THIS BOOK BRINGS TOGETHER the complete collection of letters written by Muriel Knox Doherty to her friends and relatives during her time as the Chief Nurse and Principal Matron of the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. Some preliminary editorial work had been carried out on these letters by Miss Doherty following her return to Australia, when she was attempting to gain their publication. At this time she selected which of her letters she wished to be published and this selection has been respected by us.
In editing the letters, we have made every attempt to retain the flavour and style of Miss Doherty’s writing. We have changed little, apart from standardising numbers and dates, correcting punctuation and the odd spelling mistake, or altering paragraphing. We have corrected grammar only where there was a glaring mistake or an obvious ambiguity in expression. Spelling that follows the conventions of the time has been retained throughout. Miss Doherty’s original text contained many exclamation marks, double exclamation marks and underlined words—many of these have been deleted. Wherever possible we have listed at the beginning of the book the meanings of the abbreviations used by Miss Doherty throughout the text.
We have chosen to use the name ‘Miss Doherty’ throughout, instead of ‘Muriel’—she would have found the use of her first name by anyone but close friends and relatives offensive. ‘Miss Doherty’ has therefore been used out of respect for this belief.
The supporting primary source material in this book has been selected from Miss Doherty’s own collection which is now held in the Yad Vashem Archives, Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem, Israel.
We are grateful to so many who have encouraged this publication: Judy Waters from JJ Editorial Services for putting us in touch with Elizabeth Weiss at Allen & Unwin, our publishers, to Meredith Rose and Colette Vella for their patience and editing talents, to Scooter Design for the wonderful cover and to the illustrator, Diane Booth, who so faithfully reproduced the hand-drawn maps.
We also extend our grateful thanks to the following people: Tony Cornell for all the assistance given during our time at the Yad Vashem Archives, where he willingly copied out pages of detailed material and gave advice and support; Dr Jaacov Lozowick, Director of the Yad Vashem Archives and his most helpful staff—in particular Judith Kleiman—for their assistance and permission to reproduce some of the material; and to the New South Wales College of Nursing, its Board (previously Council) and Executive Directors (Associate Professor Debora Picone and Professor Judy Lumby), for asking us to work on this manuscript and for supporting the visit to the Yad Vashem Archives.
R. Lynette Russell & Judith Cornell
Sydney, 1999