On the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, I remember the ‘bride of Belsen’ - The Jewish Chronicle

This week, we mark 80 years since the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by British troops. We have heard the testimonies of those who somehow managed to survive that unimaginable place of death and depravity and we have listened to the voices of those brave soldiers who entered the camp and whose memories were seared with the appalling scenes they came across.

As we mark this significant anniversary, we pay tribute to those who tirelessly share what happened to them during the Holocaust so that we will know. And we salute the soldiers who for the first time in years gave inmates at Bergen-Belsen a sense of dignity and hope – something they had been dw extraordinary couple who found each other in the unlikeliest and darkest of places.

In April 1945, just days after liberation, survivor Gena Goldfinger met British Army sergeant Norman Turgel in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. By the time Norman entered the camp and saw the scenes we have all read about but cannot ever imagine, Gena had already lived through indescribable horrors.

Gena grew up in Krakow, the youngest of nine children. She was 18 when the Nazis forced her into the Ghetto. It was only a matter of weeks before one of her brothers was shot and killed, while another brother fled, never to be seen again. The remaining family were then sent to the Plaszow labour camp where Gena’s sister Miriam and her husband were executed for smuggling food in for the starving prisoners. From Plaszow they were sent on foot to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Gena’s sister Hela remained when the camp was evacuated - another family member lost forever. Gena and her mother were the only two left of the family and they were sent to Buchenwald and eventually to Bergen-Belsen.

Many Belsen survivors describe it as the worst place they endured during the Holocaust. Gena talked about seeing ‘walking skeletons, in every sense of the word’. The camp was overcrowded and filthy; disease was running rife; corpses littered the ground. It is impossible to imagine the despair, the fear, and the exhaustion the prisoners experienced in the final days of the camp.

On April 15, 1945, the 11th Armoured Division of the British Army finally entered the camp. Gena would years later recall hearing the announcements that ‘the Germans have nothing left to say to you’, hearing that she was free.

'Wonderful world': Gena and Norman Turgel at their wedding[Missing Credit]

The soldiers were completely unprepared for what they witnessed as they entered hell on earth. Fifty-five thousand prisoners were found alive, but dying. The camp had to be burned to the ground to stem the spread of disease. Norman, who was in the British Intelligence Corps, woke up a couple of days after the liberation to find he could not walk – the shock of everything he had witnessed robbing him briefly of his ability to function.

So, Norman and Gena’s marriage could not have had a more unusual beginning. But the couple who met in the depths of Nazi depravity married on October 7, 1945 in one of the first legal Jewish weddings to take place on German soil for years. Gena’s wedding dress was made out of silk from a British Army parachute. I love the photo from their wedding day – Norman, a handsome and brave young man sat next to Gena, who looked radiant despite having witnessed and survived history’s darkest period. Gena became known as the ‘Bride of Belsen’ and they went on to have 3 children and to live a full, happy life together.

Queen Elizabeth II talks to Gena Turgel, 92 at the time, who survived three Nazi concentration camps, May 28, 2015 (Credit: John Stillwell - WPA Pool/Getty Images)Getty Images

Gena and Norman’s story is incredible. And Gena was an incredible woman. In 1987, she published her testimony, I Light a Candle, to share her story and as a memorial to her family and the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis. She was proud of our work at the Holocaust Educational Trust and was a huge source of encouragement and motivation to us all. When she died in 2018, we all felt her loss and we still do.

So this April, 80 years after Gena and Norman met, I remember them. I remember those who did not survive Belsen, who joined the thousands buried in mass graves. I remember those who did survive, who went on to find a way to rebuild their lives. And I remember the British soldiers who liberated the camp and who ensured the history of the Holocaust will always, rightly have a prominent place in British memory.

To find out more about Gena Turgel MBE, listen to the Holocaust Educational Trust’s new podcast Objects of the Holocaust: Episode 2 – Gena Turgel’s wedding dress.

Topics:

Bergen Belsen

Second World War