User:Shooter Hank

In reading about the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, one gets the impression that the camp was totally neglected until President Reagan's visit in 1985.

When I was stationed in Germany in 1968, my unit (2nd Battalion, 3rd Artillery, 3rd Armored Division) was sent to the British Sector in northern Germany for joint operations with British troops. It was there that I was able to briefly visit the Bergen Belsen camp.

It was NOT neglected nor in any form of disrepair. The camp resembled a large, neat cemetery with nicely maintained lawns and many large mass graves. These were large, flat-topped grassy mounds, about five feet high, with concrete signs indicating how many dead were buried there (i.e.,Hier Ruhe Drei Hundert Tote - Here Lie Three Hundred Dead). Some graves contained as many as ten thousand dead.

There was a small, fairly new-looking building filled with photographs taken after the camp's liberation - horrific, but necessary to see. We must never forget about man's inhumanity to man for if history is forgotten, or worse yet, ignored, we are destined to repeat it.Shooter Hank (talk) 00:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)