been and still are....
(Speech of the Fuhrer ; Reichstag 6 October 1939)
In September 1939 already Ibm-New York granted Dehomag the profitable region of Upper Selezia negotiating for all systems already there in the region. Watson registered his Polish subsidiary company being a German business....The account of this Company at Handlowy Bank Warschau, so called number 4B, in fact was an Ibm-account controlled from Geneva.(Ibm and the holocaust, Crown Publishes, New York ,2001, Edwin Black)
Eberhard Kolb Bergen-Belsen 1943-1945 'Schematische Darstellung der fur die Konzentrationslager verantwortlichen Stellen (ab Marz 1942)
Hitler ->Reichsfuhrer; SS Himmler -> Reichssicherheitshauptamt; Kaltenbrunner -> Amt IV; Muller -> Referat IV B 4 Eichman -> Politische Abteilung eines KZ-Lagers.
Really strange to look at the information and these events like this! I thought it 'strange' that this accountnumber looked very much like Eichman's Referatnumber suggesting that payments for using the Ibm-machines, final control over 'selections' of political opponents in the Third Reich, were there between Ibm and Eichman. Secondly:looking at 'this page as a whole, it suggests that Ibm had been involved during WW@ in the killings, but thirdly ; when you read Hitler's speech it's well done by mr.Watson in order to have these countings in Upper Silezia properly done. At least; I think that is what Hitler suggests. Four ; we all know that parties (of: I thought a kind of militia) already started killing the jews and political opponents during this attack on Poland. Dr. De Crinis was also there to play his part in the would-be resistance group to clear Hitler out of the way.His name is Colonel 'Martini'he was a friend of Schemmel (and Schemmel, Walter Schellenberg, was finally to be the head of the Reichssicherheidshauptambt in 1945.) This contact resulted a few days later in the Venlo-incident we call this the 'Holland-Spiel'of the political (?)German Secret service. I don't think the Abwehr was involved in this 'play' like in the 'England-spiel 'later on. Venlo is a village not fatr away from where I live, the most northern city of the Dutch province of Limburg. Maastricht being the most southern part. This province belongs to the Netherlands but geographically it is as south as Belgium. I think after the war between Belgique and the Netherlands (1848? I don't know my country's history very well)because of the important city of Maastricht, economically and strategically, Limburg became a part of the Netherlands. There is also a Belgian province called limburg neighbouring us in the west.
Another strange event during Hitler's Poland campaign is the bombing of Warschau . I cannot find it at the moment but in his speech for the Reichstag he is defending the use of bombers for the attack instead of artillery-fire.
Hitler planned to invade the Western European countries practically immediately after conquering Poland but due to bad weather and finally; due to a Messerschmit and a Staf-officers with the attack-tactical plans onboard emergency landing in Belgium ( also nearby where I live) the attack had to be postponed till spring 1940. We call this period from early September onwards the 'Phoney War'. When you look at the 'secret front'it's a highly interesting period.The day after the Venlo-incident, I found in my father's room a very interesing book about this Velo-incident written by Johan P. Nater, the author thinks it strange that people like mr. Paul Koster,former Dutch Marine-officer, come to investigate on the incident.He was a European representative of the American Armament Corporation and he had his contacts within the Secret Intelligence Service of the Deuxi猫me Bureau. His part in the Venlo-incident has never been fully understood (p.107)Koster was probably killed by Gestapo in Grenoble. Other sources say that he died in Paris 1 January 1941.

In one of my stories you will find the scan of my uncle's note that was found at the side of railway afer he and the complete KZ-lager of 's Hertogenbosch were evacuated into Germany (Sept 5/6-1944). The note was found by a passer-by. In fact there is some secret information on this note. First; it explains that the inmates are probably on their way to Oranienburg. Noone of the inmates knew this, only a few inmates from the SD-lager who were kept together in the 'Bunker' ( a part of the solitary confinement above the commander's rooms, a former inmate explained this to me).[this ' bunker' is still in use nowadays at the penitary institution of Vught.] They had heard the commander and his deputy discuss the planns of evacuation with an ear on the floor to be able to follow the discussion beneath them. Secondly there is a remark that a person of the 'Oisterwijk' resistance-group is still alive. and I'm practically sure that it is a man who officially was killed by the Germans already in August.
In my opinion ; I think it's probable that the person who found the note also reported this information to the police. And the police reported this information to the BS(Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten), the Dutch Armed Forces who came directly behind the front in order to keep law and order in the liberated regions of the Netherlands. Now it's clear that my uncle had probably a different story to tell than the official story. And , and this is the most important, he did not obey to the evacuation-commander's request not to throw anything out of the train that was about to enter Germany. The act may be very brave, but in fact a very dangerous action of my uncle. Think it over!
When finally there is a decree from Himmler [or a competing party that manages to make Himmler sign the decree] to kill all political-inmates in Sachsenhausen (february 1945), there may have been a reason to select my uncle and sent him to the 'Erholungslager' of Bergen Belsen. A decision taken by a higher commander than the Sachsenhausen-camp-commander. Why? Because I found a few letter's of former inmates that repeatetly inform my grandfather that his son had been one of the few who had to sign their 'Schutshaftbefehl', and nothing changed in the situation he's in, the former inmate writes.
Except that he was to be transported to Bergen-Belsen.
This leaves us with many questions about this war. But when you are a keen reader you'll hopefully find answers to questions that probably came into you mind after reading 'my stories' in order to understand my uncle's/family's war !

Quotation in Jo Wolters' "File North-Pole"
"At least we must squeak!"- Martha Gellhorn

voor Anita,Christianne and Mark.