(The following is an excerpt only and is the end of the chapter on Germany. The chapter deals with the War Office tour in Germany and includes Joan's experience while being shown through the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp.)
Continuing on, our footsteps echoed in the silence as we entered a massive storage room. In a grim reminder that they remained unclaimed, a mountain of suitcases towered toward the lofty ceiling. They were stacked haphazardly in a corner—looking more like a bizarre contemporary art piece in a resonant space. They spoke volumes.
As well as the officer, a German man accompanied us on this grim tour of the camp. He was from the town of Belsen
I turned to him now. “Why didn’t the people in the village of Belsen
“They did,” he spoke quietly and with some difficulty as his English was very limited. “Some people helped very much.” Pausing, he looked as though he was recalling something or someone. “You know little man?” He asked, gesturing with his hand below hip height.
“Do you mean ‘dwarf’?” I asked.
“Yes! Very little and very thin like this,” he moved his hands closer to indicate a narrow person.
“Ah—a midget. Turner’s Syndrome,” I explained.
The man agreed and went on to tell us how this German ‘midget’, a very kind man who lived in Belsen, risked his life time after time to deliver food portions to the abhorrently impoverished inmates of the first Bergen-Belsen camp. He would crawl through the water pipes with his offerings, a difficult and highly risky exercise. The man didn’t know what had become of him but I can only hope that his sacrifices were met with just reward. He had chosen to take action in a situation where many wouldn’t, and didn’t. Where many considered they were unable to help, that there was nothing they could do, this man knew he could, regardless of how small that assistance may have seemed. He is, or was, one of those unsung heroes.
References
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