Choosing the Right Side (at Bergen Camp): Hungarian Soldiers in Germany

My father is 81 years old now. He asked me to forward this story. This will explain why a Hungarian military unit has been at duty together with British forces in Bergen-Belsen after the concentration camp has been liberated in April 1945.

I am proud of him, because he choosed the right side and made his job.

Mihaly Szekeres engineer.

"Unfortunately, very few people know that in the spring of 1945 the I/lI nd Tank Regiment of Jaszbereny - evacuated from Hungary to Germany under the command of Colonel Laszlo Bercsenyi, - changed sides, and joined the advancing English allied forces at the military camp of Bergen.
The event is documented by the text of the agreement (read by me), which could be found among the records at the Archives of Hungarian Ministry of Defence, according to which (I quote): "The Hungarians are not prisoners of war, but soldiers in the service of the British"..
It happened in April 13th of 1945, in Bergen, after Colonel Bercsenyi disobeyed the order for his regiment to dress in the uniform of the Hitlerite troops and fight against the advancing allied forces. I would like to point out that this army unit being in reserve, and completed mainly with just mobilised young soldiers like me (1042 men) never carried out other duties earlier in Bergen camp or elsewhere in Germany, than exercises and preparations for fighting. After changing sides, the Hungarian soldiers kept their weapons and tanks. With the help of these, they defended the army post and the British-Hungarian headquarters, the liberated by English forces Bergen - Belsen concentration camp, which was nearby (some 3 km away from our military camp), and which was immediately put under quarantine due to the large number of typhoid patients. The soldiers of our regiment undertook different tasks: defence duties, the collection and decommissioning of the scattered arms and ammunition, as well as delivering and storing supplies. The soldiers of the first company – among them myself - were delivering the patients of the former concentration camp to the emergency hospitals nearby. As members of a joint team of one British military doctor and two Hungarian soldiers, we transported the critically ill patients: civilians and POWs, among them small children, and old men and women. During the course of this work, which lasted for several weeks, we took altogether about 80.000 patients to hospitals. Although we received vaccination, many of the medical orderlies fell sick, as did several doctors as well. We worked under horrible conditions, but the thought that we were helping the victims of the barbaric Hitlerites gave us strength in our illness. After finishing our work in Bergen, every soldier of the regiment received a numbered, personal document of acknowledgement in two languages. I find it especially important, that the people get to know about the brave commander of our regiment, Colonel Laszlo Bercsenyi, who, as I later learned, is the descendant of Miklos Bercsényi, Commander in Chief in Rakóczi's revolution (in 18th century). The colonel prepared for the defection deliberately, because he felt it important to save his men from dishonourable fighting and wanted to break with the Hitlerite barbarism. After we arrived back home, our commander was thrown out of the army in the autumn of 1946, and his pension was withheld. He subsisted as a night-watchman till the end of his life. In 1994, twenty years after his death, the President of the Hungarian Republic promoted Laszlo Bercsényi posthumously to the rank of major general for his heroism.

Dr. Jozsef SZEKERES
Retired school director, b. 1923
Budapest, Hungary"

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