WWII: Witnessing the Holocaust | Personal accounts of persecution and genocide by the Nazi regime
CHANNEL | Home Service
FIRST BROADCAST | 10 August 1955
DURATION | 4 minutes 5 seconds
FIRSTBROADCAST
1955
Mr Popek may claim that his English is poor, but his message is clear in this excerpt from the BBC Sound Archive. His account of his time in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria includes the occasion when 7,000 inmates were forced to stand on parade while two escaped prisoners were found, returned to the camp and hanged.
Mauthausen concentration camp, where Mr Popek was interned, was one of the last camps to remain operational when American troops liberated it in May 1945. Another survivor of the camp was Simon Wiesenthal, who later became the most famous of the 'Nazi-hunters'.
Seven days after its liberation, the horrors of Buchenwald are made known.
A Canadian reporter provides a first hand account of a concentration camp near Zutphen.
The broadcaster recounts the horrors of Belsen.
The survivors and the soldiers who relieved Belsen bear witness to the horrors of the camp.
A Red Cross appeal seeking relatives of children liberated from concentration and labour camps.
The only Briton found alive in Belsen describes his experiences there.

A Polish commercial artist describes his experiences in a German concentration camp.
'Tonight' on the trail of Dutch war criminal Pieter Menten.
Harrowing memories of the concentration camps recounted by survivors.
The story of the man who warned the Allies about the Final Solution.
One of Auschwitz's most famous survivors talks to Sue MacGregor.
Broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy meets Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal.
Documents reveal that Britain knew something of the Nazi slaughter of the Jews as early as 1941.
Helen Bamber shares her memories of the liberation of Belsen.
Artist Marianne Grant tells of how she was forced to paint for Dr Josef Mengele in Auschwitz.
A Holocaust survivor and her grandson return to the scene to unlock her story.
Should more be reported on the atrocities in France?
The BBC broadcasts more information on the atrocities in occupied Europe.
Parliament's reaction to news of the Nazis' liquidation of the ghettos.
BBC management considers ways of combating anti-Semitism.
The importance of disseminating news on the liberated concentration camps.
News reports continue to emphasis the liberation of the concentration camps.
A harrowing and moving account of the conditions in Belsen.
Polish authorities thank the BBC for its support.
The submission of Patrick Gordon Walker's diary on Belsen.
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