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World History

irisblue

(35,115 posts)

4. Bergen-Belsen liberation: Tank driver John Darby recalls opening gates *Some images are not for work

Reply to irisblue (Original post)

Tue Apr 15, 2025, 11:44 PM

Apr 15

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-32314874

snip-"Seventy years ago British troops entered the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. One of those to witness the horrors first hand was John Darby, who used his Sherman tank to open the gates. This is his story.

On 15 April 1945, shuffling along the road are a dozen or so German officers who, in fractured bursts of English, speak of "prison camp", "disease", "typhus"

snip-""I was the first there to discover it.

"We knew it was a camp, but it wasn't an extermination camp - but people died and were piled up in beds and round and about like rotten logs of wood, which we could see at a distance."

more at article

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Highlight:

Liberation of Bergen Belsen by the British Army 15 April 1945 Info from twitter & BBC [View all] irisblue Apr 15 OP

Article on Bergen Belsen irisblue Apr 15 #1

Back then, we were liberating concentration camps... regnaD kciN Apr 15 #2

Another twitter post from a WW2 historian irisblue Apr 15 #3

Bergen-Belsen liberation: Tank driver John Darby recalls opening gates *Some images are not for work irisblue Apr 15 #4