I've been visiting and photographing KZ: Bergen-Belsen for the last eight years.. Perhaps two or three times each year.. During this time it has developed and changed and the cathedral-like New Documents House has been brought to fruition..During my earlier visits it was often devoid of people, on a recent visit there was a coach party of pensioners from Holland, a class of students from Germany and many small groups of people including some associated with the nearby British Army Bases at Fallingbostel and Hohne.. I saw more people than ever before and interestingly, many of them were taking photographs..
From the diaries of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, about the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945
"It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it; it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick.... At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity."
From the diaries of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, about the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945
"It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it; it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick.... At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity."
David Crausby BA(HONS),PGCE,FRSA
England
©DavidCrausby2016. All Rights Reserved.
[email protected]
mobile: +44 7903 568916
England
©DavidCrausby2016. All Rights Reserved.
[email protected]
mobile: +44 7903 568916