A Second World War experience

Mervyn Kersh was a young man from South London whose army service included arriving into Normandy in the first few days of the invasion, crossing the Rhine and being a British Jewish serviceman in Germany when the war ended.

In this film released to commemorate VE Day Mervyn describes his early experiences as a young man when the war started including evacuation and then joining the army. He recounts what it was like in training and what it was like to arrive into Normandy shortly after D-Day.

As he made his way across Germany with his unit, he spent some time near the German town of Celle. It was there that he heard that the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen had been liberated and he decided to visit the camp and speak to the survivors.

He still lives in North London and is active in the veterans’ organisation AJEX (the Association of Jewish ex-servicemen and women).