The Relief of Belsen - 4OD

[anonymous-user]

Now that Channel 4 has opened up their archives of documentaries to the 4OD player I was hunting around last night and found this:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-relief-of-b...

. said:

"In April 1945, a British ambulance unit was diverted from frontline battle to handle a crisis behind enemy lines. An outbreak of typhus in a nearby prison camp had prompted a local truce. That camp was Bergen-Belsen. The arriving British thought it would be a straightforward matter but they were utterly unprepared for the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe they faced. 60,000 prisoners living in squalor; deprived of food, clothing and medical supplies for so long that whatever the British tried to do, the shocking daily death-toll continued to spiral ever-upwards.

For four weeks, a team of doctors, nurses and civilian volunteers, without a common language, worked to find a way to save the starving and dying of Belsen. All this while the war was still raging throughout Europe.

It's fascinating, showing all of the problems faced and doesn't shirk away from the disasterous (though well-intentioned) initial efforts of the troops to try and help.

It's well worth looking through the 40D archives too, there are hundreds of really great programmes on there to rewatch.

[worsy]

Yup saw this. Was quite interesting and incorporated lots of shots I'd previously seen years back in the world at war series.