Harold’s sister, Louisa, was a shopkeeper in the parish of St Ouen. In December 1942, Louisa was approached by Feodor Burriy, who went by the name of Bill - a Russian slave worker who had escaped from a forced labour camp. He had nowhere else to go, so she took him in.

As time went on, Louisa became less careful about hiding traces of her guest - only at the end of the Occupation was it discovered that Louisa was informed upon by neighbours. Shortly before the house was searched, Louisa received a warning and ‘Bill’ went to stay with Louisa’s sister Ivy Forster and her husband. When the German Secret Field Police searched Louisa’s house, they found papers showing that he had been there and a camera and a radio – both forbidden items.

Harold was arrested on 4 June 1944 for helping his sister shelter Russian ‘Bill’ for eighteen months. Both Harold and Louisa were deported – Louisa perished in Ravensbrück concentration camp in February 1945.

Harold spent two months in French prisons before being sent to Neuengamme concentration camp on 1 September 1944. He was then sent on a working party to Alter Banter Weg concentration camp in Wilhelmshaven, Germany (a sub-camp of Neuengamme), where he worked from 04:30 to 19:00, six and half days a week, as an oxy-acetylene welder in the arsenal where submarines were constructed. Eventually he was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, a journey which took five days in a badly overcrowded cattle wagon.

Harold arrived on 5 April 1945 – he later described the camp as a place of ‘no food, no water, sleep was impossible … we had to rise … at 3.30am. All my time here was spent in heaving dead bodies into the mass graves…Jungle law reigned among the prisoners; at night you killed or were killed; by day cannibalism was rampant.’ 

Harold was liberated on 16 April 1945. He stayed in hospital for five months after this, with a six-month convalescence period. Harold interrupted his convalescence to testify at the Belsen trial in Luneburg in October 1945.