The Man Who Brought The Belsen Guards to Justice

"A British solicitor and former Mayor of Glastonbury has been revealed as a key prosecutor of the evil camp guards of Bergen-Belsen after its liberation in 1945
Cecil Hamilton-Miller, from Kensington, London, was responsible for the convictions of 31 concentration camp guards in 1945, including several key Belsen figures, such as camp commander Josef Kramer and Dr Fritz Klein.
Mr Hamilton-Miller, who died in 2001, aged 91, struggled to talk to about the horrors he witnessed during the holocaust or the role he played after the liberation of Belsen, his family has said today.
Despite his honourable actions in the wake of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, which took place 70 years ago this month, many family and friends had no idea of his involvement.
A historic photograph found by Mr Hamilton-Miller's family shows him watching on as camp commander Josef Kramer, known as The Beast of Belsen, is marched to his death at gunpoint following his trial.
His cousin William Miller, 63, who has written a biography about the late solicitor, said: 'Cecil couldn't talk about his Belsen experience in later life without tears streaming down his face because of the traumatic memories.
'He never publicised his extraordinary war record but I am very proud of it - it must rate as the most important legal work of his career.'
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony, Germany.
It was initially intended to hold prisoners of war, but in 1943, parts of the camp became a 'transit camp' for, mainly Jewish, civilian prisoners,
The camp became the final resting place of some 20,000 prisoners of war and 50,000 Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Nazi opponents and disabled, and was is burned to the ground after its liberation by British and Canadian troops in April 1945.
After qualifying as a solicitor in 1935, Cambridge educated Mr Hamilton-Miller was enlisted into the Territorial Army in 1936 and then, in 1939, was granted an emergency commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the Border Regiment.
For much of the war he served in India, until in 1944 he returned to Britain on leave and was posted to Carlisle.
This ended abruptly on April 15, 1945 when the 11th Armoured Division of the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen.
Recognising that the liberated camps on the continent would require military lawyers, Mr Hamilton-Miller was among those immediately posted immediately to the British Liberation Army, 49 Reinforcement Holding Unit, where he was appointed Staff Captain to 21 Army Group HQ, War Crimes Investigation Team, arriving at Belsen sometime after May 5 to a horrific, challenging and distressing scene.
Mr Hamilton-Miller's role appears to have been to assist Major Savile Geoffrey Champion, head of No. 1 War Crimes Investigation Unit, Belsen, to prepare the legal cases against the SS camp personnel.
Mr Miller added: 'Cecil's team opened a war crimes investigation office inside the camp and files were opened on each guard.
'Gradually written witness statements and other evidence built up in each file enabling decisions to be made as to whether and when the case against each guard was sufficiently clear and strong to progress to trial.'
The first Belsen trial began on September 17, 1945, at Luneburg Town Hall and took the form of a Military Tribunal."
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How could they not know who the prosecutor of the trial was? (Klein was also active in Auschwitz).

 

it was clearly not a source of pride for him. though he was acting as prosecutor, he felt the case itself was too heinous. any kind of involvement was not something he wanted to tell his descendants.