Tri-Service
UK Victims Reveal Cannibalism And Torture At Hands Of Nazis
Tales of ‘rampant’ cannibalism and torture suffered by UK citizens held in Nazi concentration camps have been revealed by the National Archives.
The first-hand accounts have come to light after the agency released detailed applications for financial assistance made in the 1960s by victims and their families.
Among the files released was an application from Harold Le Druillenec, the only British survivor found at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
He was the first prisoner liberated on April 16 1945 and later went on to give evidence at the Belsen Trials.
Mr Le Druillenec was arrested by the Germans in Jersey the day before D-Day for helping his sister harbour an escaped Russian prisoner of war, having a radio and for “non-co-operation” with German forces.
In a handwritten note requesting disability compensation, he said:
"I survived three concentration camps by a lot of luck and the ability to 'live outside the carcase'. I retain this trait.”
"Rarely do I admit, even to myself, any physical weakness, ailments or discomforts and only see a doctor when it is imperative to do so. The filling-in of this form has been somewhat of a trial and I apologise for any incompleteness therein."
The National Archives in Kew. Picture: Nick Cooper
He recalled that in Neuengamme he lived alongside ‘hardened’ criminals and ‘laboured to the death for the ultimate benefit of the Greater Reich’ and said that at Banter Weg, also in Hamburg:
"Means of putting inmates to death included beating, drowning, crucifixion, hanging in various stances ..."
But he described Belsen as ‘infinitely more uncomfortable’ adding that there was no food or water and sleep was ‘impossible’. He wrote:
"All my time here was spent in heaving dead bodies into the mass graves kindly dug for us by 'outside workers' for we no longer had the strength for that type of work which, fortunately, must have been observed by the camp authorities.”
"Jungle law reigned among the prisoners; at night you killed or were killed; by day cannibalism was rampant."
"The bulk of Auschwitz had been transferred to Belsen when I arrived and it was here that I heard the expression 'there is only one way out of here - through the chimney!' (crematorium).”
The memorial stone at the entrance to Bergen-Belsen. Picture: Arne List
The Federal Republic of Germany agreed to pay the British Government £1 million – about £17 million today – to the people who had suffered and their families.
The Foreign Office made 1,015 awards of compensation from more than 4,000 applications.
They agreed to pay Mr Druillenec compensation of £1,835.
Cover Image: Bergen-Belsen after the liberation of the camp. Picture: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.
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