Love Story With A Difference ...

[Calilasseia]

I had some difficulty working out where to post this, and, given the nature of the material, I've elected to post it here, for reasons that should become fairly obvious. I first found this story in, of all places, a tabloid newspaper better known for topless girls and tiresome coverage of so-called "reality TV", and it is, given what follows, all the more surprising that this should have been a lead story with The Sun instead of a broadsheet. However, the words I use to bring this to you are my own, except where cited. I hope this will find an appreciative audience here. Since I've already posted this in other places, I'll quote that version verbatim, and follow up with some additional remarks.

Norman Turgel was a sergeant in the Intelligence Corps during World War II. And, in April 1945, he was detailed, along with his fellow soldiers, to take a short lorry journey, along with a battalion of infantry, and secure a modest-sized German town. Perhaps, as he rode upon that lorry, he gazed wistfully at the woodlands growing alongside the approach road, and wondered what kind of reception the locals would provide to the advancing Allied troops.

What he did not anticpate, and could never have even dreamed of, was the sight that was to greet him, as the lorry passed the road signs announcing the identity of the large facility on the outskirts of the town, the first stop in his orders for that day.

The sign was in fairly ordinary lettering. Just another road sign, at first sight. Norman probably had a little more idea of its significance, being in the Intelligence Corps, but who, Norman included, could have guessed what meaning that sign would acquire after his arrival?

It read, simply ... Bergen-Belsen.

To quote Airey Neave's Nuremberg :

"Shattering scenes met their eyes of tens of thousands of human beings dying of starvation and typhus ... it was not only British and American soldiers who saw those tragic mounds of thin white corpses. The cameras were there too. They have recorded for posterity what Nazism really meant for some".

Some of the details of the suffering of the inmates are revolting beyond comprehension. Even now, fifty-six years on, with a surfeit of television dramas about that time having appeared, the words I read in the article left me shaking. That some human beings could do this to other human beings still leaves me shaking my head in numb bewilderment. And yet, amid the death and the overwhelming evidence of pitiless inhumanity, something special happened that day. First, Norman Turgel had the grim satisfaction of personally arresting Josef Kramer, the camp commandant, who at his later trial would acquire the epithet of 'Beast of Belsen' - thus began the painful but necessary process of showing the world what depths it was possible to stoop to, and how we must all strive assiduously to avoid descending to those depths ever again. Second, Norman found, in the camp hospital, among the inmates, someone who had spent six years surviving against the odds, someone who had personally witnessed the Warsaw Ghetto, Plazsov, Auschwitz, and finally, Bergen-Belsen.

Her name was Gena Goldfinger. She had seen things no human being should ever see. She had lost almost her whole family at the hands of the Nazis. And now, as Norman Turgel stood before her, she knew that she had won her struggle to survive - that Hell did have an end.

Despite her condition, Norman gazed upon her, and saw something. Something special. In the last place on Earth one would expect it to happen, Norman and Gena found love.

After her rehabilitation, and the chaos of post-liberation Germany, Norman and Gena married in a synagogue in Lubeck. She wore a wedding dress hastily fashioned from a British soldier's silk parachute. Soon after, the couple arrived in London, and began 50 years of married bliss.

Gena and Norman wrote a book together, shortly before Norman's death, called I Light A Candle, to preserve their memories. Gena, at 78, still visits schools, to teach a new generation about her past. Find her book if you can, and read it. Never let that candle go out.

I have spent some time checking whether Gena Turgel is still alive, and, amazingly, she appears to be heading toward her 86th birthday. All the more amazing, when you realise that she survived three death camps, and, most astonishingly of all, was one of a handful of people to survive being herded into a gas chamber at Auschwitz - by an uncanny twist of fate, the operators temporarily ran out of Zyklon-B, and the occupants were released. She saw first hand the Warsaw Ghetto, then Plaszov, then Auschwitz, then the Death Marches, and finally Bergen-Belsen. It is truly staggering to imagine the resilience she must have possessed to endure this, but somehow, she did, and she prevailed.

[Bella Fortuna]

What an amazing, triumphant story...

Here's a tiny picture of the wedding:

[Animavore]

Wow. She must've been really young going through all of this. That's a great story.

[Twoflower]

That is a great story.

[charlou]

It's horrible and beautiful.

[cowiz]

Just wow!!! Amazing, beautiful, and emotional.

[maiforpeace]

What a hauntingly beautiful story. Thanks for sharing Calilasseia.

[Bella Fortuna]

Nice to have this revived today. Never underestimate what we humans can see in one another and feel for each other, eh? *sniff*