When somebody says the word Germany, apart from our crushing defeat at their hands in a recent popular sporting competition, it is difficult for Hitler and Nazis not to pop into the mind of an Englishman. It was once the same for me, but for fairly good reason: To be 12 years old and to live in an Ex-Wehrmacht Panzer Base, overlooking the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, is to live in a Petri dish, cultivating negative German stereotypes.
Needless to say, the place has a fairly gruesome history; It was the death place of Anne Frank and over 50,000 others and was once home to some of the very cruellest individuals of the last century. The holocaust is somewhat drummed into us from secondary school so needless to say, you all know the background. This entry is, however, a little more fanciful, and focuses on the spookier, more frightening and sometimes laughable tales that come out of Hohne (as the base is called) Some of which I myself indirectly experienced.
Just as a disclaimer; I do not believe in Ghosts, but I’m hardly gonna let that get in the way of a good yarn. Indeed, no matter how sceptical you might be about ghosts, hauntings or supernatural goings on, the concept of living in such close proximity to a place of profound human suffering, is an unpleasant one and certainly gets the imagination fired on a cold dark night.
Allow me to set the scene. Bergen-Hohne, in Northern Germany, is built on the edge a vast forest near to the historic town of Celle. The majority of the families there live in large, dark flats, which consist of one very long corridor, 50ft long, with rooms branching off either side. These flats were once occupied by the Wehrmacht, but after they had left, the sick and dying from Bergen Belsen took up residence. On site, there is an enormous abandoned hospital [below]. It remains one of the only buildings left in Germany with a Swastika above the front door, and can be found towards the back of the base, on the other side of a line of trees which divided it from my apartment building; a tad too close for comfort.
Other points of interest include the Roundhouse. This building was once the German Officer’s Mess, where balls and dinners would be held, it too has Nazi effigies above its front door but the swastikas have since been obliterated. One of the cellars remains unopened, due to the sensitivity of what lies within.
The strangeness begins with one building, tucked away within the furthest recesses of the camp, not far from the old hospital. It too, once bore a Nazi eagle of its own, above the front door but it has since been torn down. Instead, a dirty, mouldy impression of an eagle endures, highly visible to passers-by. As you would expect, attempts have been made since the end of the war to clean and paint over the garish blemish, but inexplicably, its gradual return can be guaranteed mere weeks after treatment has been applied. When I last saw it, it was vividly eldritch, as though the Eagle Plaque had only just been taken away.
Horror stories aren’t hard to stumble upon in Hohne; there were a lot of bored, stay-at-home wives, whose husbands were off in Iraq or Afghanistan and who loved to perpetuate some really absurd stories. Some of the more ridiculous things I heard were tales of furniture flying around the room, stories of coming home to find all of the furniture had vanished completely, there was even one of a family that had run, shrieking, from their home, having seen a pair of Hassidic Jews standing in their hallway, staring sullenly into oblivion. There were some buildings in which families were said spend mere weeks, before being frightened into leaving. These had apparently been closed as a result. None of this, I can confirm. It all seemed fairly ridiculous to me, even as a 12 year old boy.
My experiences, odd though they were, were subtler. Being left alone in that flat for an entire afternoon was enough really. Perhaps it was the diabolical Feng-shui, or the knowledge of who had lived there before me, but sitting by myself in our apartment never failed to evoke the strongest sense of dread in me. I would end up curling up into a ball on my bedroom windowsill and wait for hours for people to return, hardly budging.
That bedroom of mine had a lot to yield to the budding horror novelist; My lasting memory of that room, was of waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of my brother crying. We shared a room then. [such was our sacrifice for a dining room] And through the darkness one night was audible his distressed sobs. He must have been 9 or 10 and I, 11 or 12. I called to him to ask him what was the matter. His reply to me was shaky; “I can feel someone touching my face, its like a hand… like a rough hand.” Needless to say, I nigh on crapped my pyjama bottoms. All of the hairs on my arms and neck stood up. And very stiffly I reached out for the lamp and turned it on. To my relief, there was nothing there. I reassured him that he was probably imagining it all, and although he didn’t seem convinced or at all comforted, I turned the light off and went swiftly back to sleep. Half an hour later I was to be woken again. I inquired once more to my clearly distressed brother and was given much the same answer as before. The process repeated itself several times until morning. How we didn’t mention anything to our parents the next day, I will never know, so odd was the experience.
There were also other little instances which always kept it fresh in our minds: Two of my Aunts once came to stay for a while. My brother and I were back at school in England so our aunts used the room we had left vacant. One of my Aunts maintains that she experienced a very similar sensation to my brother, saying the covers of the bed had been pulled up around her neck. Although she is Irish and as a result, prone to superstition; she was and still is unaware of my brother’s experience.
Other minor points, were; my brothers bizarre and uncharacteristic, monthly midnight vomiting, occasional bodiless footsteps, a one off spontaneous light-bulb explosion whilst down in the cellar (which was not a great moment in my life) and the dead bats, which turned up on the bathroom windowsills. It made for a fairly interesting stay. If the Jewish graveyards and Albert Speer-esque architecture wans’t enough, the seeming supernatural activity kept one entertained.
So for some, ‘zee Germans’ played tricks with the furniture, others would receive impromptu visits from gormless Rabbis. The Walker family, however, was plagued by, amongst other things, a spectral hand that seemed to pop into our lives intermittently. I can’t say it ever had its ghostly way with me, but it was fairly creepy all the same. Ultimately, everything that I or anybody else experienced there can probably be explained away with ease by a rational, level headed approach. It wasn't exactly 'Castle Wolfenstein' [below] but I don't want it ruined by being too sensible about it; sure, it was unpleasant to live there, but its definitely a story...
