Author: Lucy Brown, Social Media and Digital Marketing Officer

27 January 2025 marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi ‘death camp’. This day is annually marked as Holocaust Memorial Day, to remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, and millions more people murdered through the Nazi persecution of other groups, as well as more recent genocides.

Our Archives hold a wealth of information on the movements and activities of REME workshops and units in World War Two, including those involved in the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. We also hold records from the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association (NEXPOWA) which include material on British Prisoners of War (POWs) who were interned in camps adjoining concentration camps.

Auschwitz III

We imagine the camp named ‘Auschwitz’ will be well-known to most reading this article, a reliable history of which can be found on the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum website. Though many of us know of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a lesser known subcamp was Auschwitz III, later known as Monowitz-Buna. Primarily a labour camp, approximately 12,000 prisoners were imprisoned here in 1943-45 and forced to work at a nearby chemical factory owned by I G Farben, who paid the SS a cheap fee to use the camp’s labour.

An insulator from the electric fence at the Auschwitz camp, on display in the WW2 Gallery. A:1985.2877.

Just west of the Monowitz-Buna camp was a subcamp, E715. This was a POW camp administered by the German Army (Wehrmacht) rather than the SS and held British and Commonwealth troops mostly captured in North Africa by Italian troops. They had been transported to Auschwitz after Italy joined the Allies in 1943, with the first arriving in September.

In an effort to destroy the I G Farben site, an American air strike on 20 August 1944 saw a bomb fall into the POW camp, killing 39 prisoners.

Ronald J Redman, a former POW interned at Auschwitz III, wrote of the incident in a letter to NEXPOWA, 1 March 2001. He stated that the makeshift air raid shelter was made of a prisoner-dug trench, concrete slabs and an entrance at the end:

“Sadly many of the lads were reluctant to go into the entrance despite the shouting of the guards – it was so fine and sunny and maybe it would be another ‘false alarm’. I heard the ‘whoosh’ as the first stick of bombs came down and the blast blew me upside down within the shelter as the majority also affected. When we eventually emerged from the rubble we learned that there was a last minute rush to enter the opening from the ramp and an estimated 40 including 1 German guard were unfortunately too late.”

Ron also stated that the bodies were initially buried in a mass grave site but he was unaware if they were moved to a proper grave site in Poland. According to a letter from Dr Piotr Setkiewicz at the Auschwitz Museum, 28 August 2001, local civilians testified that the victims were buried in a common grave at the local parish cemetery and later re-interred to Krakow Military Cemetery, Rakowice, in 1948.

Craftsman Donald Francis Foster Folds REME was captured and imprisoned at some point in 1939-40, having been in 14 Army Field Workshop. Our Death in Service Database records him as having died of injuries following aerial bombardment on 22 August 1944 and being buried at Krakow Military Cemetery, Rakowice. Though we previously believed Cfn Folds to be a fatality caused by the bombings on 20 August, we now understand that he was killed as a result of an American bombing raid on the I G Farben site itself on 22 August 1944, where Folds was working while a POW.

Liberating Bergen-Belsen

Our records relating to REME’s role in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps largely pertain to that of Bergen-Belsen. This was the first concentration camp discovered by the British, located close to the small towns of Bergen and Belsen, near Celle in northern Germany. This liberation came slightly later, in April 1945. In total, over 50,000 people died in the Bergen-Belsen camp complex.

We know a number of REME soldiers were present at the liberation and helped in the following days and weeks, burying the dead, providing aid to the survivors and setting up the Displaced Persons camp at the Bergen-Hohne barracks. For example, biographies of Ken Miles indicate that he was present at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen.

‘B’ Squadron, 7 Royal Tank Regiment of 79 Armoured Division were the first mechanical unit to arrive at the camp in April 1945. They remained there for two days to assist with the remaining prisoners. Sergeant O J Griffin MM (a founder member of REME) was attached to the unit and in charge of a Churchill Armoured Recovery Vehicle (ARV).

This is believed to be 'B' Squadron, 7 Royal Tank Regiment. First pattern REME cap badges are visible on a few men to the right of the image, including Sgt Griffin sat second in from the right on the second row up. A:1995.3664.06. © Crown, OGL.

REME soldiers had a specialist role to play. Durham Record Office stated in temporary exhibition, ‘Almost too horrible for words’ – the liberation of Belsen concentration camp, 1945:

“REME’s electricians and fitters restored the camp’s electricity, repaired the camp’s own bakery, and seized fire engines from a nearby German town to pump water from a river into the camp for the cookhouses and the shower blocks.”

A leaflet in our collection, produced for newly arriving troops, lists the British Army and Red Cross units present at the concentration camp in May 1945 under HQ 102 Control Section, including 113 REME Workshops, as well as documenting some of the progress made in clearing the camp.

Captain T B Fox, Officer Commanding 1 X-Ray Repair Unit, took a number of photographs at the Belsen camp. A few of these are shown below:

Soldiers creating a mass graves for the burial of victims who were found at the camp and who died of their ordeal in the days following liberation. © Capt Fox.

An Army chaplain appears to delivering a reading over the dead. © Capt Fox.

By the end of May, the camp buildings were burned to the ground by specialised Churchill Crocodile tanks and Wasp flamethrowers and a sign erected to mark the scale of the atrocities.

The infamous sign erected by Allied troops at the site of the Belsen concentration camp. © Capt Fox.

After the war, Belsen became a key location for the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). The nearby barracks formerly habited by German cavalry, which became the Displaced Persons camp immediately after the liberation of Belsen, was established as a British military base named Hohne camp. The Belsen camp served as a memorial and was regularly visited by British soldiers stationed there.

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Find out more about REME units and their movements during the North-West Europe campaign of 1944-45 in our D-Day to VE Day Campaign. Follow along on Facebook or X (Twitter). Take a look at posts we've shared.

Published in The Craftsman, February 2025.