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IAIN GLEN ON THE RELIEF OF BELSEN
In April 1945, while war still raged in Europe, a truce was called in one small, specific area. The area was a labour camp in Germany, where the British army was summoned to deal with an outbreak of typhus. The camp was Bergen-Belsen, and the situation that greeted the British troops was one of unimaginable horror: 60,000 prisoners living in squalor; deprived of food, clothing and medical supplies for nearly a month.
Over the next days and weeks, the British troops, under the direction of Brigadier Glyn Hughes and Lt Col James Johnston, mounted an extraordinary relief operation. Yet, initially at least, the numbers dying would not stop rising, running into thousands every day. A humanitarian catastrophe was unfolding before the seemingly helpless British team. But Johnston was not prepared to give up.
Now this extraordinary story has been made into a drama for the first time. The Relief of Belsen is on Channel 4 on Monday October 15. Iain Glen plays Lt Col Johnston. Here, he talks about the project, Johnston's remarkable legacy, and why this is a film about hope as much as tragedy.
You're in the fortunate position of being able to pick and choose your projects. What made you want to do The Relief of Belsen?
Because I really thought the subject matter was worth revisiting from the angle that the film-makers had chosen. I'm not unfamiliar with the Holocaust, as none of us are, and I've visited concentration camps in the past in Poland, so I'm obviously aware of it, but I was completely unaware of the British army's involvement in the relief of Belsen. And I really admired the script - I wanted to do it for that reason. It felt like an important project.
Explain the events portrayed in the film.
The story is about Bergen-Belsen, which was the largest labour camp in Germany. During the latter days of the Second World War, a temporary truce was offered by the German kommandant inside the camp. It was to allow the British to come in and sort out the mess that the Nazis had created. When the British army arrived, they had no idea what they were about to witness. They witnessed a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. And so you have the British army trying to cope with the unknown, and over the course of the days and weeks that follow, coping incredibly well, and behaving in a way that makes you re-evaluate human nature a little bit.
What do you mean by that?
It's very easy to feel depressed by the fact that concentration camps were created in the first place, and that's why I think this is an angle worth looking at, because it helps realise that human nature can be very good. It was human beings that created the Holocaust, which is still the most appalling thing that any human has ever inflicted upon another human. It makes us very depressed of what people are capable of, and what makes us less depressed, perhaps a little more hopeful, is other people coming in, witnessing what had been created, and wanting to save as many lives as possible, even if it meant risking their own lives.
How did they risk their lives?
The degree of typhus was such that there were a number of staff there who caught the disease and never recovered from it. The conditions were absolutely horrendous, and disease was rife. The primary thing they had to do was get people out of the huts and into hospital via the cleansing stations they set up. And lives were lost in doing that.
You play Lieutenant Colonel Johnston. He was clearly an amazing man, wasn't he?
He was, really, yes. He took it on. They had no idea what was about to hit them, but instead of retreating and saying it was impossible to cope with, he took it on. He structured as well as he could a method to try and save as many lives as possible. People were dying of starvation as well as disease, and it took time for them to be able to realise that. He was a very honourable man, a very capable man, a very brave man. Even against the advice of some of the people around him, he was determined to stick to the structure that he'd set up, because of the numbers involved. As opposed to saving a few lives quickly, his method was to try and save as many lives as possible, even if it was going to take more time.
The script is historically very accurate, isn’t it?
It is. The producers were pretty determined to be as accurate as possible. We even had the great honour of having Dr Hadassah Bimko’s son visiting us on set. He witnessed the scene in which she describes to Johnston and others how she had lost her entire family during the course of being moved from one concentration camp to another. He sat and watched this, and was incredibly supportive, and kindly gave us a little constructive note. And then he saw the whole thing after we completed it and sent the most supportive and kind email to us, saying that we had done it justice, which couldn’t have meant more to all of us involved. You do feel a responsibility when you take on any real character or event, but when you’re talking about the holocaust, you take on a particular responsibility. You desperately don’t want to get it in any way wrong, and the writers and producers were wary of that, so were as accurate as they could possibly be.
Is it documented how Johnston and the others coped with the aftermath of Belsen? Did it scar them for the rest of their lives?
I think to some extent it did. At the end of the film we get a brief summary of what happened to them all, what they all went on to, but I read Johnston’s diaries, and the stuff he wrote afterwards. When you’ve witnessed what they did, life can never be the same, I don’t think. Were they the ruined? I don’t necessarily think so. But scarred in the sense of leaving an impression that would never go away? Certainly from Johnston’s diaries you got that impression. Some of them, such as the Brigadier, stayed around the camp for many years afterwards. People stayed there, or revisited it, for a long time afterwards.
Johnston burns Belsen down at the end of the film, as he did in real life. What was behind his decision to do that?
He did, and it’s an interesting issue. I’ve been to Auschwitz, and it’s a living memorial to what happened. I was aware that that might cross people’s minds when they watched this - why did he not keep the buildings there for history? But he was very clear. He felt, as he put it, something like “These huts that have witnessed so much human suffering, it felt the only appropriate thing to do was to raze them to the ground.” I think if one can transport oneself to that time, it’s very understandable. It’s only as we look back with the comfort of hindsight that we can wonder if it would have been good to keep them. I think there was also a very practical reason to burn them, which was because of the typhus. It was the only sure-fire way to eradicate the possibility of further outbreaks.
The use of archive footage is devastatingly effective, isn’t it?
The actual footage, which speaks volumes, which speaks the utter truth, we wouldn’t want to interfere with, and I think it’s one of the things that the drama does very well is segue way in and out the actual Movietone footage very effectively, almost seamlessly. It takes us to the truth, but it also makes the audience subliminally have conviction in what we’re doing.
With such a powerful subject matter, is the set a very sombre place, or do you try and inject some humour to lighten the atmosphere?
I think we did do that. There is a bit of gallows humour. You feel it when you’re filming, and I’m pretty sure people felt it at the time, as they tried to cope with that which was impossible to cope with. We have to remind ourselves we’re making a drama structured around historical events, we weren’t actually there. We were pretending to be there, and there’s a profound difference. But I don’t think people will want to watch the drama if it’s just all about reminding people again of how unspeakably horrendous the Holocaust was. In one sense, one can’t be reminded too much, but I do understand the instinct of not wanting to look at it again. What this drama does is celebrate another area of human nature that wanted to save as many lives as possible. And coped admirably with the situation. And so, perhaps I’m perverse, but I found it paradoxically uplifting. I found it uplifting, when I watched it, that people coped, and saved lives. It moved me in the way of feeling that we’re okay, actually.
As someone who’s not particularly prone to patriotism, it made me feel quite proud to be British, watching what those people did.
It did exactly the same to me, I couldn’t agree with you more. It makes you bloody proud to be British, which I don’t think I’ve ever said in my life. My generation has never had to make the sacrifices that that generation did, and long may we remember what they did for us. I’m so full of admiration for how people coped during the Second World War, but this specific story is one that makes you look back in awe at what people did and the sacrifices they made. It does make you really, really proud.
Where does this role, and this project, sit for you in terms of how proud you are of it?
Really, really high up. As an actor, you don’t generate the work, you don’t choose the subjects. People come along and at the eleventh hour they cast, and this project was there, and would have happened without me or any of the actors, so I can‘t take much of the credit for it. I’m very glad they asked me to do it, I’m very proud of the film that we made, because it feels important. We do lots of different roles for lots of different reasons during the course of a career, and putting pieces of work down that feel valid and important, and that you think have something special to say, are the ones you feel proudest of, and this is right up there.
The Relief of Belsen is on Channel 4 on Monday 15 October at 9pm.
By Benjie Goodhart
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