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EXCLUSIVE: Prime minister’s salute to Jewish liberators of Bergen-Belsen
Ahead of the 80th anniversary of liberation by British forces, Keir Starmer pays tribute to heroes Stanley Fisher and Mervyn Kersh in letter organised by Jewish News
Keir Starmer has sent a heartfelt letter to two Jewish veterans who helped liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, writing that he can “only begin to imagine how it must have felt as Jewish men to discover such depravity towards your fellow Jews”.
The letter was sent ahead of next Tuesday’s 80th anniversary of the arrival of Allied troops at the concentration camp, where an estimated 52,000 Jewish and Polish prisoners were murdered.
In an extraordinary personal tribute ahead, Starmer wrote to Mervyn Kersh and Stanley Fisher, both now 100 years old, thanking them for their “extraordinary service” and their courage in bearing witness to one of the darkest chapters in human history.
He writes: “As veterans of the Normandy Landings, you were part of a special generation of British servicemen whose breathtaking heroism and sacrifice dealt a decisive blow against fascism,” Starmer wrote from Downing Street. “But your story did not end with the liberation of Europe… You went on to become eyewitnesses to the horrors of Bergen-Belsen.”
Kersh and Fisher are among an estimated 60,000 Jews who served in the British Armed Forces during the war. Both landed in Normandy in 1944 and were later stationed near Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated by British forces in April 1945.
Kersh, who served in the ordnance corps, recalled in a 2015 interview how he gave chocolate to starving survivors—only to learn it could harm their frail bodies.
“These people were walking skeletons,” he said. “Chocolate was far too rich for their weak digestive system.”
Fisher, who landed at Arromanches, remembered in a 2023 interview how witnessing the camp’s horrors left him traumatised and silent for years.
“If someone fell by your side, you just carried on,” he said. “But the nightmares stayed.”
In his letter, Starmer also praised the two men not just for their military service, but their commitment to truth and remembrance.
“Your determination to speak the truth of what you saw is helping to ensure that the full facts of this darkest of crimes can never be diminished, denied or in any way forgotten.”
He also highlighted the importance of preserving their testimonies in the Learning Centre of Britain’s planned national Holocaust Memorial, set to stand beside Parliament.
“Together we must do everything possible to ensure that never again means what it says – and what it must truly mean – never again.
“So as we mark the 80th anniversary of the British liberation of Bergen Belsen this month, I want to thank you for recording your testimonies and adding your voices to those of hundreds of British Holocaust survivors and camp liberators who have put the truth on record for eternity.
“These testimonies will be forever preserved by the Learning Centre of our national Holocaust Memorial. Sitting next to Parliament, the truth of the Holocaust and its lessons for humanity will echo eternally across the generations.”
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