F. Tannenbaum, ‘Life in Concentration Camp’ series, Belsen, 1945
July 1945
Things are beginning to move in a somewhat sluggish fashion but there is still no sign of my staff, so I shall finish my story of Belsen’s early days before telling you of my present work and worries. I know you will be anxious to hear how the relatively small group of liberators dealt with the situation they found in the camp, so I shall commence another screed.
A policy was adopted that the greatest number of lives would be saved by placing those who had a reasonable chance of survival under conditions in which the natural tendency to recover would be aided by suitable feeding and prevention of further infection, with rest in bed and elementary nursing for the very sick, and so it was decided to evacuate Camp 1.
The work ahead must have appeared almost insurmountable. No praise is too high for those men and women who by their courage, energy, initiative and perseverance brought to the survivors of this horror, tragedy and suffering—food and drink, cleanliness, sympathy and some glimmer of hope for the future.
One of the doctors who had been a prisoner in the Horror Camp for about four months has said that in January 1945 there was very little food, but the quality was not so bad—what each individual got depended upon his ability to collect. Each person got one-sixth of a loaf of black bread daily—a whole loaf weighed 1.4kg—and sometimes potatoes and pieces of meat, the whole amounting to less than 800 calories. On Sunday, tinned meat was issued—one tin for twelve persons, but this rarely reached the prisoners as there was much pilfering by the Nazi and Hungarian personnel. In February 1945 the food deteriorated, everyone became very thin and typhus broke out. In March the prisoners received one-twelfth of a loaf each, less than three ounces, and in April no bread at all.
Two weeks before liberation the only food the prisoners received was less than one pint of mangel-wurzel soup daily. We also know that no food or water was provided for at least four or five days before liberation and that the water supply was sabotaged by the Germans several times during the truce. As a result of long-standing starvation, the prisoners’ bodies were adapted to a low intake of food and water, nevertheless the majority were actually starving on liberation.
The immediate task therefore was to provide water and food for the 40 000. This emergency feeding was a colossal undertaking for the Liberation Army authorities, as you can imagine. Here was a tiny neutral area with vital battles raging all round. Here were some 28 000 living sick, lying amongst heaps of decomposing corpses, and some 16 000 starving men in the nearby Panzer Barracks. Thousands were so ill that they were quite unable to move or feed themselves, and as there was no one to do this for them, they just died.
At first, owing to lack of personnel it was only possible to deliver food from the cook-houses to the doors of the huts. You will understand that by the time the British came the morale of the prisoners was completely broken by their terrible experiences of the preceding weeks. For some time the struggle for existence had been a matter of survival of the fittest and every man for himself. Those who were able to crawl to the doors ate all the food—those too ill to move just went without. The result of this was that very many of the former became dangerously ill with acute diarrhoea and severe vomiting, which caused dehydration and death from overfeeding. Those within the huts died from starvation because there was no one to feed them. I believe the cries of ‘Essen, Essen’ (’Food, Food’) were heart-rending.
I am not in a position, owing to the many changes in medical and nursing staff since the day of liberation, to discuss in detail the scientific feeding of the starving or the nutritional disorders associated with this condition. However the facts I have ascertained from various sources will, I am sure, be of interest to you.
During the truce a British Army-revised daily ration scale for the sick was drawn up by officials of the 32nd CCS and became effective on 14th April, the day before the camp was taken over. My nursing colleagues will be interested in a few details. This scale was divided into three. Scale No. 1 was for starvation and serious febrile cases in two-hourly feeds. Scale No. 2 was for fully convalescent patients and hospital workers. Scale No. 3 was for hospital patients not fully convalescent. The items on Scale 1 were one ounce of sugar, half an ounce of salt, two litres of skimmed fresh milk, and three compound vitamin tablets. Fresh milk was not available in sufficient quantities for all, so skimmed dried milk was used. Forty tons of this were brought in as soon as possible. As you can imagine, fats are not easily tolerated by starving people so that is why the skimmed milk was used.
The reconstitution of dried milk under army conditions was not satisfactory and upset the internees. They thought it caused their diarrhoea and vomiting (which was probably due to starvation) and refused to take it, complaining bitterly. This also was one reason why the rich soup first made had to be modified. Later, biscuits and jam were available in larger quantities and satisfied many of the inmates. It was found that the repetition of the same food for long became nauseating, and providing a variety presented yet another problem. Many of the ex-prisoners had such sore mouths that they found it very difficult and painful to eat.
One week after liberation, Colonel V. P. Sydenstricker, head of the nutrition section of the UNRRA Health Division, Dr C. N. Leach of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Senior RAMC Officers from 21st Army Group visited Belsen Camp. As a result of this conference, Dr A. P. Meiklejohn was seconded to the nutrition section of UNRRA, and arrived at Belsen on 29th April.
When the patients were unable to take the skimmed milk, a mixture which had been used in the Bengal famine (in 1943) was used. Dried milk, flour, sugar, salt and water were cooked in the Army boilers. Glucose drinks to which vitamins were added were also given with the Bengal mixture, one litre of which was sufficient nutrition for one man for a day.
The internees first welcomed this but after a day or two complained that it was too sweet. They had a craving for sour things and would have drunk quantities of vinegar had it been available! They were very difficult to please. Protein hydrolysate treatment was used, but I understand it was also found disappointing. It was out of the question to use it in the filthy huts in Camp 1 (the Horror Camp) and there were not the staff to deal with it in the new hospitals in Camps 2 and 3.
Protein hydrolysate may be given by mouth, by intra-nasal drip, or intravenously. I understand it has an unpleasant taste and smell, so that even when flavoured it was found to be nauseating by mouth, irritating and uncomfortable by nose and not very well tolerated intravenously. When a mixture, it is absorbed at once without the aid of digestive juices, which are often lacking in starvation.
I am told that it has been established that experiments were carried out by German doctors on some prisoners by giving them intravenous injections of benzol and creosote. This explains their terror when the British wished to give them the intravenous hydrolysate. When the staff wished to move them to a special hut for treatment, they cried out, ‘Nix crematorium, Nix crematorium,’ and begged not to taken. You see, many awaiting their turn for the gas chamber in Auschwitz had been forced to watch their relatives taken away to the extermination camps and were therefore suspicious of the British stretcher bearers. You can understand how all these problems complicated the treatment and work. This also accounts for the large quantity of casein hydrolysate found unused in the dispensary store-room when I arrived.
In spite of all these problems and disappointments the patients were genuinely grateful and the British persevered. Although the prisoners were dying at the rate of 1000 a day at first, those who lived gradually were able to take solid foods of the type usually given to patients suffering from peptic ulcer. Those on a full diet craved for white bread, which was very scarce, but the British endeavoured to provide as much as possible. However, I have been told that the Russian soldiers, who were also at Belsen at that time, commandeered the white bread for themselves at gunpoint. And got it!
Of course every day the feeding was becoming more organised and more volunteers were arriving. Ninety-six London medical students who had volunteered for relief work in Europe were being held in readiness to move into Holland at this time. It was considered however, that they were most urgently needed at Belsen, and on 30th April, the first began to arrive by air.
On 2nd May the students began distributing food to the 10 000 who were still starving in Camp 1. I believe the psychological effect of the students working there was enormous. They said that after a week they found women crying because another woman had died, and they felt they had achieved something. Each student was responsible for one or more huts with 100—150 helpless patients and about 200-300 so-called fit—those who were able to feed themselves.
One student, with two Hungarian guards (British POWs now) to assist him, worked in co—operation with the officers in charge of the six cook-houses and travelled round with the food vans, delivering the food to their colleagues in the huts-this enabled a fair distribution of food to be made. Gradually the more fit internees were able to assist with the feeding and nursing of the sick. It was, of course, impossible to keep the patients in bed, as without any warning they would leave suddenly to taste their new-found freedom. I heard that one old woman clad in nothing but a blanket flowing from her shoulders was found at the gates, setting out for Poland!
One student has written that an old man with a gastric ulcer was put on a milk diet and alkalis and lost his pain. Relieved from pain and feeling rather hungry, he staggered outside to the dustbin, ate what he could find there, plus any berries on the bushes on the way, and returned to Herr Doktor groaning again!
Fresh bread was a joy not experienced for a long time
July 1945
Although we have not yet taken over the hospitals, my days are very full as there is so much organising to be done in preparation for the arrival of our staff. My letters seem to be very scrappy, but I find the best time for writing is after the curfew has tolled—and so I shall now continue my story of how the gallant liberators worked. While one little group of warm-hearted, patient, generous and sympathetic British Tommies was dealing with the enormous feeding problem, other workers were preparing for the evacuation of the Horror Camp.
The Wehrmacht troops were turned out of the German barracks, but I have not been able to find out whether they were taken prisoner or whether they fled. The German sick were transferred first to the German Officer’s Club and later to another German hospital in the district, and we are told the occupants of the married quarters had disappeared! Our troops distributed ground sheets, on which groups of people who were unable to find room inside the huts in Camp 1 lived until they could be evacuated.
Parties of armed British troops then collected, at gunpoint where necessary, from German residents and stores in the surrounding district all the equipment they could find for a 17 000-bed emergency hospital in the barracks. Just imagine the quantities of beds, bedding, drugs, surgical dressings, food and hospital equipment which had to be found!
Colonel Johnstone’s anaesthetist of the 32nd British Casualty Clearing Station was in charge of the collection and distribution of supplies. A nursing and domestic staff on a huge scale also had to be organised from the inmates of the camp who were well enough, and from the German population, Barracks personnel, and Hungarian troops. On 20th April, the day this hospital was ready for use, the Germans again sabotaged the water supply before they left, and delayed the transfer of patients for twenty-four hours.
Before leaving Camp 1, all inmates who were considered fit were taken to a large building, all their clothing removed and burnt and their bodies cleansed of the gross filth and deloused. A colossal undertaking, dusting some 30-40 000 people with DDT powder! Women and children were evacuated first and a shuttle ambulance service was constantly moving. Quite soon, but I cannot find out the date, one of the medical officers had an inspiration and set up a cleansing station called the human laundry in one of the barracks stables in Camp 3. Six tables were arranged in two rows to receive those direct from the Horror Camp. British Tommies supervised German nurses and attendants, who were obliged to cleanse, wash and dust these poor naked and ill creatures, cut their hair and wrap them in three fresh blankets.
Many were horrified and cried with fear when they heard they were to be taken to the bath, because, as I have told you, in Auschwitz and other extermination camps many had been marched to the showers from which came lethal gas. Numbers, of course, were too ill and dazed to care what happened to them at this stage. The ambulances conveyed the sick direct from the huts in Camp 1 to the laundry, as well as the walking cases who had received some preliminary cleansing in that camp. Five hundred to 900 were treated daily. These unfortunate creatures, mere skeletons with but a spark of life in them, were then conveyed in a decontaminated ambulance to the squares where the first emergency hospitals were established.
The sick were then placed naked (there were at this stage no bed garments) in their blankets on a straw palliasse, on a barracks stretcher or on one of the bunks. The Sisters and their voluntary assistants fed them and gave such nursing care as was possible under the circumstances.
By 30th April the whole population of the camp had been deloused and by 1st May 7000 sick had been evacauted to the new hospital area. There were, however, still approximately 10 000 patients in Camp 1 requiring urgent medical attention, for whom no hospital accommodation could be provided for some days.
The male members of the British Red Cross Society, RAMC doctors, the London medical students, British troops, and doctors and nurses from among the displaced persons in the camp who were fit to work carried on in the intense squalor of the Horror Camp. They fed and nursed the patients, cleansing huts, rendering first aid and performing minor operations. I believe Miss Beardwell, a Sister from St George’s Hospital, London, was in charge of the first 600 patients to be admitted to the new hospital. She is now in charge of the BRCS staff at the Children’s Hospital here. When the medical students commenced work, they moved the corpses, set up a dispensary and gave medical treatment to the sick in the huts. Assisted by groups of internees and the Hungarian guards, they endeavoured to clean out the worst of the filth which lay inches deep on the floors. You can imagine just how difficult their work was, because the weather was very hot and flies were beginning to appear.
Twenty-five of these students—led by Captain Crips, MC King’s Royal Rifles, one of the senior students—under the direction of the RAMC officer in charge, created within the Horror Camp a hospital area in which the most seriously ill were nursed until they could be evacuated. They cleansed the filthy, verminous huts, creosoting the floors, disinfecting with DDT and equipping them with the necessities of a hospital ward. They set up a marquee which was used as a cleansing station for all patients before they were admitted to the new hospital. There was difficulty in washing these people because the women refused to wash the men and all the men were too weak to do this. So the students, assisted by the Hungarian guards, undertook this as well as the multitude of other urgent matters requiring attention. One week after the arrival of the students, the death rate was halved, and in two weeks halved again. Within two weeks of the setting up of the hospital in Camp 1, 12 000 patients had been washed, disinfected, admitted, treated and nursed. It has been authoritatively stated that a large number of patients owe their lives to this achievement. This venture was so successful that the hospital was allowed to function until all the other patients in Camp 1 had been transferred to the Barracks.
The students eventually evacuated the patients, equipment and nurses to the very palatial Round House, where it is said such high-ranking Nazi officials as Himmler, Goering and Goebbels had once been entertained. On 19th May the last survivors of the 28 000 persons were evacuated from the notorious Horror Camp to the hospitals and three transit camps in the Barracks area. Up to that time the British had supervised the burial of some 23 000 of which, you will remember, 10 000 or even more, lay unburied when they arrived on 15th April.
SS Guards, men and women, watched by groups of internees, were forced to carry out the work of burying the dead. Bulldozers were used to dig the enormous graves, each of which contained from 500 to 5000 bodies. The SS women were unmoved by the awfulness of this task and I have a photo showing one, actually smiling, as she unloaded the scores and scores of naked corpses into the pits. The men cringed and shrank from the task.
The daily death rate steadily decreased. On 30th April, 548 people had died; on 17th May ninety-seven; but by 18th May, 13 834 patients had been admitted to hospital.
On 19th May there took place the historic ceremonial burning of the last hut in the infamous Belsen Concentration Camp, one of the most terrible concentration camps set up by the Nazis.
On 21st May 1945, at 6 pm, the day on which quarantine was lifted, Colonel H. L. Bird, Commanding 102 Control Section 2nd Army, addressed those assembled from a dais equipped with a microphone-with him were Colonel J. A. D. Johnstone and Brigadier Glyn Hughes. An invitation was given to personnel and to all displaced persons who wished to attend. Transport was arranged and a large number came, including all the British troops and dozens of cinema and press reporters. I was told that the ceremony was simple and satisfying. Fauna Campbell and a Queensland nurse, Miss Jean MacDougall—Ind, and a Major Prior, another Australian, were present at this ceremony. Unfortunately, the Sergeant driving one of the flame-throwers accidentally pressed the button and the fire started before the speeches were made, so that the ceremony was delayed while the fire was extinguished.
Colonel Bird explained that the British flag never stood for cruelty and bestiality-that was why it had never yet flown over Belsen Camp. He continued:
I cannot help feeling that in the razing of this pestilence-ridden camp, there is a great symbol. It is a symbol of the final destruction for all time, of the bestial human creed of Nazi Germany; a creed by which criminals tried to debase the people of Europe to their own devilish ends. This moment is the end of the chapter—the pages of which are filled with the vilest story of cruelty, hate and bestiality ever written by man. British soldiers have closed one chapter and by their great efforts have opened a new chapter in the lives of the survivors. I would like to pay special tribute to the British soldier—his great heart, his patience, his sympathy and his sense of humour have always made him the finest Ambassador any nation could wish for.
A party of soldiers then fired a salute to the dead and Brigadier Glyn Hughes and Colonel Johnstone each directed a flame-thrower onto a portrait of Adolf Hitler at one end of the hut and a huge Nazi flag at the other. A thick black column of smoke showed everyone that Camp 1 was no more, and amid cheers and cat calls which completely drowned the official cheering, the last hut was reduced to ashes. The Union Jack, symbol of British justice, freedom and protection of the oppressed, was then unfurled, caught in the breeze and fluttered over the scene.
Thus concluded the first phase in the history of Belsen since its liberation by the British. The work carried out by doctors, nurses, medical students, Army personnel, British Red Cross, St John’s Ambulance teams and International relief missions in those early days is said to be one of the most remarkable achievements in medical history.
20th July 1945
We have been here nine days now and are champing at the bit. Most of my time is spent in the hospitals, but I am taking the opportunity to make all the contacts I can before actually taking over. Today I was driven to the site of the former No. 1 Camp by Mr Simmonds, a member of St John’s Ambulance who was one of the original workers here. I have already mentioned that the camp is surrounded by lovely forests of spruce, birch and beeches. As we approached I saw evidence of the habitation in the woods, of those whose home it had so recently been. The camp itself was entirely surrounded by two sets of heavy barbed wire. Immediately outside this prison wall were fourteen watch-towers, situated at intervals all the way round; nearby but also outside the camp were deep shelters for the guards. There was no provision for the protection of the internees during air raids.
Having satisfied the British guard that we had authority to enter and that we had been inoculated against typhus, we drove to the first area, carefully wired off by the Germans for their administrative and personnel section, which was housed in the usual army type of hutted buildings and provided with fifteen shower baths for the guards and administrative personnel. On the right was a large stable or garage in which all those entering and leaving camp after liberation were dusted with DDT. At the entrance to the actual concentration area where the British found the 50 000 living and dead huddled together in filth, disease, decomposition and despair, are two large notice boards. One in English on the left, the other on the right in German. They state: ‘This is the site of the Infamous Belsen Concentration Camp liberated by the British on 15th April 1945. Ten thousand unburied dead were found here, another 13 000 have since died, all of them victims of the German New Order in Europe and an example of Nazi Kultur.’
We passed on and walked through the former dispensary, dressing rooms, and the room where the minor operations were performed. All was chaotic; quantities of damaged medical equipment, furniture, rags and paper littered the floors, evidence of the enormous amount of work carried out after liberation. We passed the building where the fit were cleansed and deloused before being transferred to the transit camp. A nauseating odour still pervaded these buildings.
We saw the charred remains of the burnt-out huts with only a few odd bits of china and metal to mark the site. The enormous mass graves holding uncertain numbers, but from 500 to 5000 bodies again reminded us of Nazi brutality and inhumanity.
In a hollow at the far end of the camp the tall chimney of the crematorium with its metal cradle and long-handled stoker, among the powdered remains of the unknown, needed no explanation. Nearby an enormous pile of half burnt leather boots and shoes of all sizes is a silent reminder of the thousands who entered the camp, but did not leave. There are several mass graves in pits earthed over in this vicinity.
The pump where so many were beaten to death as they crawled in search of water was evident. A relic of the blue-and-white striped prison garb, with a large yellow cross branded on the back, was stretched on the barbed wire fence. Outside the camp we had seen the remains of a drum of yellow paint.
The medical students’ hospital is now a charred mass. Huge camp ovens, cauldrons and sets of new wooden toilet fixtures brought in by the British are still there.
An erection which could have been a gibbet was in full view of the camp. Two poles mark the site where the final burning ceremony took place and from which the portrait of Hitler and the flag with the crooked cross had been suspended. The platform from which the speeches were made still stands.
The SS Guards’ quarters were wired off and well protected from the inmates of the camp. The stone prison is in this area, heavily protected by barbed wire even on the small windows where it was interlaced with the iron bars. A large dog kennel marked the HQ of the savage dogs which patrolled the area between the building and barriers, and which were let loose on the prisoners according to the whim of the men and women SS guards.
From this point I surveyed the devastated camp—a foul blot in a picturesque countryside. The air was charged with a ghostly silence. I closed my eyes and saw it all and no longer found it hard to believe that it had actually happened. So many victims were still in our own hospital wards. I felt nothing we could do for them could ever compensate. Never was there greater scope for UNRRA’s relief and rehabilitation.
To: Miss Udell, Chief Nursing Adviser, UNRRA
Date: 16th July 1945
I intend to arrange for my staff to have an eight-hour day, with one day off duty per week, providing no further emergency occurs. So to do this under existing circumstances I shall require, in addition to myself:
One assistant to the Matron, preferably English-speaking. Fifteen general trained nurses including:
(a) one or more qualified as midwife, one of whom would be capable of eventually taking over the Maternity Hospital
(b) one with experience in Children’s Nursing capable of taking charge of the Children’s Hospital later
(c) one or more with experience in Tb nursing
(d) one or more who has had experience in Operating Theatre techniques, to supervise the German Theatre staff
A nurse disinfecting a survivor with DDT in an attempt to combat typhus
29th July 1945
Eighteen days since our arrival, and many an SOS has gone forth, both to London and local HQ, but nary a body have I seen in the way of UNRRA nursing staff!
You will have received my letters outlining the early history of Belsen. My future screeds will, I hope, give you some idea of the conditions prevailing upon and after my arrival. The early days of phase two were those of intense and exhausting work for the staff and of miraculous change for the patients. Doctors, nurses, and all other personnel were toiling from morn till night in the Squares, the Round House, the Glyn Hughes and children’s Hospitals. Mr Winston Churchill’s famous tribute to the RAF in the Battle for Britain might well apply to these courageous people.
I have talked with a number of the original liberators and have been impressed by the modest way in which they narrate their experiences. Feeding the victims of starvation and disease was in itself a colossal and oft times heartbreaking undertaking. The moment food appeared, those who could, oblivious of their stark nakedness, staggered forward from their beds, gaunt spectres, with arms outstretched, crying, ‘Essen, essen.’ (’Food, food’.) They sometimes criticised the small quantities of food served, some said they were better off under the Germans when they had their watery soup and morsel of dry bread. They were not sufficiently mentally fit, as yet, to appreciate the fact that their diet was highly nutritious. Others were at first fearful of being looked after by the German nurses, even under Allied supervision, and cried out at the sight of the simplest apparatus. They now mostly take the Germans for granted, although we do have some difficulties at times, when we have to investigate accusations of neglect and stealing food.
Just imagine Bofors’ gunner officers suddenly finding themselves appointed as chief chefs and having to cope with this colossal job, assisted by willing displaced persons, workers of all nationalities all speaking different languages. The full diet consisted of thick meat and vegetable soup with boiled potatoes, thrice daily, black bread and a very small quantity of jam and cheese—but even this was too rich and frequently caused vomiting. Very few ate the black bread, but the potatoes were popular. The fit people spent most of the day re-cooking little bits of food on little fires all over the camp-we even see this done today in the hospital by those who have acquired small electric cookers! It is common for a savoury odour to be wafted down the corridor and to find, on investigation, a little group of eager women clustered round a precious mug full of some mysterious egg concoction, or mushroom delicacy. They just love it.
To return to my story of the camp—the workers were given meals at an improvised canteen in the camp. Another problem of feeding was to see that the soup reached the more fit people and that the bland mixture was given to the sick—which, at first, was almost impossible. Having relieved starvation, the next work for the British was to restore to convalescence those who were fortunate enough to recover and to bring such comfort as was possible to those destined to lead a life of invalidism and those whose days were numbered. Fauna Campbell, in a letter, describes the wards in those early days:
Each of us is in charge of blocks of 150 patients, speaking foreign languages. In the first block I took over, I had a Polish doctor, Polish and Russian nurses recovering from illness, and patients from Poland, Russia, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, etc. Many were Jews, nearly all so weak and such absolute skeletons, with a sad hunted expression, ravenous for food. Never shall I forget those poor little faces peeping out from their blankets, and their tiny bodies lying on palliasses of straw, with the habits more or less of animals. The stench, I feel, will never leave my nostrils.
My staff is entirely German, with the exception of one British orderly and four Hungarian soldiers for cleaning. Typhus, typhoid, mouth, gastro-intestinal and skin infections, scabies, pulmonary tuberculosis, bronco-pneumonia, famine oedema, large pressure sores, suppurating wounds and gangrene were some of the complaints from which the patients were suffering. Diarrhoea was almost universal. In the early days all were crying, ‘Schwester (Sister), Fraulein (Miss), Madame, basin, pfanne (pan), schussel (bowl).’
They begged continuously for an operation, for medicines or for their dressing to be done. There were insufficient nurses at first to feed all the helpless or to encourage those with poor appetites, so that often food was left untouched. The stronger, still haunted by the fear of starvation, hoarded what they could among their bedding. Some still continue to do this. It was some time before they regained confidence and appreciated the fact that when they had eaten the food provided, another meal would appear in a few hours.
The German nurses, I am told, appeared shocked at what they saw when first brought to the hospital and they worked quite well under close supervision. The death rate was still high. A board outside each block indicated the number of deaths during the day. The bodies were placed in the cellars and collected in wagons at 6 pm; new cemeteries began to appear. Although thousands died, thousands more had been brought back to health by the devoted and untiring attention of those privileged to care for them.
The thing which we sincerely hope is that those who have no home, no families and no country to which to return, and who have had everything that was worthwhile in their lives taken from them and have been through hell, will find sympathy and understanding in whatever country they finally settle. It is only in this way they can hope to recover from their sick minds and broken bodies and start life afresh. I do not think they will ever forget the tortures, the atrocities and the mental agonies through which they have passed, but it will be made easier for them if they feel they are wanted and welcome in their new homes. It was wonderful for those working amongst the patients to see their returning interest in their appearance and their joy at receiving their first hair comb, soap, tooth brush, or bit of chocolate. Sewing materials gave great joy as they became stronger and clever fingers fashioned many a garment. Those who were convalescent would gather huge armfuls of lupins from the nearby fields or bunches of greenery, and with tit-bits of food would hand them through the windows to their less fortunate friends in hospital.
Nursing conditions were primitive and the wards over-crowded. There were insufficient bed-pans, practically no sputum mugs, and drugs were in hopelessly short supply in the early days. If one patient got a pill, all had to receive a pill and the only ones available were aspirin and opium tablets. There were insufficient sheets for changing the beds—improvisation was carried out to the last degree.
Thousands of patients were in the advanced stages of tuberculosis and it was impossible at first to separate them from the typhus cases; others were still dehydrated and exhausted. The lack of interpreters made nursing extremely difficult.
The typhus blocks in Camp 3 were surrounded with barbed wire and the main squares took the general cases. There was also a Mental House. Three blocks were converted into maternity and children’s hospitals where women suffering from typhus were confined. The doctor in charge of the Maternity Hospital was a Romanian Jewess, who told me that at Auschwitz she had been forced to deliver and then kill all babies born. You could see she was suffering from this experience. She told me that she had been present at 1000 births.
The British wing, as it was called, in the Glyn Hughes Hospital, at first housed a number of orderlies and RAMC men who contracted typhus. I think there were ten altogether, but all recovered. About fifty ex-enemy personnel also contracted the disease and a number died.
The organisation of the new camp was amazing—accommodation had to be arranged for the patients as they were discharged from the hospital, for those who had not been admitted to hospital, and for the slave workers from the surrounding districts, whom the British by this time were bringing into the camp. Camp 3 housed the patients able to work and partly look after themselves and the convalescents. All were very weak and were frequently re-admitted to hospital.
Nationalities and relatives were housed as far as possible together. This interesting, yet tragic community was a hive of activity. These displaced persons had to be fed and clothed and housed. As each one was discharged from hospital he or she was taken, swathed in blankets to Harrods, the clothing store in the charge of the BRCS, and fitted out with clothing.
Registration had to be carried out, food ration cards to be issued, and information offices to be set up to assist in tracing relatives and friends. You will remember I told you that all camp records were destroyed by the SS guards during the truce, although the agreement was that everything was to be handed over intact.
Army ration and ordinance stores, laundry, cookhouses, food and clothing distribution centres, dispensaries, and first aid rooms also had to be organised. Sanitary squads were constantly busy—a steady stream of transport was kept moving. Ambulance services never ceased. Grave-diggers were constantly at work. Planes were repatriating the fit. Welfare officers worked unceasingly and postal services were soon set up. Liaison Officers of many nations began to arrive. Their work was to discuss with displaced persons of their own nationality their repatriation, and to provide information about conditions in their home countries. Personnel from many international voluntary organisations and special relief missions commenced work. A number of Belgian medical students came with the Belgian mission to Belsen.
The DPs came and went as they liked, their registration cards being the only thing necessary to enable them to pass the guards at the gates. Before going any further, a few words about the DPs may interest you. These men, women and children were displaced outside their own national territories, as forced labourers, refugees from battle zones, anti-Nazi exiles, victims of persecution, prisoners of concentration camps.
At Belsen today there are families, old people, young men, women and children, babies, orphans of the concentration camps and unaccompanied children (children whose parents’ whereabouts are unknown). There are Jews and Christians and, on liberation, British, Czechs, Romanians, Poles, French, Dutch, Belgians, Russians, Germans, Gypsies, Austrians, Italians, Danes, Yugoslavs, Greeks, Norwegians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Hungarians and other nationals. One has only to walk round the cemeteries in this camp to see the nations represented.
As soon as they were fit to travel, thousands were repatriated by the army authorities, in conjunction with their own Governments, to receive further hospitalisation in their own countries. A bomber shuttle service carried out this work. Thousands more have made their own way home voluntarily and unassisted, but thousands who are stateless, homeless, and many without hope still remain. Why do they remain?, you will ask. The answer is that they are unwilling or unable to return to their own countries or their former place of residence. Some are ignorant of the conditions prevailing in their country, and some know too much about them and feel that there is no future there if they do return—no jobs, no homes. Others wish to start a new life in another part of the world and forget their sufferings.
Many hold political views incompatible with the present regime in their own countries. Poles, having been members of the underground resistance movement when Russia was Germany’s ally, and others who had escaped from imprisonment in the Soviet or Soviet-occupied Poland say it is unsafe for them to return to their country while it is under Soviet domination.
The Jews, whatever their country of origin (and the majority here at present are from Poland), knowing that they are practically the sole survivors of their race in Europe are anxious to leave the European continent and start life anew. Their eyes are already turning towards Palestine, whither their destiny leads them. Some Poles and others look towards the United Kingdom and United States of America for freedom and vainly believe that the streets there are paved with gold!
Unless the future of these homeless and stateless people is solved, all the work carried out here and elsewhere will have been in vain. If they are going out into a hostile world to again struggle against overwhelming odds, they might have been better off had they not survived the Nazi terrors of Belsen and other concentration camps.
You will understand that many who have suffered so much at the hands of the Germans, and whose very existence has for so many years depended on astuteness and physical strength, have lost much of their moral sense. After four or five years or longer in a German concentration camp there must inevitably be an increasing selfishness and a lowering of moral standards. Some of them now raid the German farms, houses, shops and villages and are frequently joined by large numbers of other DPs, whom the Nazis had used as slave labourers and who, on cessation of hostilities, downed tools and formed marauding bands, or set up more or less organised colonies throughout Germany. Many of the latter have wandered into this camp. Pillaging is rife. In their opinion they are perfectly justified in robbing the Germans, who, after all, brought most of them into this country and so must take the consequences. Many of the goods they take are of no value to them, but their desire to acquire possessions again is very acute and they must have gained a great deal of satisfaction from being in the position to get a little of their own back. There have been a good many shootings in the nearby forest and surrounding neighbourhood, but a strict order regarding the possession of firearms has recently been issued.
This just about brings me to the time when I arrived at Belsen on 11th July 1945, and closes Phase 2.
I cannot write more tonight. My tasks are many and the work of instituting Phase 3 and transforming an acute emergency hospital into an organised hygienic institution will be arduous but, as you can imagine, I will be in my element.
