Belsen

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Comment by Alexander Page on February 16, 2012 at 13:08

As part of a small group of army cadets I visited Belsen in 1964. We were staying in a UK forces camp in a place called Munsterlager (not to be confused with Munster). It was a base for the Royal Artillery in an ex SS camp somewhere in the middle of West Germany. A senior officer accompanied us there presumably to ensure we didn't act like the 15 year olds we were. He needn't have worried. We were struck dumb! Having been brought up on stories of the wars against Germany we had been rather "gungho" about being in Germany in the first place but this vist took all the kidding out of us! There were no birds there, a deathly silence pervaded the whole place when we entered the walls. It was fairly early in the morning and we must have stayed for about an hour. And then just as we regrouped to leave some German families came in eating ice cream and the kids ran about making a noise and generally just playing as kids the world over do. Needless to say we were shocked by the way they were treating the place like a park. As we went outside the gate we discovered an ice cream van parked there! The officer was, as we say in Scots, beelin'. I guess that day we too had learned about the next new order in Europe as well as the continuing existence of the German/Nazi Kultur.