BY July the two children’s blocks, together with our three big tents had become a real hospital of which we were immensely proud. Gradually the Red Cross had taken over, supplying all the necessary personnel.
Our chief problem was now tuberculosis which we saw in every form of its known manifestations. We had many cases in the early stages of the primary complex, that is to say, in the still curable phase; many others in whom the disease had generalized and who were bound to die. These comprised the most pathetic group of all, as we could do so little for them. They lay, getting more bony every day, with bright feverish eyes clouded with pain. They begged us always for water or food or just help to bear their weakness, as we passed. It just broke our hearts to see them so.
Then there was a group of children between ten and sixteen who had developed the adult form of tuberculosis. I found a number of them living amongst the children in the well block, altogether about twenty. We saw every form of unusual complication, including two cases with tuberculous mastoids who became so bad that they had to be operated upon. One was a particularly difficult case, a Dutch girl, Olga by name. Her ear was pushed right forward, giving her a curious one-sided appearance, and I decided that an operation was necessary. Her lungs were badly affected and hence the anaesthetic was a major problem. However, we found a first-class anaesthetist in one of the Army hospitals, who arranged to give her an intravenous anaesthetic. The next problem was the surgeon, for this was a very difficult and technically expert matter, only to be undertaken by a surgeon used to this form of ear, nose, and throat surgery. For some time we had been employing a fairly large number of German doctors and nurses in the hospital area. Many of these had turned out very well, rather contrary to our expectations. First we regarded them with. suspicion, expecting them to show callousness or active dislike for the patients, but soon we found that such attitudes were quite the exception. They did exactly what they were told in the children’s department, though some of them were rather curiously trained, by our standards. Mostly they worked well, and several became really fond of the children and gave their services with much more than mere professional skill. In one case, where a young German nurse had shown particular affection to the children, I managed to obtain an interview for her with her ‘man’, whom she had not seen for over two years, when he was suddenly heard of in a nearby German prisoner-of-war camp. Indeed, by now it was surprising how happily the day’s routine in the hospital was carried out by an astonishingly mixed nursing staff consisting of English sisters, British V.A.D’s—drawn from all kinds of organizations, such as the Girl Guides—German nurses and a host of internee ‘helpers’. In the ‘well block’ Miss Fernandes, a tall Englishwoman, helped by a certain charming Miss England, managed nearly a hundred children. Hence, when now we heard that there was a German ear, nose, and throat surgeon in the camp, we were not averse to employing him in this case. Any fears we might have entertained were immediately dispelled, however, when he came round to see the little girl. He was about five foot ten, of rather slender build, with grey hair and charming, frank, blue, smiling eyes. He seemed very competent and the operation was arranged for the next day. The operating theatre was merely a converted kitchen in one of the blocks. The lighting was indifferent and the washing arrangements primitive, but it is the sugreon who matters on such an occasion, not the theatre.
The child was anaesthetized and he got to work. I assisted him, acting as house surgeon. His work was perfect. He chiselled away the rotten bone, laid bare the big lateral vein, which runs through the bone in this area, with great skill and care. While I stood there, holding the wound open for him and assisting him, I suddenly realized the extraordinary situation. Here we were in Belsen Camp, a first-class German surgeon, an Irish physician and a Scottish anaesthetist, trying to save the life of a poor little Jewish girl whom the whole state mechanism of that part of the world had been organized to kill. We were pouring out all the skill that each of us had learned down the years. We were working for no possible reward. We were just doctors and as doctors brothers in our fight against our eternal enemies—pain, disease, and death. When the operation was over I thanked him and shook hands. He came in each day and dressed the wound himself. He took infinite care.
Months later when I came back to Germany again I met him quite suddenly one day. We both recognized each other simultaneously, held out our right hand for the other to clasp and smiled into each other’s eyes, as friends do who meet again.
One day two Swedish doctors arrived and told us that the evacuation to Sweden of all the sick from Belsen was to begin shortly, They came and looked at the children and invited me to go up to their head-quarters at Lübeck and make detailed arrangements. The evacuation date for us was settled for some three weeks ahead.
That night we felt a queer sadness come over us. This was, then, the end. We must take our children to the far north and leave them there, say good-bye and go away—we looked at each other, but could not frame a word. It had to be and yet these were our children now. We’d come with them from terror to happiness. We’d seen them eat, laugh, and sing again.
‘Let’s give them a party that they’ll remember always,’ we said.
A gala day, that was the thing!—I put it to the other Irishmen: Paddy MacClancy, Nigel Kinnear, and Spud Murphy. They seized upon the idea and tossed it up and down. Captain Lindley was brought in. He took it very seriously. A committee was instantly formed. There would be horse-racing of course, sports for the troops, a car race backwards, and a children’s party, all followed by a dance. We fell to arguing about the different events. All were agreed that horses were the thing! To an outsider it might seem that Belsen was an unlikely place to organize horse-racing. But actually, due to the Hungarians, the camp was full of horses. Some, like Bandergoose, were thoroughbreds used to galloping across the open plains, others, which were employed to draw wooden four-wheeled wagons up and down the camp, were more plebeian. We knew the horses fairly well from our early morning rides and had tried them at a few small timber jumps. They took these well sometimes, but clearly had not been trained to jump. We decided, however, that a steeplechase was essential.
In the end a complicated programme was arranged. First of all ten Hungarian wagons were to be decorated with flowers and flags and the convalescent children from the hospital and all the ‘well’ children were to be driven up to the big open parade ground. Here they were to be paraded down the course, past a reviewing box, into which we confidently expected to collect all the brass hats in the place. This opening event was to be followed by a relay race, the children each riding a soldier down the straight. Then we settled a bicycle polo match and a backing car race. After this we felt it would be necessary to have a pause, which would be nicely filled in by the children’s party. A steeplechase and a flat race would constitute the grand finale. Then somebody thought of a pipe band and it was decided to ask the Gordons, who were quartered in the vicinity. They accepted at once and supplied a most elaborate programme of pipe music, marching and counter-marching, all very serious and detailed.
We had the band. Now we felt we must live up to it. There was a great deal of argument on the committee, which divided itself rapidly into two main groups—the horsy-minded and the anti-horsy-minded. They were about equal and we got pretty angry with each other. The people organizing the dance wanted all the flags, whereas the others felt that a gymkhana without flags wouldn’t be a gymkhana at all. They all complained that I wouldn’t take it seriously enough, that the dignity of the British Army was involved and that if I wasn’t court-martialled for lèsemajesté, they probably would be.
Admittedly I had been sitting in a corner with Miss Daniell, drawing up a pseudo race card on which Queen Wilhelmina and Field-Marshal Montgomery appeared as patrons at the top and Messrs. Kinnear, Murphy, and MacClancy as official book-makers at the bottom, with more libellous suggestions in between.
However, finally the main events were agreed upon, and subcommittees set up. Lindley and MacClancy were to arrange the course, get a stand built and erect jumps. Mrs. Burrows was to arrange the ‘tea’ for the children, Han to decorate the Hungarian wagons and arrange which children went in each, and Nigel Kinnear was to be general transport officer and see that everybody got to the right place at the right time. I was detailed to interview the Belgian medical students and see if they would like to add to the general chaos by organizing a rag. Unfortunately they don’t ‘rag’ in Belgium and the best I could get them to do was to drive about dressed up in lorries and look self-conscious.
The day dawned grey and wet and it looked as if the whole thing would have to be called off. About twelve o’clock it lifted a little and as the Gordons had turned up with seven officers, including their magnificent-looking kilted colonel, with a complete pipe band, and Mrs. Burrows had obtained an enormous consignment of strawberries and ice-cream, we decided to go on, rain or not.
Now commenced a desperate last-minute rush to get everything ready. The Hungarians arrived with their carriages rather early. They had groomed their horses till they shone and decorated the harness with enormous bunches of jasmine. They were in great heart and laughed and cheered as the children poured out of their quarters, all dressed up in their national costumes, with garlands in their hair. Then a flag crisis occurred. First the Hungarians refused to drive if the Red Flag with the hammer and sickle was used on any of the wagons. Luba insisted. There was nearly a fight. Finally it was not hung out of the wagon, but only twisted round it and all was well. Then the Union Jack got lost. Actually it had been pinched by a lady of doubtful morals, whose behind it showed off to perfection when she appeared in it later, made into a skirt.— But what were we to fly over the grandstand where all the colonels were to be put to take the salute? Finally a Norwegian flag was selected. It was felt that Norway was a country about which nobody had any unpleasant thoughts.
Then transport difficulties became acute. The Twenty-first Army Group had selected this particular afternoon for the first evacuation party to leave for Sweden. This entailed getting the right five hundred people into a hospital train, a task which required the attention of all the senior officers and most of the vehicles in the camp. About two o’clock I became desperate and called upon Miss Barker to find me one of our Belgian drivers who had got lost. She searched in vain for some time and then asked one of the Dutch drivers if he knew where his colleague was. He pointed to a house down the road. Miss Barker went in. She came out pretty quickly, a funny expression on her face.
‘It’s a situation calling for a doctor clearly,’ she said. I went in. I mounted to the first floor, I knocked on a door. A voice said, ‘Entrez,’ I entered. There was our driver in bed with three girls.
‘What do you think you’re doing—at this hour?’ was all I could think of to say.
‘Trying to keep warm,’ he said.
He looked bad enough. I took his temperature. It was 104°.
Some way or another we got everybody up to the course. The soldiers, the pipe band, the motor-cars, the horses, the ice-cream and lastly the children in the Hungarian wagons. The latter presented a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle. There were ten of them decorated and beflagged. Luba was in the first. She had taken charge. Seizing the reins from the Hungarian driver she drove herself. Behind her she had collected her favourite children. There she sat, one rein in each hand, two red roses in her hair, her head high, her curls floating out behind. The wagon became a chariot. First she trotted, then she cantered, then she galloped. The wagon swayed from side to side. But she did not care. This was her moment. Forgotten were all the tragedies of her life, the debasement and torture of Auschwitz, the horror at Belsen, she was free once more, galloping across the earth as she had done long ago on her father’s farm in the east. As she came down the straight she began to sing.
All the colonels and majors were late. The situation had been saved by a person called Lady Abraham, who, taking her position as Vice-president as a compliment, rather to our surprise, filled—and she was able to fill—the grandstand till the others arrived. As the ‘high’ officers came up I rushed them to the stand and introduced them to Lady Abraham. I found them eyeing me rather suspiciously and then remembered that I was wearing a green, yellow, and white jersey which MacClancy had given me as my colours for the steeplechase. That and the Norwegian flag, they seemed to feel, was not altogether ‘playing the game’. However, having got them into the box, they couldn’t very well get out again and they soon settled down to take any salutes which might be necessary and generally play their part as important personages.
From now on, event followed event in rapid succession, sometimes as planned, sometimes as not, but always with success.
The troops, who were supposed to have run a relay race with the children on their backs, all got mixed up and were started off in a mass. They came galloping along, however, quite happily, jostling each other and yelling funny English soldier words, while the children on their backs screamed in every European language except English. The race was won by a corporal with long legs and a great chest on him, upon whose back was perched a little laughing girl who clung resolutely to his hair.
The backing car race was spectacular, all right. It was run in heats, four at a time. The cars had to back in and out of posts along the course and then race back to the starting post forwards.
The Matron of the Twenty-ninth General Hospital, who also came from Dublin, got a post under her in the first heat and had to be lifted off, car and all. There was a lot of noise and shouting. In the end Paddy MacClancy won in Kramer’s monstrous S.S. wagon in a cloud of dust.
Then came the children’s tea-party. They were brought into two huge marquees and seated at long trestle tables. There were five kinds of different cakes, some sugary, some creamy. There were strawberries and quantities of ice-cream. The colonels waited on them. There was almost complete silence as the children ate. The gipsies sat together in a group. At first they ate rapidly, with a cake in each hand, and a full plate before them. Gradually as they discovered that supplies were apparently inexhaustible, they slowed down to a steady munch. Toni’s stomach gradually filled, then it dilated like a football, finally when it could hold no more he silently filled his pockets with ice cream, strawberries and cake.
Outside the tents, about fifteen yards away, I saw a group of four German children sitting on a bank. They were watching the party silently. One’s reaction, in spite of the fact that their parents had been part of the nation who had decided to eliminate all Jews and Gipsies and thus murder these children within the tents, was to invite them in. I said nothing, however, but wondered whether the memory of this tea, to which they had not been invited, would in after years stimulate in these German minds an insatiable desire for revenge, or act as a deterrent, when the desire to reach a goal outside the law of life again presented itself to them.
After tea the children were led back to their wagons, which were lined up as stands for the horse-races.
The flat race was not very spectacular, except for one Hungarian horse which managed to get its rider to loose his stirrups and then set off like a train, passing right through the crowd and over a barbed wire entanglement and off home to its stable without mishap, while its unhappy rider tugged hopelessly at its iron mouth.
The steeplechase, on the other hand, supplied all the necessary thrills for both spectators and riders. There were just four of us: Pte. Collins riding a big bay horse rather like an Irish hunter, Captain Lindley on his grey Hungarian near-thoroughbred, an R.A.M.C. captain and myself on two fiery Hungarian thoroughbreds. Neither of the latter had been trained to jump, and it was problematical how they would behave when they came to the hurdles, of which Lindley had set up four round the course. The race was twice round. We were all very nervous at the start and said we were all going to take the first hurdle cautiously. But when the flag was lowered, the horses went off like V.2’s, as if propelled from behind. Collins’s horse took the lead and went over the first hurdle perfectly. Bandergoose jumped sideways to the right, the chestnut sideways to the left and the grey followed quietly. And so it went on. About the third jump the chestnut stumbled, as he landed from a curious angle, and the captain was thrown heavily. He was winded. The crowd thought he was dead. Excitement rose. Bandergoose jumped every way. Sideways to the right or to the left, three feet over the top, refused altogether and only jumped a wing or took it quite like a professional. The grey came on behind without enthusiasm. About half-way in the second round I realized that there were only two more jumps to be faced. The bay was about twenty-five yards ahead going along like a train, taking his jumps slowly, but never faltering.
Suddenly I felt a wild desire to win this race. I had wanted all my life to win a steeplechase. So now in Belsen I set myself to achieve this ambition. Everything depended on the next two jumps. If Bandergoose would take them, going full out without turning off, we might catch the bay on the curve. I sat well forward in the saddle with my hands on each side of his neck and keeping his head very straight I rode him at the first hurdle. Bandergoose came up to it on the right foot, took off and flew it perfectly, gaining nearly ten yards on the bay. We rode on for the next. He repeated his performance and gained another ten yards. Collins did not realize we had got up so close and we were alongside him coming down the hill, before he knew what was happening. We turned into the straight and came down past the winning post, almost flat on the horses’ necks, flogging their sides with our small switches. Bandergoose just did it. He was blowing like a grampus as he passed the post a length ahead. In that last gallop I had forgotten everything in the world except the race and a quite crazy desire to beat Collins and win. Now as I reined up, the world I lived in came back. There was Luba almost falling out of the wagon, bright red in the face. Beside her Hermina waved a coloured handkerchief. And behind the children yelled and cheered.
‘Well, you ought to have been disqualified,’ Lindley said ‘for going round that jump. Here give me back that bottle,’ he added, removing the bottle of whisky which Lady Abraham had just handed to me as my prize. ‘You know I supplied the stuff myself.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘you’d better take the gin off Paddy as well’ He did, and went off, muttering something about ‘the grey mare being the only real steeplechaser and the rest just a lot of bloody kangaroos’.
A few days later we had a ceremony of surpassing beauty. Ariana Szerenyi and Tibor Mikko made their first Communion. A ward had been transformed into a little chapel, and the Vatican fathers came with three white French nuns. All our gipsies were invited. Ariana, dressed all in white, with a veil round her fair head, her blue eyes strangely alight, yet far off, knelt upon the floor and Tibor, tall and boyish, knelt beside. Behind Eva, Toni and Johnny sat upon three stools, their funny little paws clasped together as they had been taught, the muscles of their faces held rigidly. Only their wicked, gipsy, impish eyes danced round seeking to gain a smile from us.
One French Jesuit celebrated the Mass, kneeling in front of the altar, his broad back draped in the beautiful green vestment beneath which peeped out his khaki battle-dress. The other, our beloved Father Brand, served, kneeling beside. The rhythm of the ancient Latin words, carried us away beyond the little room wherein we knelt.
When the main service was over, all went out save Father Brand, Ariana, and Tibor. As I reached the door he said:
‘Wait a minute, Doctor, you are their father now.’
Then we all knelt down and he said a last prayer. The sunlight streamed in at the window, lighting the Belsen flowers upon the altar, and it seemed that God was there.
Now the Children’s Hospital in Belsen had become one of the happiest places that it is possible to imagine. A great number of different people contributed to make it so. A school was organized by an Army lieutenant and a number of able helpers, where the ‘well’ children attended every day and a remarkable girl, Stella Reekie, organized all sorts of recreations and concerts for those able to be up.
It was interesting to see how the different national groups of children looked after themselves. The most remarkable were the Russians, of whom there were seventeen, varying from about two to sixteen years. They had a big room of their own, furnished with double-tiered bunks. They decorated it with much greenery, bringing in branches of trees and framing Uncle Joe’s photograph in the middle with coloured garlands. They managed their affairs excellently, the big ones looking after the little ones. I examined them all as part of the general inspection, when the cases of open tuberculosis in the ‘well’ block were discovered. During my complete medical examination I did not find one case of nits or scabies amongst them. Their development was remarkable. I have never seen females with such tremendous legs. They were like tree trunks. Some were not at all ungainly, tapering from the hip down, but in all the muscles of the pelvic girdle were tremendous. Two of them, whose eyes danced with full young life, were extremely pretty, with charming open faces. Several were very musical. They all seemed conscious and proud of their nationality.
It must be admitted that our children did get a little spoilt. Nearly every afternoon the men of the R.A.F. arrived in enormous lorries and took parties of them out for picnics. It was a most satisfying sight to see the happy faces of the soldiers, as they shepherded the laughing children around.
One afternoon a private soldier from an English infantry regiment approached me while I was standing in front of one of the tents. He handed me a brown-paper parcel.
‘It’s like this, Doctor,’ he said, ‘Corporal Smith, ’e says to me, ’e says—be sure and give it to the doc, ’e says, ’cos it might make ’em sick. You see, sir, Corporal Smith is a family man like, if you see what I means.’ I couldn’t say I had, but by then I had untied the parcel. It contained the platoon’s complete, saved-up chocolate ration for three weeks.
Towards the end, when all fear had completely disappeared, we tried to introduce some disciplinary measures—particularly for the older children. It was excessively difficult to get them to do what they were told or to keep them in bed. Sometimes one who was suffering from tuberculosis, would slip out of bed and disappear for hours. Han found the best way to deal with them was to put them in an isolation ward for a specified time, and take away their clothes. But even so the task of getting them to understand that rules are made to be kept, and that orders must be obeyed, and that it is not a good thing to lie and pinch, had to be left, very largely, to the future. We felt indeed that somebody was going to have a very difficult time at some future date and would need much patience and love, if these children were ever to be fitted again into normal society.