INTRoDUCTIoN<br > ON I 5 April x 945units of the British Anti-Tank Regiment<br > entered BergenBelsen after a truce concluded with the local<br > German army commanderColonel Taylorwho commanded<br > the Anti-Tank Regimentwrote in the restrained language ofhis<br > Ofʯcial report on a first reconnaissance that it had revealed a<br > deplorable situation<br > As we walked down the main roadway of the campwe were cheered<br > by the interneesand for the first time we saw their conditionA great<br > number were little more than living skeletonsThere were men and<br > women lying in heaps on both sides of the trackOthers were walking<br > slowly and aimlessly aboutvacant expressions on their starved faces1<br > There were ten thousand unburied bodiesmany in an<br > advanced stage ofdecompositionThe very first British Ocer to<br > enter the camp was Derrick Singtona iournalist in civilian life<br > and a GermanspeakerHe had been sent forward with the<br > leading tanks to make an announcement by loud speakerHe<br > Wrote<br > I had tried to visualize the interior of a concentration campbut I had<br > not imagined it like thisNor had I imagined the strange simian<br > throngwho crowded to the barbed wire fence surrounding the<br > compoundswith their shaven heads and their obscene penitentiary<br > suitswhich were SO dehumanizingWe had experienced gratitude and<br > welcome in FranceBelgium and HollandWe had been surrounded in<br > Parisembraced and thankedIn a Flemish village our truck had been<br > loaded with tomatoes and ripe pears and iugs of cold beer had been<br > handed to us by ioyful peopleBut the half credulous cheers of these<br > almost lost menof these clowns in their terrible motleyimpelled a<br > stronger emotion and I had to fight back my tears2<br > During the next few days the news about the horrors ofBelsen<br > were flashed all over the worldhundreds of newspapermen<br > visited the camp and a few weeks later the Ofhcial British gazette<br > in the occupied zone wroteThe story of that greatest of all<br > exhibitions ofmans inhumanity to manwhich was Belsen<br > Concentration Camp iS known throughout the worldThe<br >