Today is Holocaust Memorial Day where we remember the six million Jews murdered in the Second World War and others in subsequent genocides.
After the war there was a massive humanitarian effort to help the abandoned concentration camp survivors, many of whom were close to death. From an Emanuel School point of view, we also remember the valuable contribution of Dr David Philip Bowler (OE 1935-42) who was one of the first Medical Relief Staff to enter the notorious Bergen Belsen concentration camp once it had been liberated on 15th April 1945. At the time many of the public were ignorant of the atrocious conditions in the camps, which David experienced first-hand as a young trainee doctor.
David was an outstanding schoolboy who was Captain of the School, Captain of Drake, rowed for the School, and played for the First Fifteen in both 1941 and 1942. He was also an evacuee, with his final two and a half years of schooling at Petersfield. During the war David studied medicine at Westminster Hospital, punctured by periods abroad and basic nursing duties tending the wounded and invalided where required during the routine bombings in the London area.
In Bergen Belsen David witnessed horrific scenes of emaciated bodies contorted by diseases such as typhus, TB, gastroenteritis, and enteritis in addition to patients being severely dehydrated and suffering from starvation, many of which were beyond saving. There were thousands of unburied bodies everywhere. The 21-year-old David returned to Emanuel later in 1945 to lead a talk to current pupils about the non-military and humanitarian challenges after the end of the war.
When David spoke specifically to the Sixth Form, the reality of the concentration camps muted the overall victory celebrations for many pupils. One of which noted that this particular talk remained one of his “most vivid school memories” which rivalled the dropping of the atomic bomb and the arrival of the Cold War as he was unaware of the sheer extent of the camps.
David worked as a doctor all his life and was awarded the Advance Australia Award for his contribution to medicine after emigrating to that country.
Over the last decade talks by Holocaust survivors in schools which used to be common, including Emanuel, have slowly petered out, as most remaining survivors are now too elderly or were children when they were in the camps. National Holocaust Day is to help they are not forgotten and to educate the younger generations as so few who experienced the camps are still alive to tell their stories.
Mr Jones (Senior Librarian & Archivist)
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- Dr David Bowler.
- David’s school rugby team 1942.
- David’s rugby squad 1941.
- David & Westminster Medical Students preparing to enter Belsen.
- Belsen sign erected regarding number of dead found.