Week Ahead: 75th anniversary of Bergen-Belsen liberation as world continues pandemic fight

Coronavirus

With Churches closed, it has certainly been an unusual Easter Sunday for many.

The Easter bank holiday weekend is often a time when people come together, enjoying days out and family gatherings.

But the Government’s measures to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus means the nation is still instructed to stay at home.

It is now three weeks since the ‘lockdown’ measures came into effect, telling people not to leave the house unless shopping for basic necessities, undertaking one form of exercise a day, for medical needs or for work that cannot be done at home.

The Government initially said it would look again at the measures after three weeks.

But they are unlikely to be relaxed until, as Dominic Raab, deputising for the Prime Minister, said last week, there is clear evidence that the UK has “moved beyond the peak”.

Television

Channel 5 show Springtime on the Farm is back for a third series, with the first episode hitting screens at 8pm tomorrow.

Over the next four nights, the show will feature farming stories from across the country as those in the industry prepare for their busiest time of the year.

Presenters Helen Skelton and Adam Henson will be on hand from their own homes. Last month, Yorkshire Production Company Daisybeck Studios said that the show posed a challenge due to the coronavirus pandemic and Government restrictions.

In a statement on social media, Daisybeck Managing Director Paul Stead said: “The Nicholson family (behind Cannon Hall Farm) are just amazing.

“They are filming the births themselves for us and I really think this will make compelling content for the show, which they, like us, insist must go on.

“It’s our way of capturing a way of life that has to go on despite whatever is going on in the outside world.”

Celebration

This coming Sunday marks the start of International Dark Sky Week, a celebration of the night.

Presented by the International Dark-Sky Association, the aim of the event is to encourage people around the world to engage with authors, creators, scientists, and educators whose works have been central to the movement to protect the night from light pollution.

This year, the celebration is going online, with virtual events. It runs until April 26.

Anniversary

Seventy five years have now passed since the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp in Germany during the Second World War.

First established as a prisoner of war camp in 1940, the site later became an overcrowded concentration camp. On April 15, 1945, British troops liberated the site.

Of that day, The Imperial War Museums state: “Thousands of bodies lay unburied around the camp and some 60,000 starving and mortally ill people were packed together without food, water or basic sanitation.

“Many were suffering from typhus, dysentery and starvation...

“The British faced serious challenges in stabilising conditions in the camp and implementing a medical response to the crisis.

“Nearly 14,000 prisoners would die after liberation.”

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James Mitchinson

Editor