F. Tannenbaum, ‘Life in Concentration Camp’ series, Belsen, 1945
16th September 1945
Among the residents of Belsen are some survivors of a party of 800 young girls who were marched on foot from Bremen to Belsen shortly before the camp entered upon its final phase of horror. They had been used as street-sweepers in Bremen, many were barefooted and scantily clad. They were three days on the march without food. Their guards carried lashes, and when the girls sang on the way they were cruelly kicked and thrashed.
In September 1944 another group of 500 girls, Czech slave workers, were transported from Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland to the most dangerous industrial area in Hamburg. When the British bombing increased in ferocity over that city, they were all hurriedly evacuated to Belsen under terrible conditions.
The following story, told to a British Red Cross representative by a young Czech Jewess—I shall call her Lenka—speaks for itself. On 22nd January, 1942 she and her parents were arrested and sent by the Germans to a transit camp in Pilsen, where they remained for three days, their only crime being that they were Jews. They were only allowed 50 kg of luggage—all their worldly possessions. There were 2600 persons in this camp and all were given an identification number. After three days they were taken to the station, guarded all the time by German police with rifles which they did not hesitate to use. The temperature was 30°C below zero, with snow and ice. The train was not heated and when the doors were opened they almost froze. The journey to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, normally took three hours, but this train took fifteen. There was no station in the village, so they were forced to walk in snow and ice for one hour carrying their baggage.
During the journey they were told that a dreadful event had happened in the camp a few days before. Eleven young men were publicly hanged for writing a letter to their parents saying they were hungry. A little later nine boys were hanged for the same reason. One lad sang a national revolutionary song whilst standing below the gallows. To have an alibi before the world, the Nazis ordered a Jew to hang his own nationals—but no Jew would undertake this. Finally, the Germans found a man, Adolf Fischer, whose civilian trade was an employee in the Institute of Anatomy at Prague University Medical School, to carry out the awful deed.
The Czechs carried no beds or bedding, only a little straw. All the men were separated out two days after arriving at their destination. Children said goodbye to fathers, wives to husbands. The barracks were locked and guarded by the SS police. No one was allowed to leave or enter without permission from the SS Commander, and only a very few were so privileged.
At first they were only required to work voluntarily. Lenka worked in the office of the food ration cards. Men tried to work in the potato cellar because they sometimes had the opportunity of seeing their womenfolk when pushing a cart of potatoes. There were no horses or lorries to move these heavy loads—only human beings.
Punishment for a woman who was caught talking to a man was banishment to a concentration camp in Poland. Every two or three months, many thousands were moved from Theresienstadt to make way for new transports. Old people of sixty-five years and over were among those moved. Most of them died on the journey, those who survived went to the gas chambers.
On 10th April 1942, Lenka continues, 1000 women up to forty years of age were sent to Kavohlat, a country place in the Bohemian Forest. They were to remain and plant trees. ‘I was among these women in a small group of forty-five girls. When the train left Theresienstadt we thought we were to be free, but were very soon disappointed.’
Guarded by four armed police, they had to walk for four hours to their lodgings—an old inn without light and with locked windows. The doors were guarded day and night by the police. They rose at 6 am and were given one litre of watery soup for breakfast. At 7 am the game-keeper came to fetch them. It was a fifty-minute walk to the wood. Each one was issued with a basket of young trees and a pickaxe with which to plant the forest. Ten girls were in Lenka’s party, with an old workman as guard who would not allow them to move farther away than ten metres because he had been told they were dangerous prisoners who would escape! The first day was so horrible that they were crying nearly all day. It was windy, very cold and raining. At 7 pm they were marched home for supper. The food issue was 2 kg of bread for eight days, one litre of watery soup, and a very small supper after a twelve-hour working day.
Writing letters was forbidden but Lenka and a friend managed to send letters to their relatives at home, who tried to visit the girls but found it was too dangerous.
After two months of this awful life, the party returned to Theresienstadt, which had become a ghetto, and a process of deliberate extermination commenced. The inmates had to make German uniforms, boxes for munitions and artistic things. All Christians were removed from the camp, and new Jewish transports arrived. Most of these unfortunate prisoners were old German Jews. They were forced to lie on the squalid floor, starving and infested with lice. They died of hunger, ‘a picture of misery’ as Lenka described them. In contrast to this awfulness, a large coffee house was built in the camp. A jazz band provided music for supposed concerts and a theatre. Girls were dressed in black with white aprons and acted as waitresses. The smartest girl prisoners were obliged to swim in the modern swimming pool, and life in the ghetto was filmed. German propaganda for the public!
In December 1943 the SS Commander ordered about eighty persons to Poland as there were too many young people in the ghetto. Lenka was working in the central office at this time and was one of those selected. Her parents accompanied her voluntarily.
The transit camp to which they were sent was a long way from the station. A big open fire was used to light the SS Commandant’s table. The prisoners were filed past and were hurriedly packed into a truck with their luggage. There were fifty-five persons and Adolf Fischer, the hangman of Theresienstadt, whom Lenka described as ‘an awful companion for travelling’. The journey lasted thirty dreadful hours, which were spent in vainly trying to obtain some seating space for her parents and herself.
On arrival at Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland at 10 pm they found the SS and men in striped clothing armed with sticks, waiting for them. They soon learned that these men were prisoners who were forced to work for the SS. The victims were bundled out of the truck very quickly and were told to leave their baggage behind as they could collect it the next day, but they never saw it again. The remainder of the night was spent sitting on the bare floor of a hut. Early next morning the men were separated from the women and all were driven out to wait in the snow, not knowing what was to happen to them. After some interminable hours they were told they were going to the bath, which was a long distance away. The thought of a bath was very welcome, as such luxuries were unknown in the camps.
When they set out, all old people who could not walk were left in the snow to freeze. On the way they passed large numbers of people who had died during the journey and had been thrown out of the lorries. Others not yet dead were put amongst them. They finally arrived, exhausted, at a hut, where they were obliged to remain two days and nights guarded by an SS woman with a big dog, who used her gun whenever she disliked anything.
They were given no food or drink. Lenka says, ‘I think I never had such a thirst than at this time. We gave our watches and precious things we wore for a cup of water. We were not allowed to leave the hut, even for the lavatory. Most people became deranged. It was horrible, they were shouting and crying the whole night.’
Suddenly they were ordered out of the blocks, not knowing what was to happen. They were taken to another hut where a Polish girl prisoner branded them on the left forearm with a number. Lenka says, ‘Even little children got it and they cried so much because it ached.’
This was the tattooing of the official concentration camp number, which so many of our patients wear today. I have been told that when the numbers ran into hundreds of thousands at Auschwitz, the SS prefixed a letter for record purposes, thus hiding the actual number of their victims (which amounted to several millions in this camp alone) from the world.
After some hours of waiting they arrived at the bath huts. An SS woman took all watches, wedding rings and other jewellery. They were forced to undress and leave their clothing behind. This they never saw again. They were marched under a shower, but were not dried and had to wait many hours for the prison clothes, which consisted of thin summer dresses and coats, on which were their numbers. You will remember it was the middle of a severe winter. They were then marched to the political office and had to sign a document which they were not allowed to read. Lenka saw that the heading was ‘Concentration Camp Auschwitz’ so for the first time they knew where they were. Even before the end of the war this camp was already known as the worst camp in Europe, and one from which no one ever escaped.
They were kept waiting for hours, surrounded with dead bodies, they were sitting among them. Girl prisoners who had been in the camp a long time and whose morale was broken whipped and beat them with leather belts. Do not condemn any man or woman for this—because prisoners in the camps earned extra rations if they worked thus for the Nazis, and a starving human will do anything in order to obtain food. Late that night they were driven to the family camp, closely guarded by SS men and dogs. In the block in which they were to sleep were three-tiered bunks, one above the other, two metres long, eight centimetres wide. Five girls and later seven and eight slept in three such bunks. Their food was a hunk of dry bread and half a litre of water per day.
Two days later the men arrived, and on Christmas Day, for some extraordinary and probably sadistic reason, the SS allowed them to meet their womenfolk for a few minutes. They were almost unrecognisable, but happy to meet again after those terrible days of horror. During the first few days they were not required to work at all, but the SS came and forced them from their bunks. You can imagine how weak they were. Later they were forced to carry heavy stones from early morning to 3 pm. Lenka says, ‘It was hard work walking with heavy stones.’
On arrival home they had to stay appell, which means they attended a roll call at which the SS men counted them. These appells sometimes lasted three to four hours, during which they were standing outside the block half frozen. After the appell the wire which surrounded the camp was charged with electricity, which meant instantaneous death for anyone touching it.
Four weeks after their arrival at Auschwitz, war work production was commenced. All young girls were forced to work from 6 am to 5 pm. Belts for rifles were made of ‘such a queer sort of stuff, that our skin was quite black, which did not come off on washing’. The death rate was high—bodies were piled on trucks covered with dirty sacks and pushed by the men prisoners to the crematorium. Lenka says, ‘I lost my father in this camp and I can never visit his grave because he has none—it was dreadful for me. I was not allowed to visit him for five days and when I did, I found he had died in the meantime.’
On 7th March the order came that all those who had arrived in the transport three and a half months before were to be moved to another concentration camp. Lenka said they were congregated in the transit blocks and during the night orders from the SS men were heard, followed by shouting and the noise of weeping, unhappy people being forced into lorries. Three thousand, five hundred young, healthy people were sent to the gas chamber that night. Those who remained in the family camp were told they would be quarantined there for six months. Their registration cards were marked sender behandling (special treatment), which they knew meant gas. The next three months were terrible-they suffered so much and counted the weeks and days to their death. This was the Nazi method of adding to their agonies. ‘It is a fearful feeling if you know the date you have to die.’
The day came and nothing happened-some days later a great selection was announced. Men and women between the age of sixteen and forty had to pass, quite naked, before the SS doctor and guards. Sometimes a band, selected from the prisoners, was playing. Always the savage dogs, leather whips and guns were there, and used without mercy. Those who were considered useful to the Nazis in any way at all were marched one way, those not required the other. It all depended on the good humour of the doctor and the guards whether the prisoner went to slave work or the gas chamber.
On 1st July 1944, 1000 men left the family camp. The following day 1000 women were sent to the great women’s section of Auschwitz. They were stripped of all they had and forced to stand naked outside before they bathed. An old dirty dress (no underwear, shoes or stockings) was given to each. Sixteen girls ‘Nere living and sleeping in a few bunks one and a half metres square. Lenka was amongst them. Food was dreadful. ‘Nine girls or more had to eat watery soup from the same bowl, without a spoon. I could not even look at it.’ From 3 am they had to remain on the appell to 8 or 9 am without shoes or stockings. They were not allowed to wash or go to the lavatory. They were beaten if they disobeyed. ‘This hell lasted three days which seemed endless.’ Then followed another selection. ‘My mother and I came through.’ Imagine the mental torment of it all!
That evening they were sent to the bath and everyone was given a grey frock and underwear. Next morning their hair was cut and everyone got a piece of bread. ‘And then the miracle happened. We were marched to the station—the first worker transport in the history of Auschwitz, the first people with numbers on their arms, to leave Auschwitz; nobody before had ever left this horror camp.’
They travelled in cattle trucks, one hundred girls in one truck, guarded by German soldiers. For two days they travelled, not knowing where they were going. Suddenly, the train stopped in Hamburg where SS guards were waiting. ‘Our homes were big corn stores in the harbour of Hamburg, which was built on the Elbe.’
They had to work in big oil factories where they cleaned and rebuilt smashed parts. ‘It was a bad life, we had nothing at all, no towels, no tooth-brush, no soap, nothing, nothing, only our naked life. We had to get up at 3.30 am in the morning; at 5 am we went to the ship and then we had to walk half an hour to the factory, where we were working to 6 o’clock at night.’
They arrived back at the com stores at 8 pm and had dinner-one litre of watery soup, a fifth of a loaf of bread—sometimes quarter of a skin of sausage. This was the only food they had all day. At 10 pm they went to bed. ‘One hour later the English came and bombarded Hamburg.’ The corn stores were in one of the most dangerous parts of the city. The girls had to remain on the second floor, the guard locked the door and ‘ran to the bunker (air raid shelter). He promised to return if there were some danger, but he never did.’ The building trembled, they saw bombs fall and pieces of the walls fell on their heads. This happened every night, so that they had no more than three and a half hours’ sleep. They were tired to death.
During the daytime, when working in the factories, they were allowed to go to the bunker only at Vollalarm and then they had to run half an hour through artificial fog. They were guarded all the time by German soldiers and were not allowed to take ten steps without asking a guard. Nearby, some French prisoners of war were working and they tried to help the women, but they were strictly forbidden to speak to them. At great risk they exchanged letters with political views and gave them hope that the war would end soon.
In September 1944, 500 Czech girls, including Lenka, were moved to a small workers camp near Hamburg. An area in the woods surrounded by barbed wire, containing two blocks, was their home. Life was, if possible, still harder than in Hamburg. ‘Less to eat and harder work…Smashed buildings and channels for water supply, sand and bricks; hunger and the beginning of winter was our life…on our feet were worn wooden shoes; old torn rags in place of stockings. The coats we got in winter were marked by yellow crosses, holes had to be cut in the back, the sleeves were exchanged from other coats, that was the way of our dressing to be recognised by everybody immediately as a prisoner…no heating on return from work…a two-hour walk, only cold rooms, and often the news that the kitchen would not prepare food, having no coal or wood. So we went weeping and frozen, hungry and desolated to our cold beds.’
The girls were obliged to go after work to the forest to cut trees, which they had to carry home through the forest covered in ice and snow. Their clothes and shoes were saturated and never dried as they had to wear them the next day.
‘Day and night,’ she says, ‘the Tommies sent the bombs over our heads. We could not go to the bunker and had to spend the terrible hours during worktime on the workplace, looking up to the sky and counting the planes…Nearly the whole time we were without water and electricity as the works were bombarded every day.’
They were moved to a camp at Tiefstock in the most dangerous part of Hamburg.
A camp not yet ready, wet, cold, and without any furniture, was our home…It stood in the middle of a large factory court…on the right was the Hamburg electricity works, on the left the gas works, railways, important bridges and industries. The camp was bombarded every day and night and completely devastated. Many women were killed and wounded, but some escaped…interesting was the scene before the gate of the camp, this day. My group was just returning from the factory (we made cement bricks by hand) when the bombardment began and the planes were already flying over our heads. We hurried to come in and to hide ourselves in the primitive earthy hole called bunker. Because we were not yet counted (thirty girls) by the SS Commander, the gate guard did not allow us to enter the camp. Therefore, the greatest part of the girls did not reach the bunker in time and found the death.
They were now without shelter, but it was March and the sun began to shine. They lived in the ruins of the camp. The Germans did not supply workers to repair the buildings, so they were obliged to rebuild the camp after coming home from work.
The British were expected in Hamburg, so the SS Commander was ordered to send away the secret files. Lenka knew this as her mother worked as his secretary. All documents were packed in a great hurry and they left the next morning. After travelling three days and two nights (the lines were blocked so that they were held up for many hours at a station or returned to Hamburg), under terrible circumstances, they reached Bergen-Belsen.
Lenka describes this journey as:
…fearful. Crazy SS women accompanied us, throwing stones into the crowd of women, who were one hundred in one truck. We had no place to sit or to lie, we could not leave the truck for the lavatory. It was a desolate situation, people got mad and some died in this fearful way, from hunger, thirst and desolation…Arriving at Bergen-Belsen we were surprised by another fearful aspect…Hundreds of trucks with dead and dying men were standing in the railway station. Their bodies were blue and bloody skeletons, the faces wounded, the dirty clothing torn and full of lice. That was the so-called transport of men to Bergen-Belsen…This transport never reached its place of destination…We, on our way from the station to the camp, had to reflect about the purpose of our coming here. The result was very bad…We saw lots of old, torn, dirty clothes and shoes, no people at all and a hidden camp in the forest. We did not think anything else than that we came to an empty camp, where transports are killed by some unknown way…The more we were witnesses of so many German crimes, we knew that these beasts did not wish us to over-live the war…The liberation was so near, we were full of hope and had to die just now, after having spent the hard years of prison, after having felt the whole seal of German cruelty…God did not hear our prayers…He led us through all the dangers to forget us in the moment where liberation is coming. These were the ideas of a desolated crowd of hungry and tired women…And the miracle happened again…we did not die…The 15th April 1945 was the miraculous day when the second British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen…We greeted our saviours with deepest thankfulness and never will forget this historical day, which gave us back our lives.
I have been wanting to send you this story for some time now but had to wait until I was able to have a day off—which I have been enjoying today. It is so typical of the sufferings of these young slave workers that it will help you to understand their reactions.
To: Miss Udell, Chief Nursing Adviser, UNRRA
Date: 24th September 1945
Subject: Report on Nursing Matters
UNRRA Matron and Nursing Staff took over Glyn Hughes Hospital on 13th August 1945. At time of transfer the general impression gained was that there was a lack of organisation of work and duties, with much time worked and poor supervision and deceptive levels of nursing and domestic staff!
The wards were untidy, masses of clothing cluttered the beds, dusty china accumulating on lockers at mid-morning, afternoon and evening. Curtains draped many windows in wards where patients with advanced pulmonary tuberculosis were nursed. There was gross but unavoidable overcrowding and little classification or segregation of patients. Advanced cases of pulmonary Tb were nursed side by side with non-Tb cases. Old tins, jam dishes and jars (the majority of which were without lids) were used as sputum mugs and no apparent disinfectant or sterilisation was carried out. Large numbers of flies were seen in the wards and kitchen, swarming over the uncovered food and the helpless patients. There were no bed nets available. As there were no visiting hours, there was a constant stream of people in and out of the hospital wards day and night. There were some twenty-six holes in the fence, so that the guards on duty at the hospital gate were unable to control entry.
The Matron of the British General Hospital stated that severe losses of soap, food rations, linen and blankets were occurring, in fact she had uncovered a very large collection of fresh eggs, butter, tinned food and comforts hidden in the linen cupboard between the folds of sheets, etc. The key to this cupboard was carried by the Oberschwester!…On taking over the hospital on 13th August 1945 it was found that the bedside care was of a poor standard in spite of the fact that the majority of German nurses were trained.
Nursing care was mechanical and unfinished-the technique poor. The sick male patients were not being sponged and little attempt was made to encourage patients to eat, large unappetising helpings often being left at the bedside. There was little initiative or imagination as to the patients’ mental comfort and as they are easily upset over small matters of food and clothing, this often led to disturbances which, with a little tact, could have been avoided.
There were numerous instances of treatment being ordered by the Medical Officer but not carried out, or carried out many hours after the specified time. No record was made of the ordering of dangerous drugs and dosages appeared often to be left to the German nurses to decide. Operations were performed by the German doctors at any time without previous warning to the theatre staff There were no reports of patients kept in the wards. The supply of thermometers was small and totally inadequate for the number and type of patients in the hospital, etc.
Hohne (Belsen) Assembly Centre
27th September 1945
How the time flies—I never seem to have time to do all I want to. My writing efforts are curtailed by the fact that the supply of coal is very short indeed, and therefore electricity has to be restricted. As we depend on the latter for the pumping of our water supply, we are still without water or electricity at certain hours during the day and night. Candles are almost unprocurable and we only have a few flat German night-light types left. Although we have ninety lanterns, only ten can be used because the other eighty do not burn kerosene, and the special fuel is unprocurable.
I found a baby hurricane lantern in the Keller the other day, which I reserved for my own very restricted use and wonder each time how much longer the oil will last. Unfortunately, the hours they choose to economise with light include 7—8 pm or later, and as the days are drawing in we cannot depend on twilight.
Yesterday, without any warning, we found ourselves without water or electricity from 7.30 am to 8.30 pm, with no opportunity to fill available receptacles—imagine a 500-bed hospital caught like that! We were irate when the electricity came on at 8.30 pm as that was the time of a special cabaret at the officers’ club, for which the organisers had procured many coloured lights, etc. They told us that the transformer at Brunswick was at fault, but coincidences are strange and it would have been a pity to waste those lights! Anyway, being prepared with some precious candles in gin bottles at dinner tonight, we were amazed to find the light only off for half an hour. Great plans were therefore made for hot baths. I have mentioned already the large cumbersome bath heaters, which are really meant for the steam-radiator system, but which can be heated with wood, of which there is no shortage here. We had a lovely blaze going half an hour ago and, suddenly, off went the light and water. I am now waiting for the heater to blow up!
Enough of our ablution problems. We had a dance in the hospital today, complete with orchestra, in one of our spacious corridors which fan out leading to two other off-spring wards. The old piano squawked bravely above the drums and the pulmonary Tbs danced with anyone who came along. Everyone loved it. Girls with legs in plaster discarded crutches and pirouetted around, young men in the dreadful striped concentration camp pyjamas (which I have been unable to have dyed) swirled round with Gypsy women in colourful long, full skirts, and the visitors joined in. I even saw one or two of the German cleaning women taking part surreptitiously. The noise was awful and everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.
Hospital Administrators, wake up—your wards are much too dull. Why not let the medical and surgical cases mix more? Shirt tails and pyjamas would be much more becoming on the dance floor than evening frocks and swallow tails, and a hospital patients’ orchestra would certainly liven things up and lengthen their stay in hospital!
Interval here when the light unexpectedly flashed on—I dashed to retrieve what was left of the fire in the bath heater, which didn’t burst, and when it was just nicely blazing, out popped the light again.
Talking of baths, the other day Piri complained of not feeling well. She had been forced to give a pint of blood per month in the Concentration Camp and I think she is probably anaemic. I arranged with one of our doctors for her to be examined at 1 pm and to make quite sure, rang the mess to ask Mili, our Czech cook supervisor, to tell Frau Rosa Kramer (our housekeeper in charge of DPs working in the Nurses’ mess) to see that Piri was ready for the doctor. She said she understood me quite well. At 1 pm Doctor entered the portals to find that Frau Kramer, after bowing her in, took her by the arm and led her to the bathroom, proudly announcing a lovely steaming bath. Bewildered, she explained it was Piri she wanted, not a bath. However, undaunted, the Frau, having produced Piri, indulged in the bath herself. These language problems! Why ever was there a Tower of Babel?
Quite a stir in hospital last week. About 5 pm a convoy of trucks, armoured cars and other vehicles, all bristling with arms, high-ranking officers, and red caps (the British service police) with their guns at the ready, without warning, drove round our circular drive and out again. Word flew round that it was Kramer and his beastly men and women, but we now hear it was some of the prosecution and the witnesses who had been brought to visit the Horror Camp and who probably were being shown the modern Glyn Hughes Hospital so near, and in such contrast.
I am going to the trial in Luneberg on Monday. It opened two weeks ago, and should be very interesting; shall tell you all about it in a later letter.
I’ve decided a great deal of unnecessary expense is incurred, and time lost, in our Australian hospitals by admitting women and keeping them in hospital for certain operations! A Russian doctor from the camp borrowed our theatre one morning this week and brought with him the patient whom, I assume, was a Russian camp follower. No anaesthetic, nor pre-medication nor preparation of any kind. She walked out of the theatre afterwards and left for Russia the next day. Unfortunately, follow-up notes will not be possible!
On Tuesday last, 25th September, I was invited to Camp 1 to the unveiling of a Jewish memorial to the thousands of Jews who are buried there and the hundreds of thousands more who perished elsewhere. I think it was the Day of Atonement. Thousands of Jewish survivors (and there are about 9000 at present in this camp) and other DPs marched from the present camp carrying banners of blue and white with various mottoes. The granite memorial is erected near one of the immense graves holding thousands of nameless people who were either dead or died soon after liberation, before the British were able to evacuate them. We drove there and, standing on an elevated piece of ground, were able to -watch the seemingly endless procession as it approached. So many had been in the Horror Camp, and many had lost all their people there, while others had come to pay tribute to their unfortunate fellows who knew no earthly liberation. While we were waiting for the ceremony to commence, I was introduced to Brigadier Glyn Hughes, who did such famous work at Belsen. I asked him to point out the perimeter of the actual area in which the victims of Nazi brutality had been confined: ⅘ × ⅖ of a mile only, in which more than 50 000 living and unburied dead had been concentrated.
The ceremony was in Yiddish and the Rabbi, who spoke from one of the German observation posts, was evidently very melodramatic for he moved the multitude so that the sobbing came as the soft twittering of many birds in distant trees at dusk. It was terrible. I stood on the bonnet of our car and was able to look down on the crowd, mostly young men and women. You could pick out many of those who had been in the Horror Camp—their hair had grown fine and sparse, due to illness and starvation. One officer, pointing out the observation posts, told me that when the prisoners broke through just before liberation and many of the SS guards had either been killed or fled, the Hungarian soldiers had target practice from these fourteen or fifteen elevated posts surrounding the area. They are the creatures who now strut about here and do as little work as they can. We hear they may be returning to Hungary soon and no one will miss them, I am sure.
Displaced persons at Mass Grave No. 6, Belsen, 1945
The other day, Wille Lubbe, a German Jewish DP and one of the interpreters at the Hospital, burst into my office waving a bundle of papers—all his credentials, identity cards, personal papers, which he had hidden in France two and a half years ago from the Gestapo. He was overjoyed and almost hugged me. ‘Worth more than millions of francs to me,’ he cried. He fought in the International Communist Brigade in the Spanish War also and now is entering Hospital with Tb. ‘I am now a man of honour,’ he explained, ‘and I could return to France where I had worked in the Underground Movement, but I prefer to stay until the last SS man is killed.’
This is the story of his experiences as he wrote it:
I have been six years in three different concentration camps. When the civil war in Spain was lost, we were obliged to find shelter and protection in France. It was in February 1939, the French Government at this time sent us all into concentration camps. We were badly treated. During our years we were slave workers. Then came the German invasion of Holland, Belgium and France. The French Authorities delivered me to the German Gestapo. After six months in jail without a trial I was sent to the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen, because I was anti-Nazi and fought in Spain against Germany.
During the last two years I have seen terrible things. It is unbelievable that human beings can be so cruel and horrible as the German SS and Gestapo—only to have cut a small piece of leather, a Pole was given fifty strokes, beaten and hanged. We were obliged to see it, not daring to look right or left—this we always had to do when anyone was hanged. There were people every day being shot, and made to suffer all imaginable tortures before death. I saw many young people from all over Europe marked with black crosses on their faces, locked together with hand-cuffs and iron chains on their legs, then they were taken into a barrack room without beds or blankets, and for food they were given a small piece of bread, water once a day, and every third day a small bowl of poor soup. They had to exercise the whole day by rolling on the ground, kneeling up and down until exhausted, and then were shot. We heard them cry by day and night.
I was treated a little better because there was so much work and we were cheap slaves, who could be taken anywhere-white gold, as the SS said. In the morning, before going to work, we were given half a pint of soup or black coffee, twice daily bettersaves (some kind of potato cake) often without potatoes; green stuff we never saw. Before going to work we marched from our barracks to the Square in perfect order, then we were counted. The same in the evening when we were marched back to our barracks, very tired, after twelve hours’ hard work. On Sunday, we worked till midday but if some of our barracks had not marched in perfect order, or for any other thing—and there was always something wrong—we had to exercise and sing to make believe we were happy.
It is impossible to explain everything the SS found out to make us suffer. We could write home—though there were many who were not allowed—and we were only allowed to say, I am all right, send parcels and money. Our families sent parcels and money, but most of it disappeared. Nazi newspapers were allowed us to read, these we had to pay for ourselves in some way and by them we knew the whole world was working for our liberty. We got news from somewhere of what was going on, that the Allies and Russians were coming. The SS tried to find out where we got the news from, but it was in vain. They took some of our comrades who were known as politicians and the SS tortured and shot them.
In February this year all sick people and I were sent to the camp at Belsen, were told we were going to a lovely sanatorium. I never believed it; when we arrived we all knew we were sent to Belsen Camp to die. By this time, it was being called by the inmates The Camp of Death. First we had to stand for three hours in the rain and cold; the SS tried to count us, but it was impossible because we were all sick and weak. Hundreds lay on the wet ground completely exhausted from the march to the camp from the station, and there were hundreds more dying. All the time we were well guarded by SS shouting and pushing us with guns. The camp was overcrowded with people—no more barracks empty—it rained through the roof, windows were broken, no beds or straw, so we had to spend the night and following days changing with those who slept on the foul and wet ground, and when the barracks were completely full, the rest had to stay outside. Sleep was impossible, because of those who cried in their misery with hunger and pains. Every day in the morning, there were hundreds of deaths, those we had to carry out of the barracks into the square. One day we had 2000; it was because we got every day other columns of sick and dying from other camps. And often lorries full of dead bodies. I worked in the hospital and we noted the deaths daily and must give it to the SS every morning.
In the last six weeks before the English liberated the camp we had 35 000 deaths from ill treatment, typhus and starvation. The total amount of deaths in the camp since I came is more than double that number. During the night, people were obliged to sleep with those who died; there was nothing to be done, you simply pushed the dead bodies on one side, so that one could occupy his place and have a little more room. People became like animals, they took away the food and bread of those who were sick and helpless. The most awful thing was, we found in the mornings bodies cut open and the liver taken out to eat; this was done without it being cooked. It was impossible to find out whether the person was dead or alive when this was done. Another day I saw thirty bodies without ears (cut off) and several where the muscles of the buttocks and backs of the legs had been cut away for food. In April, I fell sick with typhus and then our liberators came. Every one who could rise from his miserable bed went to see and to cheer them, and those who could not go wept, kissing and shouting for joy. I can’t express our feelings of thankfulness, knowing that suffering is no more. No more ill treatment; to be again a human being with kindness and help everywhere.
Now the greatest and most noble work for our English liberators came. We were all evacuated into hospital, first the women and children and then the men. We have now clean beds, good food and are treated with so much kindness by our English sisters and orderlies. To the Sister of my ward I wish to express here my most heartfelt thankfulness and deepest feelings to her. She was our Mother, never tired to help us and glad to see us happy. I will never forget Sister and will remember always what she had done for us, representing the worthy, noble and gallant English.
(Signed)
Lubbe, Willy
Interpreter Glyn Hughes Hospital
Belsen, Camp, 18th September 1945
The tragedy of Willi Lubbe is that sometime later he became mentally ill, and after causing a good deal of disturbance in the village in his endeavour to destroy the last SS man, the British Army Authorities placed him in a German mental asylum and we do not know his fate. It seems too awful that he is again in ruthless German clutches, whatever his political views.
I took a day off and went to Lübeck last week. The ambulance on the front seat of which I travelled was bound for various places, taking DPs who were looking for relatives. We drove round Hamburg looking for the Swedish Kirk and in so doing passed through a different part of the city to that which I had previously seen. The warehouse region on the canals was completely devastated, whole blocks of buildings drunkenly disgorging their interiors into the canal, and enormous piles of rubble not yet cleared away. I thought of Lenka and the other girls. Then we drove through the outer suburbs with leafy gardens and attractive houses, and through a pretty little village called Oldsloe and on to the Autobahn for twelve miles. We passed a British car and vehicle park, all wired off. The trucks and cars were packed side by side all the way. I’ve never seen so many, probably being collected from all over the British area and mostly in very good condition and no longer required by the Army. Another section of the Autobahn was similarly turned into an enormous petrol dump. Lubeck was considerably damaged, but some attractive old buildings still stand. We saw huge food queues, but the shop windows were practically empty. We left Belsen at 8.30 am in clear, sunny, crisp weather and arrived back at 7.30 pm.
Two of my German nurses were arrested the day before yesterday by our Security Officers as a number of patients were dissatisfied with the nursing they received from them, and signed statements to the effect that they had made anti-British remarks and that one has stated that ‘she had been a Nazi, was a Nazi and always would be a Nazi’. The German Matron nearly had a stroke when I told her they were to pack up and be ready for the guard at 5 pm. Off they marched and are now in jail and will shortly be transferred to Hamburg. I hope it will have a salutary effect on the rest of the staff!
Later
Today is Sunday 30th September and I have just finished an uninterrupted round and spoken to every patient. Progress was slow; so many requested shoes, clothes, tooth-brushes and tooth paste, a routine cry these days. They love to talk and tell you ‘Keine Kleider, keine Schuen, jeine Zahnpaste,’ (’No clothes, no shoes, no toothpaste’), and show you their little bits of treasures. They are working very hard for an Exhibition of their handcrafts next week. It is wonderful what they can improvise—embroidery done with coloured threads drawn from old towels and rings, and brooches made from the tick mica windows of planes. They arrange artistic dishes of moss, toadstools and autumn leaves on their bedside lockers, and decorate their wards with sprays of branches of greenery.
We have had a good deal of trouble with the recent cut in rations. Although the calories are adequate, the diet lacks variety and the bulk they so dearly love—many a time we have had to tactfully quell an argument or protest lodged by half the ward, out of bed and chattering in the excitable Continental way.
We have, with great difficulty, managed to obtain one pint of raw milk for each of our Tb patients daily. Since this milk was available, much cheese-making has taken place. Each bed, door knob and water-tap in the ward has its muslin bag suspended and filled with the precious milk, which they keep until sour and then leave so that the buttermilk will ooze through and drip either onto the floor or into a jar conveniently placed, according to the standards of the individual. They love it, the sourer the better; they call it Quark. Now what would you do? Have the cheese made in the kitchen, deprive them of much joy and interest but at the same time produce a healthier, easier and cleaner ward? See what you could do to persuade them to drink the nice sweet raw milk, and probably die of frustration and a broken heart in the process? Smile encouragingly, overlook the drips, ignore the quantities of jars full of smelly souring milk placed on every available chair or table, and admire the juicy bags of cream cheese and die happy? I am doing the latter, for the time being anyway.
The Head burst in today; her visits are never very satisfactory, always in too much of a hurry to give one a chance to discuss problems. Things must be pretty serious, I think, as UNRRA’s plans have been changed and an agreement is to be signed with the Army next week. All very hush, hush but it was hinted that we may have greater responsibilities with the German population (bombed-out and displaced), and leave the DPs to be nursed in German hospitals.
Can you imagine anything more cruel? I mentioned that I doubted whether the staff would agree to this, as it was not the work they’d come to do—she said it was probably what we’d have to do—so I reserved my opinion on that and said no more!
This letter is untidy and meandering but the best I can do under present circumstances. So please excuse. I read tonight in one of the few up-to-date papers we see that the Japs are not as subdued as we would like and that we are landing troops in Java, etc. Don’t you believe that the Germans are beaten either—and if anyone ever tells you that the only Nazi you can trust is a dead one, he is probably correct.
You will notice from this letter the name of the Camp has been changed from Belsen to Hohne—a tiny village nearby. Psychologically this is a very good move, particularly as so many DPs who were never in Belsen Concentration Camp are coming in at present.
We lost our housekeeper the week after she arrived—no loss really because she did no work at all and was very disagreeable about her posting to Belsen.
The autumn tints are lovely now—crimson and golden maples and birches, and red squirrels among the carpet of russet leaves. Today is cold and bleak and so dark that I was forced to light my baby lantern at 4 pm.
The cheese making in the wards still flourishes but the smell was so bad yesterday that I reluctantly had to stop it—those who prefer Quark in preference to raw milk will have it made in the kitchen in future. I hated having to take this bit of pleasure from them but the sky’s the limit and the wards smelt to high heaven!
We hear that the Russians are driving the Germans out of Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Eastern European States at half an hour’s notice—they say thousands are dying on the way and in the trucks on arrival in Berlin.
Evidently, the tables have turned and the Dictatorship, with all its horrors, is working the other way now. Anyway, what’s in a name? From what I can gather, Nazism and Communism are much the same in principle and practice.
My hands are so cold I can scarcely hold the pen so must conclude this epistle.
