Mr Richard Collins

Wednesday, 1st November 2023. Speaker, Mr Richard Collins

It is a tradition in the club to use the meeting closest to Remembrance Sunday as a time of reflection on the events of the Second World War.  It is a tradition that honours the memory of past members of the Club who served 1939 – 45 and recognises the service and sacrifice of countless others.

The speaker on Wednesday, 1st November was Mr Richard Collins, whose research and study over the past 40 years has given him unrivalled insight and understanding of the Holocaust.   Richard has travelled widely in Central and Eastern Europe, visiting the sites of former concentration camps in a quest to unravel the narrative that has grown up around the Holocaust in the years since 1945.  He began by asking if anyone knew how many concentration / internment / labour camps there were in occupied Europe at the height of Nazi Germany’s power and control.   The answer surprised those present – 42,500.   How many people were executed or died as a result of Nazi persecution?   The answer – 18 million, 6 million of whom were Jews: of the remaining 12 million most were Christians, deemed by the Nazis to be enemies of the Reich.

Richard drew a distinction between Concentration Camps and Death Camps. The latter had gas chambers and crematoria; the former were about slave labour where prisoners were forced work in Nazi factories, mines, and quarries. While conditions were horrendous and death rates were high, mass murder was not their primary purpose. Searches on the internet can uncover huge amounts of information about notorious places such as Auschwitz – Birkenau, Ravensbruck, Buchenwald, Bergen – Belsen and Dachau.

The talk was mostly about what happened to these places after the defeat of Germany. Some have become Memorial Sites, attracting many visitors per year. The others are not forgotten. Each has its own history, a fact which continues to fascinate Mr Collins.