Hall-Williams, John Eryl (Oral history)

British civilian conscientious objector with Friends Relief Service in GB, 1943-1945; served with Relief Team 100, Friends Relief Service in Belgium and Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany, 2/1945-5/1945; served with Relief Team 100 Friends Relief Service, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation (UNRRA) in Brunswick, Germany, 1945-1946

REEL 1 Recollections of background in Cardiff and Barry, GB, 1921-1939: family circumstances; developing belief in pacifism; father's experience as conscientious objector during First World War; basis of pacifism with reference to later tribunals; reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939. Aspects of period as student at Aberystwth University, GB, 1939-1941: influx of students from London; social activities; effect of evacuated University College London lecturers on college life. Recollections of period with MCA mobile library in GB, 1942: role and duties; road accident with farm labourer; receiving postcard referring to his conscientious objections. Recollections of period working for Friends Relief Service in GB, 1943-1945: role of organisation; differences between Friends Relief Service and Friends Ambulance Service over the wearing of khaki and his own attitude to contact with military; tribunals attended. REEL 2 Continues: fire watching in London; family case work in Liverpool; overseas training in Hampstead and expectations of helping flood victims in Netherlands. Recollections of period with Relief Team 100, Friends Relief Service in Belgium, 2/1945-4/1945: journey from Tilbury, GB to Middelkerke via Ostend, 2/1945; two week stay in Middelkerke; composition of team; refusal to march; move to Antwerp; dealing with V1 Flying Bomb casualties; links with Friends Ambulance Service; insistence in wearing Quaker grey; dyeing clothes and painting equipment and vehicles grey; relations between Friends Relief Service and Friends Ambulance Service; contact with Gerald Gardiner. Recollections of relief work with Relief Team 100, Friends Relief Service 100 in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany, 4/1945-5/1945: prior knowledge of camp; move to camp, 18/4/1945; reaction to sight of devastation in German towns on journey to camp. REEL 3 Continues: arrival at camp and nature of accommodation in former German barracks; description of four camps at Bergen-Belsen on liberation; environment around camp; question of whether local German population were aware of nature of camp; experiences of friend Rudolf Kustermeier; searching for beds for hospital patients in north Germany; kitchens in hospital wings and how Hungarian Army troops washed in food boilers; loss of food; attempts of survivors to find friends and relatives; reaction to finding children in camp; sight of dead bodies in camp; reaction to conditions in camp; lack of sanitation and water supply; use of DDT; inmates' attitude towards German and Hungarian Army camp guards; lack of knowledge of gas chambers; disposal of bodies; effect of sight of camp; British troops' volunteering to work in Camp One and giving up their rations and blankets to inmates. REEL 4 Continues: memories of VE Day, 8/5/1945; sight of ceremonial burning of huts decorated with Nazi insignia, 21/5/1945; how female former inmates improvised makeup and dances; improvements in camp conditions; working with hospital patients; working in clothing store 'Harrods'; accepting a free wrist watch from survivors property; arrival of German doctors and nurses; German nurses' denial of knowledge of concentration camps; conditions of hospital patients; problems of former inmates overeating and complaints about food; character of diseases; medical staffing of hospital; attempt to register survivors; reasons for keeping former inmates within camp; hearing camp survivors stories; contrast between different nationalities attitudes at end of war. REEL 5 Continues: attempts to bring local German civilians into camp to view conditions. Recollection of period with Relief Team 100, Friends Relief Service, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation (UNRRA), Brunswick, Germany, 1945-1946: repatriation work for A22 Group of British Military Government; stoning incident provoked by wearing of Quaker grey; organisation of Polish repatriations; arranging exchange of Soviets for Poles; state in which Soviet Displaced Persons left camp; dilemma for Poles about returning to Communist Poland; return to GB and demobilisation. Reflections on pacifism: pacifist attitudes; ambivalent attitude to working alongside military; guilt about his pacifism during Second World War; attitudes to anniversary reunions.