| Original caption: “British troops have to keep the women internees back from attacking the [Schutzstaffel] SS men.” British troops keeping the female inmates back from attacking SS guards while they load lorries with bodies of dead inmates. A young woman internee at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany shouts “Shoot them, kill them as they killed our families” as Allied troops, left, supervise German prisoners of war to clean up the camp. Hela Colin née Goldstein (April 15, 1923 – July 22, 2016), a Polish inmate, can be seen in the middle foreground. She was born in a Jewish family in Tuszyn in central Poland which meant 4 years in concentration camps. She was in Łódź (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen camps (in Belsen only for 2 weeks before British troops arrived). After the Nazis invaded Poland, Colin’s father applied for visas to enter Israel, then the British Mandate of Palestine. Her idyllic childhood ended brutally 1 day when Nazi troops entered her schoolyard, burned all students’ possessions and ordered Helen and all Jewish students never to return to school. Colin’s sister, Stefa, contracted appendicitis the night before their departure and the family missed their ship. The Goldsteins were forced into the Łódź Ghetto in 1942. Joseph Goldstein died while in the ghetto. His body was found by Colin and Stefa Goldstein in a pile of corpses after he did not return home after a day of forced labor. Helen and Stefa found their father’s body and buried him in a makeshift grave dug by their bare hands. Goldstein married Kopel Colin while in the Łódź Ghetto. During the 1944 liquidation of the Łódź Ghetto, Colin, her husband, mother, and siblings were sent to Auschwitz where her mother, brother, and sister, Selinka, were murdered in the gas chambers. Colin and her sister, Stefa, were selected as slave laborers and were moved between various concentration camps. Colin contracted typhus, but survived. The sisters were last enslaved at Bergen-Belsen until its liberation, despite contracting typhus, on April 15, 1945. On April 24, 1945, the British Army Film and Photographic unit filmed Colin as she spoke about her experiences. At the time, she was standing near a mass grave holding over 5,000 bodies. Colin’s testimony was the 1st audio-visual account provided by a victim of The Holocaust. Helen said that, despite assurance from British officers, that she was protected, she was very frightened, certain a Nazi sniper hiding on a roof would murder her as she spoke. But, fear did not silence her. Colin and Stefa were sent to a displaced persons camp in Germany where Colin’s husband, Kopel, located them. Hela and Kopel Colin immigrated to America in late 1946. They briefly lived in New York before moving to Houston where they opened a jewelry store. The couple had 2 daughters, Muriel and Jeanie. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0572.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.96 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 3612 x 3663 |
| Photographer | Harry Oakes |
| Photographer Title | Number Five United Kingdom Royal Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 21, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen |
| City | Bergen |
| State or Province | Lower Saxony |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | Imperial War Museum |
| Record Number | BU 4259 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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