Life highlights of Leonard Berney, my father, born 100 years ago today

Leonard Berney 
11th April 1920 - 7th March 2016
(photo: Hy Money)

• Adolphus Leonard Berney was born on 11th April 1920 at 169 Oxford Street, London. He was named after the filmstar Adolph Menjou who his mother found attractive. For some reason, Dad favoured his middle name over his first. ;-) This is the earliest photo I have of him, aged 3.

• A very intelligent boy, he was destined for Cambridge University but WW2 came just at the wrong time.

1939: 2nd Lieut. L Berney, Rotal Engineers, Territorial Army

• In 1939, he and his Anti-Aircraft regiment were mobilized for full-time military service in the defence of London. He took part in countering the Blitz and the V1 flying bomb attacks.
• On 11th April 1944, on Dad's 24th birthday, he was promoted from Captain to Major, becoming one of the youngest Majors in the Britsh Army as 24 was the youngest permitted age for the rank of Major at the time.
• In 1944 for a period of four to five months, Dad was appointed as Instructor to train hitherto static Anti-Aircraft regiments to become mobile in preparation for the invasion of France. Based in Kinmel Park Camp, north Wales, he put six regiments on a two-week training course. With each regiment comprising 600 men, he trained a total of 3,600 men!
• In August 1944, he was in Normandy as Staff Officer, Anti-Aircraft Defense, of XIII Corps of the British 21st Army.
• From 15th April 1945 for a period of 19 weeks, he played a significant role in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp as documented in his 2015 book, Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp.
  
  
  
• In September 1945, he testified in the Belsen Trials at Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany against the men and women of the SS who ran Belsen before its liberation.
• Following his time at Belsen, he was appointed Military Governor of Schleswig-Holstein and was released from the army at the end of 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
• Lamenting, one day, in a bar about not knowing what he was going to do for a career, it turned out that the person he was talking to was Leslie Berker, founder of Berkertex Ltd who happened to be looking for managers at the time and so offered him a job.
  
  
  
• Married fashion model, Pat Purser, (my mother) on 28th July 1951 at Plymouth Registry Office.
  
  

  

• Dad became the father of three sons and three grandchildren. My parents divorced in 1963.
  
  
  
• Dad went on to become General Manager of the firm which, in turn, became the UK's largest clothing manufacturer. The company was originally based in London but moved to Plymouth in around 1950.

Dad giving Reginald Maudling a tour of Berkertex in the late 1950s

• An ardent traveller, Dad became a pilot of light aircraft and flew his own plane to many destinations around Europe and he even once flew to Canada. In fact, he flew himself to 35 countries and 183 airfields. In the 1970s, he flew me and a school friend to Deauville on the north coast of France for lunch! In total, he visited around 150 countries in his lifetime. A veritable explorer!
  
  

  

  Dad and co-pilot, Stephen Bruh, in Narssassuaq, Greenland having flown across the Atlantic in his Piper Twin Comanche G ASMH.

• Dad didn't let his age get in the way of him having fun.
  
  
  
• In his later years, Dad started talking and writing about his experience of liberating Belsen. He wanted future generations to know what happened there in the hope it might help prevent further atrocities. Holocaust deniers also irritated him very much.
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  Delivering his talk on Belsen at Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson on 27th Jan 2014

• He appears in the 2015 documentaries that marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust: Night Will Fall and No Asylum - the untold chapter of Anne Frank's story.
  
  
  
• On 15th April 2015, the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belsen, Dad published his book, Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp - a personal account which gives a unique and detailed perspective of the liberation.
  
  

  

  (photo: Hy Money)

• In April 2020 to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Belsen, filmmaker Mark Gorton released tWWIItter: Leonard Berney's Story - the liberation of Bergen-Belsen which, in my opinion, is a breakthrough in Holocaust education. It imagines social media existed in 1945 and that Dad documented the liberation of the camp on Twitter.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf208A63se4
  
  
  
  
  
• See also: https://www.facebook.com/pg/LiberatingBelsenBook
  and https://www.twitter.com/BelsenBook

The Day I Finally Met Belsen Survivor, Tomi Reichental

Talking about Belsen with Tomi Reichental in Cambridge

Ever since publishing Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp - A Personal Account by my late father, Leonard Berney in 2015, I've been very aware of everything Belsen-related happening online and especially on Twitter. So I had seen many articles, videos and TV appearances about Dublin-based Belsen Survivor, Tomi Reichental who was a child at Belsen. But we just had never bumped into each other at any of the many Holocaust-related events I've attended over the past three years.

So I decided to get in touch with him and found out he happened to be delivering a talk about his Belsen experience at the Cambridge Union, the world's oldest continuously running debating society on Thursday 14th June 2018. At last, this was a chance for me to hear him talk and to meet him!

When we met just before his talk, he seemed very pleased to meet me and I was certainly very pleased to meet him! His talk really made you understand what it was like being Jewish and a child during the Holocaust, and what it was like being at Belsen at such a young age. It was very moving.

After the talk, I was so honoured that he wanted to sit and talk with me; we chatted for over an hour! We agreed to keep in touch and I very much look forward to seeing him again soon.

Tomi Reichental delivering his Belsen talk

Tomi wearing his Star of David as he was forced to do by the Nazis

I was so honoured to meet Tomi!

At the main entrance of the Cambridge Union with Tomi

Read about my meeting with another Belsen survivor, Gena Turgel, in 2015:
Daily Mail Online: British soldier fell in love with Jewish inmate at Belsen concentration camp http://ow.ly/ou4M30kvWVw

Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp (eBook Kindle edition)
by (former) Lt-Colonel Leonard Berney R.A. T.D., edited by John Wood, Forewords by Major-General Nicholas Eeles CBE, Nanette Blitz Konig, Introduction by Joshua Oppenheimer
http://ow.ly/FpZn30kwIyY

Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor - Classmate of Anne Frank

by Nanette Blitz Konig

On 27th January 2018, Holocaust Memorial Day 2018, Nanette's book "Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor - Classmate of Anne Frank" was released.

My connection with Nanette is through my late father, Belsen liberator, Leonard Berney. As described in her book, it was my father who helped Nanette recover from the terrible ordeal she had just been through of being a prisoner in the most inhospitable conditions imaginable, losing all members of her family (except her two aunts in London), disease and malnutrition. On page 85, she writes:

"I have thankful, tender recollections of that man. After all, as a member of the British Army, he saved my life. He was one of those who entered the camp to free us, who were shocked and had compassion for our predicament - innocent people who had been subjected to the worst punishments. On top of that, he wrote letters to help me communicate with my family. That was the first time someone offered me any help in months. It was a good feeling to remember that there were still good people in the world."

And Nanette appears in my father's 2015 book "Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp - A Personal Account" in that she wrote one of the Forewords of the book.

Nanette, in fact, published her book in Brazilian Portuguese some time ago (she lives in São Paulo), but was keen to get it published in English. So she and her family asked me if I could help make this a reality. By chance, I came across Amsterdam Publishers on Twitter who appeared to be, and have since proved to be, a perfect fit!

The UK Premiere of "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey"

Dr Toby Haggith of the Imperial War Museum, Archive Researcher on the film, third from the left

13th October 2014 - BFI Southbank, London - Now finally complete 70 years late, "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey" is such an important document but it's extremely hard to watch.

Some links:

• IMDb Listing
• IWM Press Release
• Daily Mirror
• Hollywood Reporter
• BBC

Filmed Lecture of First-hand Account of the Liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp Released Online

Leonard Berney

1 hour lecture delivered by Leonard Berney, Lt-Col R.A. T.D.(Rtd), in August 2008, aboard 'MV The World' cruise ship.

http://www.youtube.com/user/uptonecouk?feature=mhum#p/c/6062318D5E7402F7

Belsen Concentration Camp in Lower Saxony, southwest of the town of Bergen, was liberated by the British Army on 15th April 1945. Between 1943 and 1945, an estimated 50,000 people died there.

Leonard Berney, then aged 25, was at that time an army major and was one of the officers who first entered the camp. He was responsible for the evacuation of the inmates out of the "horror camp" and subsequently was the Commandant of the Displaced Persons Camp, caring for some 30,000 of the ex-prisoners. Belsen DP Camp was the largest DP camp in Germany.

Mr Berney gives his first-hand account of his experiences in August 2008 aboard 'MV The World' cruise ship. Includes a question and answer session from the audience at the end.