A Jewish-German doctor joins the British army to fight the Nazis and helps with the liberation of Sandbostel POW camp.
Born in 1916 to the physician Dr. Heinrich Engel (1881–1956) and the paediatrician Dr. Toni Engel (née Blumenfeld, 1878–1971), Hans Engel grew up in Hamburg. Emigrating to the United Kingdom in 1935, he studied medicine in Edinburgh before joining the British Army in 1943. He took part in the Normandy landings as a military doctor, and in late April 1945, he was sent to Sandbostel POW camp to help care for its survivors. When he arrived, the camp mostly held prisoners from Neuengamme Concentration Camp, who had been herded to Sandbostel on a “death march”. Hans Engel then worked in the British Mandate of Palestine and later settled in London, where he died in 2013.