There seemed to be a grim satisfaction in having German prisoners "clean up" the messes of war

and the thought of exacting retribution from those unable to defend themselves made titillating news.

Many were forced to perform "clean up" operations such as those illustrated above in a 1946 British

magazine where the German prisoners were vindictively fanned out and made to sweep clean

Dunkirk beach of "hazardous materials".



It was not only male POWs who suffered the grim consequences of revenge. As shown on another

page of this site, female German military personnel also paid the price.



On April 15, 1945, the Belsen prison camp was occupied by British troops who found thousands of

decaying corpses scattered about the grounds. In the final, chaotic months of the war, trains had

brought to Belsen thousands of new inmates from other camps in the east which had experienced

catastrophic conditions during the final months of the war when food and medical transports were

being destroyed on the roads and railways by Allied bombers. This made the conditions at Belsen

even worse, and the ensuing shortage of food, water and medicines together with overcrowding and

an uncontrollable outbreak of typhus had caused the deaths of thousands of inmates.



A few weeks after the British takeover, another 13,000 died, some 2,000 of them after eating the

rich food given to them by the British. On May 2, some 95 medical students from London's teaching

hospitals were flown to Belsen to help treat the sick prisoners. It was acknowledged that there was

no deliberate intention by the Germans to starve the prisoners to death at Belsen. There were no gas

chambers and the "crematorium" consisted of only one furnace in which to dispose of the dead.



All the same, the British executed the camp's commandant and his chief physician at the 'Belsen War

Crimes Trial' in spite of valiant efforts they had made to remedy the horrible situation. They had

quarantined the camp and done everything in their power to prevent the catastrophe, even begging

the surrounding population to donate vegetables and food. Of a total of 86 staff members captured at

Belsen, 28 were women. By June 17, twenty had died, most from digging graves to bury the dead

inmates which the British forced them to do. By the end of the month the whole camp had to be

burned down (also covered elsewhere).

