BERGEN-BELSEN 1945

A Medical Student's Journal

"
Michael John Hargrave
BERGEN-BELSEN 1945
A Medical Student’s Journal
 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

This page intentionally left blank

b1641_FM.indd ii 7/26/2013 10:10:28 AM

 BERGEN-BELSEN 1945
A Medical Student’s Journal

by

Michael John Hargrave

Imperial College Press

ICP
Published by
Imperial College Press
57 Shelton Street
Covent Garden
London WC2H 9HE

Distributed by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Front cover: A general view of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from outside the perimenter
fence, April 1945. © Imperial War Museium (BU 2768).

BERGEN-BELSEN 1945
A Medical Student’s Journal
Copyright © 2014 by Imperial College Press
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval
system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.

For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright
Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to
photocopy is not required from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-78326-320-2
ISBN 978-1-78326-288-5 (pbk)

Typeset by Stallion Press

Email: [email protected]

Printed in Singapore
 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

Dedicated to all who suffered in the Holocaust

b1641_FM.indd v 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

This page intentionally left blank

b1641_FM.indd vi 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

Foreword

In early May 1945, six Dakotas set off from an airfield near Cirencester and
crossed the Channel, heading for Celle in Germany. Their cargo was 95 medical
students, recruited hastily from six London medical schools — among them
21-year-old Michael Hargrave, midway through his studies at the Westminster
Hospital. The initial purpose of the exercise had been to assist starving civilians
in Holland, but there was a change of plan and the students were sent instead as
emergency back-up to assist in the care of survivors at the recently liberated
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The wartime experiences of these young men
had been confined to the Home Front — completing their matriculation and
Higher School Certificates and then starting their training at medical school. The
four weeks they spent at the camp tested both their medical skills and their per-
sonal stamina to an unimaginable degree.
The camp at Bergen-Belsen presented a humanitarian disaster of colossal pro-
portions. Its history within the Nazi camp system was somewhat unusual — it had
been a so-called ‘exchange camp’ where inmates were held with a view to pos-
sible exchange for German prisoners of war. But, by April 1945, its population
had risen considerably as the Nazis moved thousands of camp survivors out of
camps in Poland and sent them west — either by cattle truck or on foot. The camp
commandant, Josef Kramer, notoriously failed to provide for the needs of his
suddenly hopelessly overcrowded camp and the German Army surrendered the
camp to the British under a special truce, some three weeks ahead of the actual
German capitulation.
When the British arrived on 15 April, the first and most urgent task was to bury
the bodies of some 10,000 camp inmates who had died. The Army medical
authorities were then faced with the massive task of saving those they could
whilst at the same time preventing the spread of disease. An evacuation plan was
drawn up which would eventually see the inmates of Camp 1 cleaned, disinfected
and transferred from the camp. But, before this could happen, each hut had to be

vii

b1641_FM.indd vii 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 14 Aug 2013 8:50 AM

viii Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal

cleared and disinfected and became a temporary hospital — albeit in very primi-
tive conditions.
Bespectacled and, in a team photograph, looking as though he is scarcely out
of school, Hargrave was put in charge of Hut 210. In his diary, Hargrave provides
a detailed account of how this place was gradually transformed into a temporary
hospital, pending the full evacuation of Camp 1. The students turned their hands
to all kinds of tasks, from hosing down the huts with creosol to making straw-
filled mattresses. Systems were established and nursing accommodation of sorts
was sectioned off within the hut. Hargrave is punctilious in describing the various
ailments he treated, providing drawings of particular surgical cases, such as a cyst
on an eyelid or tuberculous glands in the neck. The medical students soon became
experts in the particular diseases of the camp — diarrhoea, typhus and severe
malnutrition, as well as terrible sores, boils and gangrenous conditions — and
were able to make crucial interventions, for example persuading the Army Blood
Transfusion Service to stop giving transfusions to patients with severe oedema.
(Typhus weakened the heart and the patients could not take the treatment.)
Hargrave muses over the causes of the diarrhoea — was it mechanical or infec-
tive? And what were the implications for further liberations of camps in the Far
East? We have the impression of a youthful, enquiring man, slightly frustrated at
times to be missing the Victory celebrations in Britain, but totally focussed on the
needs of his patients.
We also get occasional glimpses of some of the wider protagonists in this
story: Dr Meiklejohn, the nutrition expert, gives them a talk about the challenges
the medical services faced on their arrival and there are subsequent briefings from
Colonel Johnston, the Senior Medical Officer in charge of the camp, and from
Brigadier Glyn-Hughes, Deputy Director of Medical Services.
The reader is aware that the conditions were appalling, but Hargrave concen-
trates mainly on the medical detail and on the vital organisational challenges
which ultimately saved many hundreds of lives. Diagrams provide a useful record
of the layout of various huts and facilities including the Human Laundry, where,
at 17 separate tables, four-strong teams of German nurses worked simultaneously
on one patient, washing them and powdering them with the now-banned pesticide
DDT. Not everyone had the necessary training for the task and at one point
Hargrave admonishes himself for not being there when an untrained nurse made
a fatal mistake. Again, Hargrave does not labour the point, and we also learn that
several of the medics contracted the diseases they were trying to treat — ‘several
chaps down with diarrhoea and vomiting’.

b1641_FM.indd viii 8/14/2013 8:48:56 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

Foreword ix

As Hargrave got to know some of his patients, the word ‘Auschwitz’ appears
in several reported conversations. But the full facts of what we now call the
Holocaust had yet to be fully understood. He teaches a young Polish survivor —
Zosia Wisniowksa — to speak English — a useful move as ward rounds are made
much more effective when language barriers are overcome. Hargrave seems a
little smitten by Zosia and she gives him her address in Krakow, although whether
they remained in touch is not known.
Hargrave’s account is one of several held by the Documents and Sound
Section at the Imperial War Museum (IWM). After the Bergen-Belsen Information
Centre itself, ours is the richest collection of material on the liberation and relief
operation at the camp, with no fewer than nine collections of private papers
deposited by former medical student volunteers. With the increased interest in
IWM as a resource for medical history, these diaries and letters have been used a
great deal by scholars and more ‘popular’ writers alike, keen to better understand
how the British military authorities dealt with this major human catastrophe.
Michael Hargrave’s account was one of the very first of the medical students’
records to be deposited in the IWM’s archive, being presented in 1968 prior to his
untimely death at the age of 50. As a result, his diary has been particularly widely
used, perhaps most notably by the historian Ben Shephard, whose book After
Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen 1945 (Pimlico, London, 2006) remains the
most detailed recent work on the relief of the camp. To have Michael Hargrave’s
informative and vivid account published is an invaluable addition to the literature
on this subject.

Suzanne Bardgett
Head of Research
Imperial War Museum
London, June 2013

b1641_FM.indd ix 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

This page intentionally left blank

b1641_FM.indd x 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 14 Aug 2013 8:50 AM

Amnesty International UK

When the young Michael Hargrave arrived in Belsen he found himself faced with
unspeakable horrors. He and his fellow students provided basic medical care as
the world was only just beginning to comprehend the crimes inflicted in Nazi
concentration camps. As international outrage grew, so too did momentum for a
global human rights agenda to say ‘never again’. In 1948 the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted. It was the first document to
agree common, global terms for what we know to be right and just.
Amnesty International is rooted in the UDHR. We believe in the power of
ordinary people to make extraordinary change, just as Michael Hargrave and his
comrades did at Bergen-Belsen. And we find, over and again, that the act of bear-
ing witness to atrocities and injustice is invaluable on the path to understanding
and changing for the better. Michael bore meticulous witness in his journal and,
even in publication nearly 70 years later, it still has much to teach us today.
Amnesty International’s vision is of a world where everyone enjoys all our
human rights. In pursuit of this we undertake research and action focussed on
preventing and ending grave abuses. You can find out more and take action your-
self at www.amnesty.org.uk.

The Human Rights Action Centre

17–25 New Inn Yard
London EC2A 3EA
020 7033 1500
[email protected]
www.amnesty.org.uk

xi

b1641_FM.indd xi 8/14/2013 8:48:56 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

This page intentionally left blank

b1641_FM.indd xii 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 14 Aug 2013 8:50 AM

Rotary and Polio

Rotary began its PolioPlus campaign to immunise the children of the world
against polio in 1985, following an extremely successful immunisation campaign
in the Philippines.
In 1988 Rotarians were joined in their fight by WHO, UNICEF and CDC, and,
in 2009, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
It is estimated that there were at least 1,000 cases of paralytic polio occurring
every day at the start of the campaign, but records were incomplete in those days.
By 2010 that figure had dropped to 1,000 in the whole year, and in 2012 there
were just 223 infected children — although still 223 too many.
At the start of the campaign, polio was endemic in most countries in the world.
That figure now stands at just three — Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Over US$12 billion has been spent so far, and over 2 billion children have
been immunised at a cost of US$0.60 each.
However, as long as there remains one unimmunised child, the risk of polio
recurring still exists.
The aim of Rotary International and its partners is to eradicate the virus from
the face of the earth. Don’t forget, polio is just a plane ride away.

PolioPlus
c/o Rotary Foundation UK
Kinwarton Road
Alcester
Warwickshire B49 6BP
01789 765411
[email protected]

xiii

b1641_FM.indd xiii 8/14/2013 8:48:56 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

This page intentionally left blank

b1641_FM.indd xiv 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

Dr Michael John Hargrave LRCP. MRCS.

MRCGP.
8 December 1923–25 July 1974

Michael Hargrave was born in Simla, India, where his father, a decorated First
World War pilot, was posted while serving in the Royal Air Force. He was the
eldest of two boys and was educated at Harcourt Preparatory School at Weyhill,
and then attended St Edward’s School, Oxford. In 1942, after leaving school, he
went to King’s College London University and then to Westminster Hospital to
undertake his clinical training to become a doctor.
In April 1945, Michael, 21 years old and in his fourth year of medical school,
responded to a notice: ‘please sign below’. At first, he and the 95 volunteers were
not told what they were signing up for, but they were later informed they were

xv

b1641_FM.indd xv 7/26/2013 10:10:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

xvi Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal

being sent to Holland to assist starving civilians. On the day of departure, how-
ever, the medical students learnt that their destination had been changed: they
were now bound for the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in
north-western Germany.
With no doctors available, the camp was in dire need of medical assistance
and, to this end, the medical students had been drafted in to help. During his
month-long experience at the camp, Michael kept a journal for his mother, and it
is this which is published in its entirety here. It gives a clear insight into the hor-
rendous conditions under which the prisoners were living and the tireless attempts
made by the British troops and medical students to try and help these unfortunate
people. The diary provides many detailed descriptions of diseases encountered
within the camp, and these are interspersed amongst more ‘light-hearted’ entries
recounting the minutiae of day-to-day life.
Upon returning from Bergen-Belsen, Michael qualified as a doctor in January
1947 and worked for a year as a houseman at Westminster Hospital. In 1948, he
married a nurse from the hospital, Joy Thompson, and, after two years of National
Service in the RAF in Kenya, he returned to the UK to become a general practi-
tioner (GP) in Wootton Bassett. He worked there for 24 years but sadly, in 1974,
he was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died at the age of 50. He is survived
by his wife and two children. In 1953, both his children developed polio. David,
his son, recovered fully, but his daughter Sally, aged nine months, was admitted
to an isolation hospital for two months and then spent a further three months in
hospital; she was left with a paralysed right leg. She had several operations over
the next few years and the first birthday she was able to celebrate at home was
her fourth birthday. In adult life she became a successful shorthand typist, while
David followed in his father’s footsteps and became a GP in Portland, Dorset.

b1641_FM.indd xvi 7/26/2013 10:10:30 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 14 Aug 2013 8:50 AM

Diseases at Bergen-Belsen

Epidemic Typhus
Typhus is a disease caused by the Rickettsia prowazeki bacteria. It occurs in over-
crowded and unhygienic conditions as found in army camps or jails. As such, it
is often called ‘jail fever’. An infected person is bitten by a louse which sucks his
blood and the louse becomes infected in turn. When a louse bites it defecates at
the same time and the bacteria is excreted in its faeces. It is the scratching of the
area of the bite that allows bacteria to penetrate the skin and be rubbed into open
wounds, causing the infection to spread to another person.
Following an incubation period of 7–14 days, the onset of illness is abrupt with
symptoms of prostration, severe headache, high fever, cough, photophobia, red-
ness of the conjunctiva and severe muscular pain. A rash appears on the fifth day,
mainly on the trunk. Confusion and coma are common. Untreated disease can
prove to be fatal in up to 40% of cases. Today, treatment is administered in the
form of doxycycline tablets.
At Bergen-Belsen there was a severe outbreak of typhus in February and
March 1945 and it is estimated that 20,000–30,000 people died from typhus,
typhoid, tuberculosis and dysentery.

Typhoid or Enteric Fever

Typhoid is caused by the bacteria Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Paratyphi. It

is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water or from close
contact with infected people. The incubation period is about two weeks. There is
usually a gradual onset of headache, aching in the limbs, tiredness, cough and
fever which typically intensify incrementally. At the end of the first week small
pink spots appear on the abdomen and chest known as ‘rose spots’. Most people
suffer from constipation for the first few days but in the second week the

xvii

b1641_FM.indd xvii 8/14/2013 8:48:57 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

xviii Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal

abdomen becomes distended and diarrhoea sets in — ‘pea soup stools’ up to 20

times a day. Patients become gravely ill and may lapse into a coma. Most patients
improve over three to four weeks but there is a mortality rate of about 15% in
untreated patients. Approximately 1–5% of patients become long-term carriers.
Today, the best way to avoid contracting typhoid is maintaining good food and
water hygiene, as well as being vaccinated against typhoid. The current treatment
for the disease is with antibiotics.

b1641_FM.indd xviii 7/26/2013 10:10:30 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

Acknowledgements

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Phillip Barlow, Senior Library
Assistant at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, who earlier this year read my
father’s journal and encouraged me to consider having it published. I would also
like to thank him for producing the valuable and informative glossary.
I am most grateful to Suzanne Bardgett, Head of Research at the Imperial War
Museum, for writing a most interesting and detailed foreword to this journal.
I would like to thank Getty Images, the Imperial War Museum and the Press
Association for granting licences for me to publish their images which I have
used in this book. I am also extremely grateful to the Evening News/Associated
Newspapers and Evening Standard/Independent for granting permission free of
charge to publish the newspaper cuttings which my father collected along the
way. Thank you.
A very big thank you must go to Imperial College Press for agreeing to publish
this journal. The staff have been extremely supportive in guiding me through the
process and special thanks must go to Alice Oven, Tasha D’Cruz, Roberta
Cucuzza, Dominic Graham and Tom Stottor for all their work in helping to
collate the book.
Poliomyelitis was one of the most feared childhood illnesses of the twentieth
century. It was not until 1955, when the first injectable Salk vaccine was
introduced in the UK, and 1957, when the oral Sabin vaccine drops given on
sugar lumps became available, that the disease was finally conquered. The Rotary
Club PolioPlus campaign in conjunction with The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation has virtually eradicated this disease around the world. It is their vision
that polio will be entirely eradicated in the near future. Unfortunately, the
vaccinations came a year or two too late for my family as my sister and I were
affected by polio in 1953. If my father were still alive now I know he would have
supported this cause. I would like to thank Dr Keith Barnard Jones, the UK lead

xix

b1641_FM.indd xix 7/26/2013 10:10:30 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_FM 26 Jul 2013 10:12 AM

xx Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal

in the PolioPlus campaign, for his enthusiastic support in the promotion of this
publication.
The appalling abuse of human rights in Belsen during the Second World War
shocked the entire world and it is my belief that the protection and defence of
human rights is of great importance to prevent such colossal abuse from recurring.
For this reason I have always been an admirer of the work of Amnesty
International and I would like to thank Nicky Parker and Maggie Paterson from
Amnesty International UK for their help and support in promoting the book.
For the above reasons I am pleased to donate all royalties from this book to be
shared equally between Amnesty International and the Rotary Club PolioPlus
campaign.
My final thanks must go to my mother for giving permission to allow my
father’s journal to be published. I hope she will be pleased with the completed book.

Dr David B. Hargrave

b1641_FM.indd xx 7/26/2013 10:10:30 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

t..

, ,

.BELSEN-BERGEN. DIARY.

MAY 1945.

'I!

M.J. Hargrave,
V(estminster Hospital,
Lmdon.

b1641_Diary.indd 1 8/28/2013 8:41:57 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

This page intentionally left blank

b1641_Diary.indd 2 8/28/2013 8:42:03 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

~ J Rl#\Y April 28th .

Got up in battledress to - day and went to the Hospital. Met all the others

there - and as there was no new notice up did not expect to l eave . However

George ' oom{~rk phoned up the Red Cross at Lowndes street and they said that we

were to meet at 5, ~fllaes street at 2 o 1clock in the afternoon .

Just before lunch we were told that we were going to be photographed for

a ?ress Agency so we had to get into all our equipment and then followed some

very faked photographs of me shaking hands with the Dean - supposed to be saying

good-bye .

After lunch we piled into taxis with all our equipment and drove off to

Lcwndes street - still rather doubtful if it wa s r eally true that we were off at

la~ t. These doubts were soon dispelled wh en we arr ived and found about 80

OUler students from the other Hospitals waiting on t he pavement .

After waiting for about half an hour we went ups ta irs and collected our

passports, military permits and cards bea ring our rank if we we re captured .

e were then told that we were not going to Holland at all - but the.t we
.
were going to Belsen Concentration Camp, thmt the Camp had been liberated for

10 days and that all they h .d succeeded in doing was to sepa rate the living from

the ci.ead; - this was the fir st news we ha d been given about going to Belsen but

we were all so excited about going, after a month of waiting , that we did not

think muoh about the change of destination .

b1641_Diary.indd 3 8/28/2013 8:42:03 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-2-

e were told that we would be going up to C!renoester by the

6.30 train and that we would be flying over the next morning; so

we hung around sitting on the steps of the nearby houses until about

4.30 when nine army lorries drove up to take us to Paddington.

Drove through London - after more Pr~s8 photographs had been

taken - singing Clementine etc. and eventually arrived at Paddington, .

where it began to rain, got OJ. t o the platform and were told that we

oould wander off and get some tea.

Derek ells and I joined a long queue and eventually got some

tea which was ·not worth drinking, and then went baok to the platform
to find that Lionel Garstin had got hold of a late edition of the
in it
Evening News, with a photograph/of us taken that morning outside
Westminster • .

Got on the train and we all se t ied down to read, the journey

passed quite quickly and the weather got progressively worse, until
when we arrived at Cirenoester it was raining, dark, and very oold,

- all our baggage got mixed up, blankets got extrePlely we - but

eventually we all managed to get aboard the lorries whioh were going
to take us to the Transit Camp.

e arrived at the Transit Camp after about a 20 minute drive

and as we got out of the lorries it began to snowl

Eventually after what appeared to be endless walking, all of

us from Westminster found ourselves oooupying a Nissen Hut No.5.,

whioh oontained 12 wooden beds with palliases and a stove whioh was

oompletely empty and on looking round we found that one of the

windows was broken so we had an ioy wind blOWing into . the hut.

b1641_Diary.indd 4 8/28/2013 8:42:09 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-3-

ent down to the Cookhouse, which was about 400 yards away

but seemed muoh further, .to bah a meal whioh was very welcome - the ·

time was about 10.30, we were told that the N.A.A.FH. would open

at llo'olook till 11.30 for us and that we were free to use the

Offioers Mesa.
e were also told that we would have to ~et up at 4.30 the next

morning with breakfast at 5.0 0 'clook.

e went to bed dressed in long pants, BWeaters, socka, and with

everything over us which we could lay hands on, and settled down to

a. cold and miserable night.

SUNDAY April 29th.

e had a very cold and miserable night - we were woken up at

4.30 by one of the cooks and dressed as quickly as we could in oraer

to keep warm. e went out to have a wash and found that the was h

house consisted of a wooden board set with taps, in a small oorrugated

iron shed which had no door and windows with no glass in them.

After a very skimpy was h , had breakfast. Came back to the hut,

paoked up ~ this time wrapping my blankets up in my waterproof oape,

and stagg ed out to where the lorries were waiting to take us to

the Airport.

e all piled on board and left the Transit Camp, forever as we

hoped, had ab~ut a 15 minute journey and then arrived at Down Aphny

Aerodrome, drove onto the Airs~rip and dismounted, we were then split

up into parties of 16, according to alphabetioal order, this made~ ix

b1641_Diary.indd 5 8/28/2013 8:42:15 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-4-

parties - I was in No.2. After about half an hour we got onto our

lorries in parties and were driven off to our pl~es which were

Dakotas. We loaded all our luggage on board and then waited. Af'ter

about an hour I got out my great-coat and put it on as it was so

cold and there was a howling .wind on the Airstrip.

Watohed the Aircraf't hands brushing the snow off the wings of

the Dakota and warming up the Engines. The rumour then came round

that there would be no flying until 12 o'olook.- it was then about

9 'o'olook and the sun was getting up nioely. So I got out my gloves
whioh had got soaked the night before and tried to dry them on the

tail of the Dakota.

At about a quarter to ' twelve we were all begilUling to feel very

hungry - but did not want to dig into our ntlons as we thought we

would need those on the journey. We were told that a N.A .A.F.I.
van would be ooming round at about 12 o'olook.

.
But just as the N.A.A.F.I. van oame into Sight: another lorry
. came up and we were all told to pile into it and leave our baggage
behind.

'We ~ere driven off to the CustODl8 Office, where we had our pass-

ports stamped and were asked if we had any Soap or letters of

Intoiuotion to anybo~ on the Continent •

. . ·-th~ *e-nt·; linti)'.' the next room where there was a .A.A. F

serving tea .and sandJ.'iohes t whioh we gobbled up. 'Ie were all very

amused to see an article in the Sunday Dispatoh saying that we had

flown over last night and landed in Germany.

b1641_Diary.indd 6 8/28/2013 8:42:21 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-5-

e were t hen told that we would not be flying to-day as although

t hessun was shining over here there were storms on the Continent, and

they were taking no chanoes as they had lost 2 Dakotas from th1S

Airport; within the last week; we all felt flattered about their oare

for our sa~ety but rather depressed about the thought that we were

not going to-day.

~ged to paint ~ initials on my kit bag to prevent it getting

lost during movement sand then went back to the Transit (Rover) Camp

in the lorries.- Got baok about 2 o'clock - ' several people went off

into Cirencester - but I stayed and had a look round the Camp.

RORD.

l
~ct~......ll.t

Bw 1..u;~!S.
"-----.....
::. ~s., Fic /.. 0

Got the general layout of the Camp and in theS>Unlight the Camp
tv
C'o..a:t>tht..~ud..
~sd.U~c:H.o .....

looked quite nioe, it was set in the middle o~ a small wood and had
concrete paths.

Eventually found that the of~icers t wash-house had hot water and

so I wander ed down and had a shave. Came back and started to re-

adjust my equipment - decided to pack my haversack and belt into my

pack and to wear my great-coat.

b1641_Diary.indd 7 8/28/2013 8:42:27 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-6-

It now ·started 1;0 snow again - went down and had some tea at

the cookhouse, lounged around until 7 o'olock, then had supper and

went into the N.A.A.F.I. - had beer, bought some sheelaoes and razor

blades and a180 some oranges and went back to the hut, to find

Ken Easton and Arthur Baines busy trying to get the fire going; they

had 3 attempts and failed, so then Dick Jenkins and David Bowle~

had a go and managed to get it to go.

Spent the rest of the evening talking and went to bed at aboot

10 o'olock feeling extremely cold and none too hopeful of our chanoes

at getting ·off to-morrow.

l e were told that we would have to get up again at 4.30 and that
breakfast would be at 6 o'olook.

MONDAY April 30th.

We were woken up at 4.30 a.m. by the oook, who sounded much too

cheer~l, found that the fire whioh we had banked up the night before

wasstHl in and by shoving a few sticks on it I was able to dress

in comparative warmth as my bed was next to the fire.

Had breakfast at 6 o'clock which consisted of the baked beans

which we were getting rather fed up with - got on the · lorries -

Russel Barton was late but we all got aboard safely and started off.

We got to the A.irport at about 6.30 and the weather looked good.

After a brief delay we weee driven to our Aircraft and got our luggage

aboar·d . .1tter we had got it all aboard safely we were told that

we were in t he wrong aircraft - so we put all our kit baok onto the

lorry and were taken to another airoraft.

b1641_Diary.indd 8 8/28/2013 8:42:34 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-7-

As we reaohed it a Dakota took off wfth one party of our chaps

aboard. - In our plane the pilot was already waiting and our gear

was quiokly stowed away - we were told to put on our Mae West life

jaokets and got into marvellous padded seats -(this was a transport

plane reserved for Very Important People) - the engines roared up

and we taxied onto the Runway.

The Control Van flashed a ,green light, the Engines roared up

until we thought that they were bound to burst - then we began to

taxi - got faster and faster and t hen we were off the ground.
e did a climbing turn until we were about 1000 feet off t he ground

- then levelled out and flew South-East, as far as I oou~d gather

from the sunj " e oarried on flying for about an hour - with no

idea of where w~ were. Looking down at the ground we noticed

that the fields, which even at that time, 7 .30 a.m., looked green,

quite suddenly turned white and we realized that there was frost

on the ground.

After another 5 minutes flying we began to run into dark,

black cloud and the aircraft began to pump about a bit. ' e carried

on flying through this for about 15 minutes and then, the door at

the front end of the aircraft opened and one of the crew poked his

head through and said that they had reoeived a wireless message to

return, as the weather ahead was so bad. This was very disappointing

but there was nothing we oould do about it, we learnt arte~al"ds that

we got within sight ot the English Channell We landed at Croyden

at about 9.45. e were shepherded into a room and told by an

b1641_Diary.indd 9 8/28/2013 8:42:39 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-8-

Army offioer that if we left it ve would have to go through the Customs again

- so we sat in a waiting room a?-d wathhed repatriated P.O.W's coming baok.

At about 12 o'clock our 2 pilots arranged lunch for us in ~he R.A.F.

of.ficers mess. Of the 6 Aircraft. "!'Wo had landed at Croyden. 2 had got

across the English Channel, 1 had turned back and landed at Down Ap~rand

1 had not taken off at all. . After quite a good lunch we took of.f again and

headed back towards Down Aphny •

. The sun was well out and the .countryside looked very nice - it took us

about 15 - 20 minutes to fly back to DOwn Aphny - when we arrived the lorries

were there and they took us to have tea and sandwiches a~gain in the Refreshments

room, and then we drove back to the Camp.

Back at the Canp we heard that one plane had landed at Brussels and that

the other plane was missing and nothing had been heard from it.

Back at the Camp I got the fire going after several unsuccess.ful attempts

- had supper and then went round to the N.A.A.F.I. for half-an-hour.

Stoked up the fire and went to bed at 9.30 as I was feeling very tired.

TUESDAY May 1st.

e were woken up at 5 o'clock - found that the fire was out - had break-

fast with -the usual baked beans - packed up all our kit, we were. getting rather

good at packing by this time, and scr~bled onto the lorries to leave the Camp

about 6 0 'clock.

On the way to the Airport we all admired the Army MOtor-cyolist who guided

the convoy of' six lorries - he was riding an open motor-oycle and only wearing

b1641_Diary.indd 10 8/28/2013 8:42:45 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-9-

a 'loBo ~ while we were sitting in closed lorries wrapped up in greatcoats ~

scarves etc. and still we were cold, but he never ~06ked cold and had a red,

weather=beaten, cheery face in complete contrast to our cold~ white,pinohed

and gloomy faoes.

;~

This time we were going to a different Airport - Blakehill Far.n- beoause

the Dakotas which had been held for us at Down Apbny had already waited 2 days

and were now booked for another job.

BlakBhill Faren was, about 10 miles further on than Down Apbny - i.e.

about 20 miles from the Transit Camp and when we arrived we realized that it

was an R.C.A.F. Station and as well as t he Canadian~ it was a Paratroop 'and

Glider Station as well, beoause wandering allover the place were British

Glider pilots.

After a short delay we drove onto the Airstrip and there we saw the huge

ffiamilcar Gliders we had all hear4 so much about. They all looked extremely
flimsy and we were very glad that we were not Airborne troops.

We dismounted from our lorries and had a roll call taken. We were all
present and the MOvement Control officer said that we were due to fly at

12 .0 'clock as the Dakotas, in which we were to fly over, had to oome from
Croydon and had not arrived yet.

So we got back on our lorries and were dri~en · off to the Sergeant's less

- here we sat around and had tea until about 11.30 and then To~ Crisp from

U.C.R - who had been a Captain in the Army and had the }l;C. and Africa Star -

said that as we had the rank of Red Cross Officers we were entitled to go in

the Officers Mes8, and as he had the M.C. and Africa Star his words carried
r

some weight.

b1641_Diary.indd 11 8/28/2013 8:42:51 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-10-

e all moved into the officers -mess and sat around in armchairs asking
every R.C.A.F. pilot we saw what were the chanoes of taking off to-day- they

were all rather pessimistio and ~ ua 80 also.

We had a good lunch in their mltas and then after lunoh a 'phone message

oame through saying that they w.~ very sorry but the "Mads were sorubbed for

to-day".
So we wandered out and got onto our lorries and were just about to move off

when an offioer came up and said that it was O.K. and we would be flying at

2 o'clook.

Wild exoitement, and we drove onto the Airstrip again to find our planes

all lined up with their engines running and the pilots at the oontrols.

e got off the lorries and began to get hold of our kit and move off

towards the planes when the Movement Control Offioer dashed up and said that

the we~ther had got worse on the other side and we werQ again "scrubbed".

Drove baok to the Rover Camp feeling very ~epressed and we were certainly

not cheered up at the sight of the Camp, which we were beginning to hate.

Had tea and then had a shave - found that an R.A.F. convoy bound for the

Far East was also sharing the camp with us.

Sat around in the evening ~alking with David Bowlew and we. deoided that if

we had to-wait on the Airfield for more than half-an-hour we were not going
that day.

·e did not really expect to go to-morrow, as one of the pilots had said
that the weather might continue as it was for a week.

ent to ~bed at 9.30 as we were feeling very tired, all the others were

still out in Cirenoester.

Still no news of the missing plane, but it was thought that it had landed

safle ly

b1641_Diary.indd 12 8/28/2013 8:42:57 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-11-

iEDNESDAY ltky 2nd.

e were woken up at 3.0 .m. this morning. we all had the laugh on

Ronnie Citrine. who, ieoiding that we were not going to-day, had only got into

bed at 1.0 o'olook.

Had the usual breakfast - beans and baoon and left the Camp in i~l'riea

at 4.30 a.m. Got to Blakehill Faren at about 5.15 and were told that the
weather was quite suitable and that we would be flying at 6 o'olook.

Packed all our kit into the plane and then got in - we had to rearrange

the tit along the middle .of the plane under the pilot~ guidance - then the

engines warmed up, a '.A.A.F. Nursing Orderly climbed in - the door was shut

and bolted and we taxied onto the runaway - waited there for about 5 minutes
and then took off to beoome Airborne at 6.30 a.m.

Again we flew S.E. and we managed to rearrange ourselves, we all had to

go to the front of the airoraft while we took off, so t hat we each had a
window to look out of.

e orossed England, whioh did not look very interesting as ,.t was still
asleep, and the sun had not yet risen and then in about an hour we sighted

the English Channel; ' we had been told pr~viously that it took about -IO minutes
to fly the ohannel, 80 we carefully timed it, and it 4id - we did not know

where we croBsed the Coast on either side - but the Navigator said that we
were heading towards Brussels. , so we presumed that we were flying over Belgium

- we were flying low about 1000 feet- 80 we .oould see the oountryside well -
oooasionally we saw groups of bomb oraters, but not very many of these.

We passeA Lille and soon came within sight of Brussels - we did a half

cirole over Brussels Airport and then headed towards our d~stination - CelI e
in Germany.

b1641_Diary.indd 13 8/28/2013 8:43:03 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-12-

e flew on steadily I noticing the inoreasing number: of oanals and

waterways and also haw very much more regular the countryside was compared

wi th England. We then oame withinEsight of the Rhine, whioh had only been

orossed by our troops a short time previously - we could not see much aotivity,

though we oould see several blown up bridge$ and several bridges which we had

built. The Rhine had many bomb and shell oraters on ita banks. We crossed
it at asel.

Now we were into Germany - the countryside did not look any different to

that of Belgium - but we did see Autobahmen. Gradually the countryside began

to get more wooded - we had passed over the Dortmund-Ems Canal but I did not

see it.

MOre flying - it was beginning to get a bit boring by now, and then the .

navigator popped his head round the door and said that we would be landing at

Cel16 in half an hour.

b1641_Diary.indd 14 8/28/2013 8:43:09 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-13-

As we came near the Airport- we noticed a number of wreoked German Airoraft

round t he Perimeter - we ciroled and t hen landed - our ears buzzing and

singing so that we could not hear each other speak.

When we got out of t he plane the first thing that struok me was that

~veryone without exception was arme4 and looked very gr1m~ and also the .

tremendous number of aircraft on the Airfield which was much smaller than

Blakehill Faren.
e unloaded all our kit and oolleoted near the Hangars. Here we found

all the others and we had our All ied Military Permits stamped with the date

of our arrival.
As there was no telephonic oommunioation with Belsen Camp a dispatch

rider was sent off to ask for lorries to come and fetch us. - the Camp was 18
miles awa y _ The time was now about iO.30 a.m. - at 2.30p.m., after we had

been waiting 8U the Airport for 4 hours, the lorries arrived and we drove off
through Cel le . ~ o Belsen Concentration Camp.

e did not see many Germans en route as it was mostly through open

oountry, but we did notice that the roads were appallingly ba~, and that

Germany looked muoh bleaker than England - the oolourB were not so rich.

e arrived at the Panzertruppen Schule, which was about 1 mile from t.

aotual Concentration Camp, and had been used as barracks by the S.S. troops
guarding t he Concentration Camp"

e were shawn our barraoks and told that tea would be ready in the
Off icers Mess at 5 otclock. Began to get unpacked - we each had separate

rooms (though in some cases two shared one room) and eaoh room had a bed,
wash basin, fire, table axd chair and wardrobe.

b1641_Diary.indd 15 8/28/2013 8:43:15 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-14-

~
o

Finished unpaoking~ made my bed up and then went down to tlJ.e Jfess to

·have tea. The Mess was a brick building with inlaid wooden beams, rather

like our Tudor houses. Inside it was divided into 2 main rooms~ I big room

whioh was our mess, and 1 smaller room which was the regular Army Officers '

Mess. and in between them was the kitchen. e had a good tea with white

bread, margarine and jam and we were waited 'On by Hungarian Army waiters.

After tea I went off with Lionel Garstin to the "Roundhouse"~ which was

the Banquet - cum-Dance Hall of ·the Camp, to find a bed for him. e found

2 marvellous spring beds and then had a look round the Danoe Hall •.

Marvellous place about 75 yards long and 20 yards wide all panelled in

light oak - with a musicians gallery and huge chandeliers from the ceiling.

There were several slashed photographs and paintings of Hitler and

German Army generals. The tables in the hall were littered with glasses and

bottles - all empty as both the lib~rating Tommies and the S.S. Guards before

t hey left had drunk all they could. So we decided that we would examine the

place more thoroughly to-morrow night and went .back to our blook (L.2) and

set up our "~iberated" spring beds.

b1641_Diary.indd 16 8/28/2013 8:43:21 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-15-

ent down to the Mess and had a hot supper I and there we met Derek We1ls

and George 'o odwark, who had got across the channel on Monday, and had spent
~
27 hours in Brussels, and then flown on to Cel Ie . Also Eric Wimmer, whose

pilot had taken them straight on to Cel l e - flying at 11,000 feet. They were

all so cold that they put on greatooats, huddled together and had to go up

into the pilots cabin one at a time in order to get warm.

After supper we sat around in our rooms and talked and then turned into

bed to sleep our first night in Germany. e were told that we were going

to start work to~orrow, so far all we had learnt was that we were each going

to be given charge of a hut oontaining from 300 - 500 people.

THURSDAY .r.y 3rd.

I was woken up at 7.0 a.m. and then went down to the Mess to have break-

fast (baco., porridge and tea). Notioed that all the walls of the German

Officers Mess were hung with English fox-hunting scenesl

After bre8.ktast Dr • •MeiokletJohn, who was a Nutritional expert from the

School of Tropical Medicine and who was 1m charge of the Medioal side of our

work, gave us a talk about the Concentrat'ion Camp and our work.

He said that the Concentration Camp used to be divided into 2 camps.

~ Camp I - whioh ~ontained about 50,000 people when it was liberated

(THE Belsen Concentrati~n Camp) in whioh the conditions were extremely bad.

Camp II - which was situated at the top end of the Panzertruppensohu1e

'S"
and which contained about *'000 people, mainly men - who were comparatively
fit and conditions were reasonably good.

There are at th~s moment about "27000 people in Camp I whQ are very badly

in need of all kinds of medical treatment.

T' (: j.:" :; . J:~-.

b1641_Diary.indd 17 8/28/2013 8:43:27 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-16-

The light ~k-Aok which were the first and only troops in the Camp
had established oookhouses in the Camp and the-y produced food - put it into

bins and then took the bins round and left them outside each hut - but that

there was no-one inside the huts to see that the food was fairly distributed

and that at the moment the fit people were getting all the food and the ill

people were not getting any.

- I
I - -
Our job was to see that the food was fairly distributed inside the huts

and to give any medical attention Vie could to the inmates . Drugs in limited

quantities could be obtained from Woodwark and Wells who had set up a

dispensary on some li~erated German stocks of drugs .

hen we got to the Camp we were to be sprayed with D.D. T. and then go .to

the Camp Office where we would eaoh be allocated to a hut ~ .

e all olambered onto the lorries which were going to take us to the

Camp and -drove along an extremely bad road for about 1 mile until we came to

Camp I.

Here on the Main Gates was a_red notice warning everyone that there was

Typhus in the Camp and another notice saying "Speed lim1t clOm.p.m. - ' Dust

Spreads Typhus".

b1641_Diary.indd 18 8/28/2013 8:43:33 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-17-

We drove just inside the gates and then stopped. We then dismounted

and joined a queue in order to' be D. D.Td. While waiting we looked around the

part of the Camp we could see. We had not been told that this was the

administrative area of the Camp and therefore clean and so' at our first sight

of it the Camp did not look too bad.

, e were then sprayed and walked along the main road through the Camp

until we came to the Camp Office. Here a Red Cross Woman Secretary
(Mrs Crossthwai te )allotted huts to us.

I was allotted Hut I Laager I ( Men) - located the hut on the map of the

Camp and then set off to find it.

I n~v began to see the Concentration Camp proper, the first thing that

struck me was the amazing bleakness of the Camp - t he huts had once been

painted red - but this had faded to an indiscriminate pink - and otherwise

there was no colour at all in the C,amp, everything was grey or slaty brown.

The next thing was the dust, this was everywhere and even as you walked you
left clouds of dust behind you.

Then the Internees - they looked thin ,brown and dirty and they shuffled

along in a purposeless sort of way, dressed in their blue and white striped

slave clothing. They were not in the least interested in anything and took

no notice of us at all as we walked by.

Found my hut after some difficulty, but on going inside with Russell

Barton who was also sharing the hut. we found that it was comparatively olean

- that it oontained 3-tier bunks and that all the men inside it seemed oapable

of walking, and therefore oapable ot getting their own food and eating it.

b1641_Diary.indd 19 8/28/2013 8:43:39 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-1 8-

So we reported back to the 01'1'ice and we we re~. told to try Hut 224

Laager I ( omen). e 1'ound by looking at the map that this was right at

t he other end 01' the Camp. e set 01'1' towards it and noticed another striking

thing about the Camp - t he amel I - this was a hot~ humid smell mixed up with

the smell 01' burning boots, dirty clothing and 1'aeces and once smelt was never

1'orgottenl

Another thing was the very tall barbed wire 1'ences about 15 1'eet hi gh

and the huge atch Towers, strun~ along the 1'ences at about 200 yards interv%le

and rising to a height of about 40 feet and then between the I: atch Towers were -

stretched pmverful Electrio Arc

~ e eventually came into the Women's Laager, where t he Smell increased in

intensity - we 1'ound Hut 224, which was painted t he usual pink colour with the

Red Cross which t he Germans had had the nerve to paint on each hut.

e went into the hut and were almost knocked back by the smell, but we

went into one of the two main rooms.

~!! U ~ , u.o ~ ,..,.,~s

" f:"
Le c.....ct.~~ .

~ f ~.
;I ~
t •
J ."\. ~
f'ct..'5se>qc.
/"
DOo.> _

~
~ ..".

".~ r
T
e_ .~. 4.." ~-...... c: (.o..D Jw~ ~ f.
..( -u.o b..ct,
t
~ ~

3 .. - ~o 'tlls }
4-

HOT '.l~~.

b1641_Diary.indd 20 8/28/2013 8:43:46 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

- 9-

The sight that met us was shocking - there were no beds whatsoever and

in t his one room there were about 200 people lying an the floor.
, In some

cases t hey wore a few battered rags and in some cases th,y wore no cl-o thes

at all.

They were all huddled together one next to the other. In many cases

1 blanket having to oover 3 people. The floor was covered in faeces and

soaked in urine and the .people lying on the floor were in just the same

state - as they all had extremely severe di~rrhoea and were all too weak to

move.

Next tQ ea ch person was a tin can or old mug and various small 'pieces of
bread which they were oarefully hoarding up - this latter lying on the ~loor

and when they felt like it they took a bite out of it - irrespective of

what it had been l ying in. Their hair, hands, faces and feet were all

covered in a mixture of dry faeces and dirt. At leas. f of them had hacking

coughs and the other twere just lying. Here and there a dead person oould

be seen lying between two living ones, who took no notice of her at all and
just went on eating, coughing or just lying, and these were all women whose

ages varied from 15-30.

e had a look at one or two patients and they were quite literally just

a mas s of skin and bones, with sunke.n eyes which had a oompletely vaoant look.

They all had bites and severe scabies and some had terrible ulcers and

bedsores the size of small saucers, with no dressings on them at all.

We left them and went back to the other end of the room, followed by

1IJeak cries, or at least whines of "Herr Doktor. Herr Doktor", here we met a

student from U. O.H. who said that he and another stude~t had the Hut and we.e

-
able to cope with i t all right - we doubted this, but at that moment an

Artillery Cookhouse Captain came up and said that th~re were no students in

b1641_Diary.indd 21 8/28/2013 8:43:52 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-20-

either Hut 222 or 210, so I went to 210 and Russell Barton to 222.

ent to Hut 210 and to my relief found t hat on Monday it had been cleaned

out by the Hungarians and equfq:ped with double tier bunks. There was a young

Polish woman dootor in oharge of it and under her were 6 polish women nurses.

Found that one of the nurses spoke quite good English and so I explained

that Bill Clarke from Barts. and I were t he doctors in charge of this hut .
J

Then got t he nurse and the Polish woman doctor r~ show us round.
The floor of the hut was clean and the hut was divided up into seven rooms

in one of t hese lived t he doctor and nurses and the others were divided up

into wards, and t hese wards were used for Typhus , post Typhus and Advanced

Tuberoulosis. She had all her patients fairly well seperated into these

groups, though there were some in the wrong wards.

There were about 40 people to each room and they were lying, 2 to a bunk

i.e. 4 people to each double tiered bunk which was hopeless overcrowding.

Learnt that there were about 260 people in the hut

Hut 210.

/~s ~ .

f fos.l'1'1 hJA<,.s. aclW<. e<\sw '1

l1dW~ elL'" '1
r- T;ttw...t .
~ .." •..t.~u-l" ~
f ..... ..... ......

. .,,-
~
:/ ./

fftW,-t..~
..-'

to- ~~ . forA':'~' .to.i:b" < fitlZ06:

" Pw..·'T.tftc....s.
~ ~e....t.o~ r..ualu u..h . ~ ....... HW>s....

r On,wo..ltfeu..b.

andfhat every single one, including the doctor, had either had TJPhus or was ·

having it now.

b1641_Diary.indd 22 8/28/2013 8:43:59 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-21-

ent round one ward putting a G on the bed of eaoh patient who ought to

have Gluoose Solution with Vitwmins. Asked for a list of all the patients

in the hut - with their age and nationality by to-morrow morning. . Then went

and had lunoh.

In the afternoon went to the offioe and indented for 2 dead to be taken

away. Colleoted 2 Hungarians and went down to the Cookhouse to see if I

oould get some Glucose Solution - found that they had run out of Glucose, but

I managed to colleot a tin of biscuits .- got some Gluoose later.

Came back to 210 to find that the Cookhouse Captain had left some

Ovaltine, Horlioks, Coooa and slabs of ohocolate. Mixed Ovaltine, Horlioks

and Coooa together. ~de it up and managed to give a ouPfuy of that, 2

oupfulj s of Gluoose Solution, 1 bisouit and 1 square of ohooolate to eaoh

patient about 240 of them. They were all very grateful.

By this time it was about 5.30 so made out my returns for the hut,

Total. 260 )
Siok = 240) from Polish dootor and Nurse.
Dead = 2 )
and handed them in to Mrs Crossthwaite - then hitohed a lift baok to Camp II·

Got back at 6.30 in time for Dr. Meiklejohns' Conference. It wa s deoided

that more Gluoose should be produoed the next day, that the Opium oonsumption

would have to be out down. Had supper.

ent up to L.2. and then with Ronnie Citrine and Russell Barton went to

theRODndhouse - to find that it was being cleared out in order to turn it

into a Hospital. so we did not find anything to "liberate".

Came back and talked until 11 0 'olock and then went to bed •.

b1641_Diary.indd 23 8/28/2013 8:44:05 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-22-

FRIDAY Miy 4th.

'oken up at 7.30 a.m. - dressed and went down to breakf.t at 7.45.

After breakfast there was another Conferenoe '- nothing new was deoided upon

and so I hitohed a lift on an Artillery limber to Camp I. Colleoted 2

Hungarian soldiers from outside t he offioe and marohed off down to 210. They

told me that there had been 2 deaths during the night - one of t hem had been a

Typhus case.
They ha d the list of patients ready and so I asked the Polish woman dootor

to oome round with me and explain what eaoh patient had. First of all set the
2 Hungarians to work washing all the floors.

The Polish doctor seemed quite competent - knew all her patients by name
o
and the diagnosis in each case. Saw 18 cases of aotive Typhus .Whioh had rashel
and many more, who she said had Typhus and though all I could see was that

they had a fever I had to take h~~ .word for it, as since she had been in the

Camp, she had treated I'I8ny hundreds of cases of Typhus and had also had th.e

disease herselfo Learnt that two of the Complioations of Typhus were

Myocardial degeneration and stiff joints.

There were many oases of Oed~ma in patients who had no other signs of

Cardia8 failure and who appeared to be able to eat alright - diarrhoea was

prevalent everywhere and I had to tell her that she oould only give ~ Tablet

(t g~ain ) of opium to those with severe diarrhoea as we were running short of

Opium. I was not very popular with her after this.

In the Tuberole Ward, ~he tuberoulosis was very advanced, they all had

very bad coughs, and several had quite bad Haemoptysis - they were all very
thin and emaoiated but whether this wa.s due to Tuberculo/iis or starvation I

could not tell, there was nothing we could do for them except to give them

Qpium to relieve both their cough and t heir diarrhoea - neit her of whioh it

b1641_Diary.indd 24 8/28/2013 8:44:11 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-23-

helped to any considerabl e extent .

Managed to ge~ through all the patient s by lunch time and so went o££ to

lunoh. At lunoh Mr . de Gree£e (our Welfare O££ice;) said that some different

arrangemant would have to be made about t r ansport . as 3 lorries had turned up

a£ter breakfast and only 5 people were there waiting to go t o Camp I . as all
the rest had hitohed- hiked, so it was deoided that we would all ' hitoh' to

an!! from Camp I and there would be no regular transport.

A£ter lunch I went down to Kitchen H whioh was the invalid kitchen and

collected a large 8 gallon oan o£ Gluoose and vitamin mixture . en.t baok to

the hut and gave out the Gluoose to about 204 patients - so £ar t hey seemed to
have tolerated yesterda~ glucose quite well , though one or two had vomited it .

The people who ha.d Typhus did not like it as it was too sweet £or them and t hey

kept on asking for "Lemon" but we had no lemon £lavouring o£ any sort in the

Camp.

Went round the war ds loo~ing at some o£ the cases . There was 1 gtDl who
had a sore throat, in£lamed £auces, sore mouth and lips and pain in the ears .
Could not see any membrane anywher e, so diagnosed pharyngitis , but thought that

it might be diphtheria . Gave her lOgr ~spirin as she had a slight £ever, and

ga~e her ~ grammes o£ Sulphathiaz~ stat with a dosage of 1 gramme 4 hourly

until the- next morning - told the nurse to see that she drank plenty o£ water
and tea.

I enquired into the £ood situation and found that t hey all liked potatoes

and tea. but they did not like the brawn bread, unless they had something to

spread on it; per;onally I don't blame them' .as each loaf weighed about a ton

and was only hal£ baked.

b1641_Diary.indd 25 8/28/2013 8:44:17 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-24-

Came baok to the Camp and had supper. After ~upper an R.A. M.C.

Lieut/Colonel gave us a talk on the clinical aspect o£ TJPhus - it was very

good and muoh appreciated. He was interrupted in the middle to say that

the Germans opposite the 21st Army Group had surrendered - all very pleased.

e were then told that ther.e would be a salute fired by the Ack-Ack to-morrow

morning at 8 o'olook. Sat around in the .Mess until about 11.30 and then

went up to L.2. and crawled into bed.

Returns from 210: Total. 208)

Siok =
178) from list of patients
dead = 2. )
Had a look at the "death Squad" to-day - this oonsisted of a oart drawn

by a lorry and on the oart are about eight German Prisoners of War - they are

dressed in proteotive Anti-gas olothing and their job is to go r9und the Camp,

under the orders of armed -British Guards, and calling at eaoh hut oolleot all

the dead and then take them away in the cart to be buried elsewhere -- now with

a proper burial service.

These men have repla oed the S.S. men who had to do the oarting and burying

of the dead at the bayonet point, when we first liberated the Camp.

SAlfURDAY May 5th.

Up at 7.15 - breakfast at 7 . 45 . Got a rot ten oold and feel lousy -

several ohaps are dawn with diarrhoea and vomiting. There was the usual after

breakfast discussion - in whioh I and several other people br~ught up the

question of white bread, and Meicklejohn said that he would see what could be

done about it, - it was decided that more glucose wouid be p~oduced to- day

- though it would be less than yesterday, only 1000 litres - hopelessly

inadequate amount.

b1641_Diary.indd 26 8/28/2013 8:44:24 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-25-

Got up to the Camp and realized just how cold -it was. ent to 210 after

first collecting 2 Hungies - told them to fetoh water - then asked the nurses

and doctor if they had hea rd t~e G~ire - they had, and when I told them

that the Germans in the North had surrendered, they just were not interested,

smiled politely and that was alII

I deoided that there was not enough work for me to do in 210 and that

they would be able to manage on their own as the Polish doctor was quite com-
petent.

So I went up to the Offioe and asked Mrs Crossthwaite if there were way

huts without any students in them. She said that there were plenty and told

me to try 211. Went dawn there but found that 211 was being cleaned out,

preparatory to being made into a Hospital - so went backand was given Hut 217 .

Y, ent and ha d a look at it and deoided that I was definitely needed there.
~

..(--7yd..r ->
217 was a smaller hut t han-the others - 3Oydsx7yda but it contained

about 460 women. I walked in and it was easily the most crowded hut I had

yet seen. The first thing I did wa s to yell above the din and ask if anyone

spoke English; fortunately one of the fairly fit people spoke quite reasonable

English - told her that I wanted a list of all .the very siok people by after

b1641_Diary.indd 27 8/28/2013 8:44:30 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

lunoh inoluding their ages.

Then I had a look round the Hut, it was ,composed of 1 single large room

with people, lying, sitting and standing all round the walls and also in the

centre of the Hut, most of the people who were very siok, were lying opposite

the door and al ong the right wall of the hut. They were lying in roughly

three rows, but they were all packed together head to foot so that there was

absolutely no room whatsoever in between the rows.

The amazing thing about the Hut was the people who were fit, there must

have been at least 200 fit, almost fat, well people in the hut, and yet they

were content to stay there in the hut, living in those filthy, stuffy 'ont '
ditions, rather than move into some of the huts which were olean and half

empty. The sick were arra~ged in 3 main groups according to the diagram.

Decided that there was nothing to be done until after lunoh when I would be

able to get drugs and bandages from the di8pensa~y and gluoose from the

kitchen.
After lunch I oollected these and made my way down to the Hut.

Collected the glucose and then started to give it out .- 1 cupfulc to eaoh

person - had heard at lunoh that about~ of the people to whom I had given

Gluoose yesterday had vomited it, so I Wa s not too happy about giving it ~ut

to-day - -but the patients seemed to like it and as there was no other form

of fluid food available and they could not eat bread, there was nothing else

for it.
After this I went round all those who had very severe diarrhoea and
l r .
gave them 2 opium tablet each, and then gave out aspirin to those who had
post-Typhus joints, pains and headaches etc., as I considered it more

effioient in relieving pain than the Opium tablets.

b1641_Diary.indd 28 8/28/2013 8:44:35 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-27-

Gave 2 Vitamins each to the 98 worst sick, Opium to 50. and Aspirin
15 gr. to 20 people.

Captain Peters - the R.A. M.C. Captain who was in charge of evacuating the

worst huts. came round and had a look at t he hut. He said that next to 216.

which was George Woodwark's hut which had already had 200 sick evacuated, and

was still the first priority hut to have 100 more evacuated, mine was the
worst hu~ and he would take 90 of my worst cases to-morrow.

Treated what appeared to be a tonsillitis with 2 grammes Stat Sulpha-

thiazole and then 1 gramme 2 hourly for 8 hours, told my interpreter - nurse,

who was called Raja, to see that she drank plenty of water - did some dressing

of various ulcers and bedsores and what appeared to be two discharging sinuses

communicating with the hip joint - thought that they were probably Tuberculous.

Opened a Breast abscess withoa razor blade heated in a flame and then

cooled in alcohol. Made a quick 2 inch incision and then packed it with

flavine gauze - no anaesthetic and patient must have been in great agony - but

she lid not yell and before I left the hut all the pain from the abs?ess had
gone and she was feeling much better. Opened a boil on the forearm 1naa

similar way - there is anot~er woman who has a large absoess under her jaw

which w~ll have to be opened soon, but as it is ~ot ready yet and she is one
of the ones to be evacuated to-morrow. I left it. hoping that they will do it

under better conditions at the H~spital in Camp II.

It was n~1 about 6 o'clock and I thought that as 216 was just ne~ to mine and

was the worst hut in the camp I would go across and look at it.'

b1641_Diary.indd 29 8/28/2013 8:44:41 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-2 8-

George oodwark was there and sh~led me round and it certainly was the

worst. In many places whole gaps of the floor were missing and you squelched

dawn onto earth and God only knows what else - it was hopelessly overcrowded

-and faeces were even more abundant than in the other huts. George said that ·

they had pulled several bodies out from under what floorboards were left, and

I could quite well beHeve it. Was jolly glad to get out into the ? fresh

air again.
Came back to Camp II and had quite a good supper and some Hook which an

R..A.F. Padre had s.ent us. After supper a Polish band came and played to us

outside the Officers Mess - they were pretty awful but it was a spontaneous
gesture and was much appreciated. We are all beginning to get ve~y behind

hand with the" news and have very little idea what is happening in the war
except that we are doing well.

ent up to L.2. wrote a letter, still got my cold and so I went to bed
at about 10.30.

Hut returns from 217 -

Total: 400 )
V.Sick: 98 ) obtained from my Interpreter~urse.
Sick = 198)
Dead = 2. )

SUNDAY Mi.y 6th.

Up at 7.15 - breakfast - haa the usual Conference after breakfast but

nothing of any value came out of it. Went to the Camp and collected 2

Hungarians but found that I had -to sign for them - regular Trades Union
starting upJ __

Went to 217 - it was raining and the Camp looked even more hleak than

usual, it was also very cold. Got the 2 Hungies to fetch water and then

6Weep the exposed part of the floor of the hut, and after that wash it.

b1641_Diary.indd 30 8/28/2013 8:44:47 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-29-

started to clear the spaces in between t he sick but I found that this was a

Herculean task and well nigh impossible. as t hey were so close together, the

floor was so filthy and whatever dirty old rag or tin can which one took away

was somebody"!. prize possession, so I had to give it up.

It really is amazing haw the fit will stay in 217 which is filthy rather

than go to 220 which is clean and almost empty, just across the way - just
suggested t hat they might . do so and they all almost fainted at the idea.

The Ambulances which were going to take away the sick did ~ot do sO~ as

there 'was no water in the "Human Laundry". Very great disappointment in the

Hut - 3 dead to-day.

Went round giving opium and aspirin to those who were very ill, and had-

a look at and dressed a woman who had gangrene of both her little toes

(L) dry with a clear, well-.mar.ked ' line of seperation and · (R) moist and line

of demarcation well marked &Sain - dressed both with dry dressings and gave

her 20gr. aspirin for the pain.

Breast abscess is draining well and is not giving her any pain. Opened
another boil with t he same teohnique.Dressed many uloers and bedsores with

Ung. Hyd. Anunon. Some of the people here are very. very ill.

Roughly diagnosed 2 ? pneumonias - dull at the base with bronchial

breathing. and fever - started the'm on Sulphathiazole - 2 granunes Stat. 1 gramme

2 hourly for 6 hours and then I gramme 4 hourly with fluids '\- +. The?

Tonsillitis I treated is much better to-day and is walking around qui~e

happily and her tonsils seem to be getting smaller. or is it just the eye of
faithJ

b1641_Diary.indd 31 8/28/2013 8:44:53 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

I I

-30-

There appears to be quite a lot of scurvy - (bleeding gums - teeth bad

l-oe.Q.C.lo..
and falling out - sore tongue) 'olad out 8 army compound Vitamin Tablets.
Some "Bengal Mixture" arrived - this was a form of gruel which was used

with suocess in the Bengal Famine, and was made up of sugar, salt, flour,

oatmeal etc. - but there was too much sugar in it and they would not touoh it.

ent back and had l~noh a atter lunoh we all oomplainedto Meiklejohn about

the "Bengal Mixture" and told him that it was too sweet - as the sugar was the

thing whioh we were trying to get into them, it ~as thought that it might be

alright to reduoe the sugar by half and increase the amount of salt.

ent baok to the hut and oarried on doing the dressings,there were hosts

to be done, managed to do about t of them - found 2 oases of tende~ enlarged,

apparently not inflamed,lumps in the Axilla - could'nt think what they were ;

80 just put a dry dressing on them and gave them the usual Aspirin for their

pain.

About half way through the atternoon, an R.A. M.C. Captain came in and

photographed the hut, stayed and ohatted for a few minutes . ~arried on-with

the dressings, and then an American dootor, an English Army Nursing Sister and

a Red Cross nurse oame and had a look at the hut. Showed them round and made

a point of showing them all ·the worst oases I could - when we oame to the end

they lett _rapidly without even saying Thank - you.

Found th at another woman had died - she was in a very bad way and I
expeoted her to die - advanoed T.B. I think.

Went baok to Camp II and almost ha d to walk baok;.as I was so late, but

eventually hi~ched a lift.

e were eaoh given a oamouflaged Panzer coat - we had all wanted one of

these sinoe the day we got out here - they were a present from Captain inter-

bottom and we were all very grateful.

b1641_Diary.indd 32 8/28/2013 8:45:00 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-:31-

Had my first bath in Germany - the bathhouse was a seperate building

containing about 40 baths, each bath was in a tiled cubicle of its own and

completely private. The baths were built in and there were mirrors for

shaving, so it was like 40 bathrooms irr one building.

~,

There was a Dutchman in charge and he showed us in, clicked his heels a-nd.

ran our water for us - much singing, came back to bed after a good day~ work.
Returns from 217 .

Total 350 )
11

III • 150 )
ell : 200 ) my counting.
Very ill = 98)
dead =4 )
Rumour that we may have to move into tents.

MONDAY W
ay 7th.

Up at 7.15 - breakfast at 7. 45 - usual conference after breakfast - went

to Camp I and collected 100 Tana~b in tablets from the dispensary - this was

a cure for diarrhoea acting on its T,a nnic Acid Content - reports about its

use were varied, some said it was no use and some said t hat it wa s good.

ent tOr 217 and f'ound that my Hungarians had not turned up, so went back

- stormed into the Hungarian Commande~s office - swore at him in English and

kept on saying "Zwei Hungarian" - he promptly stood up and saluted - gave an

order sind up came 2 Hungarians, and I walked off with them.

b1641_Diary.indd 33 8/28/2013 8:45:07 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-32-

Then did a ward round of my hut. On the whole they appeared much better

and in some cases the diarrhoea had stopped - though many cases still needed

urgent treatment. q OedWMna ~ was everywhere.

Sought out Captain Peters and the light field Ambulance and found out that

they were willing to evacuate 100 sick cases after t hey had taken 100 sick

from 216. Was asked to mark those I wanted to have evacuated, so that only

those who were meant to go s hould get onto the stretoher., as they had found

that whenever they put a stretcher on the floor, all the fit people near it

would promptly get onto itl

Went round and marked them with Tb, Ec. and F. ( Enteric and Famine

Oedfiblla ) - I marked a bout 81 of my .ost siok people in this way.

Found that the commonest symptoms were:

(1) Diarrhoea - Very bad with prostration

( 11 )Fever , with. severe 10 s s of a ppet i te and cough

(I ll) ~ - of feet, legs, hands and in s orne cases face. Somehow I do

not think that this Oedema is entirely due to famine, as in many cases they
could walk and eat. On questioning I found th.t almost every case had had

Typhus and so l wondere4 whether it might be due to temporary cardiac weakness

following on the cardiac lesions of Typhus, but I could not see any distended

neck veins and the heart 80unds seemed to be normal.

The gruel came round again to-day but it was both too sweet, too salt

and was also burnt and so the patients again would not eat - If they have

any more disappointments with it they will not eat it even if it is well made.
Came b~k to my hut at 1.30 and found that the Ambulance ' peop~e were

already starting to evacuate the hut - had given orders to Raja before lunch

that all those who were marked must be stripped and so stripped of all clothes

b1641_Diary.indd 34 8/28/2013 8:45:17 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-33-

~hey were put ontQ stretchers, wrapped in b~ankets and then carried into the

Ambu1anoes to start a new life with no clothes or possessions of any kind, all

these being taken outside, when they had gone, and burnt.

From 217 they were taken to the 'Human Laundry' in Camp II.
Xf..)u...a.....
1.-------f'...~cL.
~j@ ~::;.
h.......ko 4 ~
. !L!At
~;;:,t> ~..
:-:?i~
.~
"' t\.p.rc.:.., eaa./l..A(:Wo.t
.~. ·~··m··~'·~·
.~. ·fl- 'FJ"~' ·ffiI·

This oonsisted of 2 German stables equipped with tables and wit~ hot water

- there were 4 German purses to eaoh table and they washed the patients all

ov.er with soap and water and then their hair was clipped short and they were

sprayed with D.D.T. then wrapped in olean blankets, put into olean Ambulances

and taken o£f to the Hospital in Camp II.

This "Human Laundry" was a pretty good trial for the patients as it is

not £unny to have soap rubbed into a painful uloer.

11 of the German Nurses have gone d~Nn with Typhusl

ihen I got baok to my hut, I found that my. hut was almost oomp~ete1y

cleared. of siok and I set my Hungies to work to 'c lear the Hut of all their

clothing eto.

r had lost some very interesting oases and I was sorry to see them go
- but they will be better off in Camp II. There was one very interesting oase

of a unilateral cyst of the (R) Eyelid, also

my bre~st absoesses, aDd my 2 T.B. Hip Sinuses.

I was invited to tea by my blookleiter -

b1641_Diary.indd 35 8/28/2013 8:45:28 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-34-

did not want ~o go but thought t hat it would be good policy to have it.

Found out that the majority of the Poles had been there in Belsen since

January and that before that they had been in Auschlfi t z, and t hat previous

to January '45 condi tions had not been so bad at Belsen.

Came back for supper and learnt that it was V-E dAy. Had Rum-punch to

celebrate it and then we had a sing ~song. 1 chap from U.C.H. red ted the

Whole of Eskimo :lell - amazing performance, and so to bed.

Returns from 217 .

Total = 315. )
Sick = 15.) Includes those who slept in ,t he hut but did
Fit • 300 ) not stay there during the day.
Dead = None
TUESDAY !my 8th .
Up at 7.15, brea kfast as usual, and b1 cutting the after breakfast

Discussion managed to get to the Camp by 8.30. Collected my 2 Hungies and

went down to 217. En route watched a bull-dozer burying a huge pile of
barbed wire whioh it had knocked down.

Got quite a shock when I went into the Hut, as during the night from
absolutely nowhere the fit had managed to collect about 20 bunks and bring

them into the Hut - and t hey all looked as pleased as punch about it.

'Comfort s' arrived from the litchen - consisting of ct~ r ettes and tinneQ

food, . .... the distribution of both these and also the food, which arrived at

the same time. Really there was no need for me to do so because Rosa, the

blockleiter, was honest and had all the hut subdivided into seotions, in fact
she had it all taped.

Did a ward round but as nearly all my siok had gone -yestejday there was

not very muoh for me to do.

Raja said that Zosia who was a sort of deputy-blockleiter, and was quite
pretty wanted to lea rn English. I was only too pleased to oblige, and so I

b1641_Diary.indd 36 8/28/2013 8:45:38 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-35~

wrote out about 100 ~glish words and Raja wrote out the Polish for them and

then I showed Zosia how to pronounce them and she v~t e in the pronounciation

a bove them phoenetically - she was keen to learn and picked it up quickly •
.
Had lunch, and after lunch set the Hungies on to rearranging the beds

which the internees had brought in and just put down anywhere. Managed to get

the hut looking quite neat and clean.

as invited to tea again and had Herrings on biscuit - all out of a tin

t hank heavens and some lukewarm tea. Carried on teachrng Zosia English still

by writing out the words and letting her learn them - finds the great~st

difficulty in saying any word with -th in it.

Got baok to the Camp and learnt that to-day was the official V-E day. .

~ 'e had Rock for dinner - then went into the other Officer's Mess where they

had a wireless and listened to the King's Speeoh.

The Colonel and his officers from 102 ' Control Seotion and some

Royal Artillery officers, the Aok-Ack had fire. off anothe! Salute to-day,

oame in and joined us inua Sing-Song - agai~ Eskimo ~el l - had a Padre sitting
beside mell!

The Colonel gave a s hort speeoh and explained how he had been a P.O. •

for 2 years - and explained to us how, if you were behind barbedwirefences,

you felt -that you on~y had to get vo the other side 01 the wire and you were

free, ,and asked us to try and see the internees point of view in their desire

.. to get outside the wire in CampI - good speech •

Did not hear Churchill's speech - great pity as I should very much like

to have heavd it. e were all very ~orry that ' we were not able to oelebrate

the peace in England - which seemed a long way off.

More singing and then we all rolled into bed feeling very drunk.

b1641_Diary.indd 37 8/28/2013 8:45:49 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-36-

Returns, Hut 217.

Total • 315
Fit --
300
Siok = 15
Dead = None

WEDNESDAY May 9th.

Up at 7.15 - breakfast - cut the Conference and got to the Camp by 8.30.

Collected my two Hungarians - the system of signing for them seems to hawe

fallen through and we just walk up and collect them now. . ent to 217.

There seemed to be quite a busy air about the place and I was told by

Rosa(the Blockleiter), that over 200 of the fit people in the · hut were going to

be evacuated to Camp IV at 2 o'clock to-day - this wa s the first that thad

heard about it and was inclined not to believe it.

So I supervised the cleaning of the hut and the distribution of food and

cigarettes - more Comfort. (cigarettes and Tinned food) arrived for the inmates

towards the end of the morning.

Carried on teaching Zosia English - quite amazing the amount she has

picked up - she has learnt all the words that I wrote down for her yestenday,

and two days ago the only English word she could say was "please". Wrote out

some more words and also some Verbs and Sentences, was quite surprised at my

lack of knowledge of English Grammarl

After lunch wandered back to the Hut, thinking of nothing in particular -

when suddenly I heard a chorus of voices sa~ing "Auf iedersehn Doktor" -

looked up and saw about 250 people from my hut staggering along the road,

carrying all t heir worldly possess~ons wrapped up in blankets, on their way to

be sprayed with D.D.T. before going off to Camp It - damned silly as half of

them will collapse when they get there and only clog up Camp IV (which is

b1641_Diary.indd 38 8/28/2013 8:45:59 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

j I
-37-

meant for fit pe"ople) with siok.

Set the Hungarians to work, completely clearing the hut of old bedding

and clothes in quite a short time.

I found that Rosa, Raja and Zosia and about 60 other ~ people had remained
behind - no reason exoept they thought that t hey would like to go to-morrow

instead of to-day .
Had no work to do that afternoon. 80 I oamtinued to give Zosia her English

lessons. She has learnt so quiokly that by speaking slowly and olearly I
oarry on a oonversation with her. Proudly showed off my teaohing results to

Ronnie Ci trine, who spea king in a normal way was completely unintelligible to
herl

Stayed and had tea with t hem ~d then went back to CampII. Got back a~

6.15 just in time to hear Co ~ onel Johnstone, who was i/c of No.32 o.c.s.

talking to us about the Conoentration Camp.

He said that he and his men when they first came into the Camp foun4

"A very great number of dazed. apathetic Human Soareorows wandering around the

Camp in a oompletely aimless fas hion, dressed in rags and some even without

rags - there were piles of dead everywhere right up to the front gat"e ." _

He sald that when they arrived in the Camp they asked the Polish ~ omen

dootors for an estimate ' of the number of siok people in the Camp who needed

Hospital at t ention and they said about 2000 - the figure as it st ands to-day is
17,000.

He also explained the overall policy behind the Evaouation of the

Conoentration Camp.

b1641_Diary.indd 39 8/28/2013 8:46:09 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-38-

CAMP iii
IO .... q.... ~ J.d- c p-
,......~-~ ...... I ~
(u,.." <f~ f.:C.(.< I llD~a.t (Uea..
~r
~~~:
kosMl~) ~ 13~
~~
- - ...... 6 ... .. _ _ _ _ _ _ __________ _

~fJ.U4./:I.

~tV.., ~G;"s~k<...
l3uiJ:is-l-- 1'~:r.

II iou...Lr..o .... .
J..<.-p.;. .
"00

It was deoided as soon as we came ~nto the camp that Camp I would have
to be evacuated into the Panzertruppenschule and so the top of the Panzer -
Sohule was divi~d into two (Camps II and III) Camp I being the Concentration

Camp.
The so-called fit people were to go into Camp III the standard of fitnes.s

being anyone who could clamber up the two steps onto a lorry with assistance

from a Tommy.

The sick people were to go into Camp II - where droves of Hungarians

were at work rthrowing all the furniture from the barraoks out of the windows

and then putting in beds with palliases. They were only 2 buildings ahead

of the patients coming in. In this way a Hospital was built up in Camp II

at the rate of 500-700 beds a day.

b1641_Diary.indd 40 8/28/2013 8:46:19 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-39-

This original Soheme broke down - owing to the faot that the "fit" people

in Camp III were going down like flies and Camp III was rapidly beginning to

resemble Camp I.

So they had to stop evaouating siok from Camp I and evaouate them ins~ead

from Camp IiI to Camp II.

After that the standard of fitness was raised slightly and instead of

evaouating them into Camp III they oreaterl a new camp at the bottom end "of

the Panzer Schule - Camp IV and evaouated the fit people"into that.

He said that the major cl'i>me of the Ge~s was to "evacuate people from

other camps (Au~) into Belsen when they kn~ that Typhus. was already

raging in Belsen.
He also said that, although he had protested, 10 of the S.S. guards. who

had contracted Typhus, had been sent -from Cell~ to his Hospital
, - so he put
them in his largest male ward. walked into the middle of it, announoed that

they were S.S. Guards and then walked out again.

The Rum Ration was started to-night and de "Greefe managed to bring baok

1000 bottles of beer from Hanover. And so to bed.

Zofia Wi8'niows~ (77456)

Krakow
Plao Matejki 9:t'
Polska.

Hut Returns = 60 fit people.

Learnt to-day from Raja that Zosia and her husband had run a resistanoe

movement in Poland, that they had been oaptured 2i years ago and sent to

Au~and there they had been seperated - she also has a boy aged 5.

b1641_Diary.indd 41 8/28/2013 8:46:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

i
-40-

THURSDAY May lOth.

Up at 7.15 - breakfast but no conference and so I got to Camp r' by 8.30

again - colleoted my Hungarians and set them to work clearing the remainder
.
of the inside of 217 and also olearing all the filth which had been chuoked

out of the window s • Decided that there was not enough work for me to do in

217, so I went up to Hut 197 .cd gave Dick Jenkins a hand, treating the sick

in his hut.

All the people in his hut were in treble tier bunks which was quite -a

help. He was still faced with the problem of diarrhoea - tri~d them on L

Tanalbin dosage of 5 Tablets Stat then 2 tablets 2 hourly for 8 hours and in

some cases It gr. tablet of Opium.

Diagnosed 2 oases of Typhus - Fever, headache loss of appetite, suffused

appearance and they had not had TyphUS. Could ' not see any lioe on them, but

aid not look tOG carefully.

- Went back to 217 in time to stop Raja, Zosia and co from being evaouated,

aa they were willing to work and I had learnt from Tom Crisp that 217 was -going

to become part of the Hospital Area. They were a little doubtful about
nursing and so I told them to think it over.

After lunoh I gave Dick Jenkins a hand again, it waasextremely hot in the

hut and there was an overpowering smell of sweltering bodies and faeces; did

some dressings and treated more diarrhoea - one cas~ of cholecystitis and

1 case ,of recurrent appendicitis - several boils and one gangrene of the
lower:: lip- ? Cancrum Oris.

Went back to 217 at 5 o'clock and foun~ t~at they were willi~ to stay
providing that all 12 of them could stay on. I was not sure whether I would

be allowed to keep as mam:y as this ant told them so - so then they said that

they would leave. Laid it on th~ck about the noble.ess of nursing and the

b1641_Diary.indd 42 8/28/2013 8:46:39 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-41-

saving of life etc. and then left them to think it over for the night .

Came baok for supper and we had beer and rum: Afterwards I wex;tt up to

the Cinema and saw "Greenwich Village": f or a Garrison Cinema. the Germans had

certainly built a marvellous place - like a West End Cinema exoept that their

se~ts were wooden and not plush.

Came back to the mes s and found out from Tom Crisp that ! would be allowed

to keep 12 people on as nurses, when ·217 became a Hospita.l.

Hut returns = 12 fit people - t he other 50 had been evacuated during the

afternoon.

And so to .b ed.

FRIDAY ley 11th.

Up 4 times during the night with diarrhoea. thought that I would have to

report sick for the day - but found that I was not feeling so bad when the

morning came .

At breakfast found that there were about 60 people who had had severe

diarrhoea in the night - . it was to some meat we had eaten at supper.

traoedb~ok
-
Went to the Camp and collected 3 Hungies for 197 and 2 for 217. Set

the ones in 217 t~ work clearing t he small ' room (washroom), whioh was in a .

filthy state.

k~ ..... ~ I..tllA.Lr.cL tt ~,

~------------~------__- J

Told Raja and Zosia and Co. that 12 of them would be allowed to stay on
in the hut - they all seemed quite pleased.

b1641_Diary.indd 43 8/28/2013 8:46:49 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-42-

]hen wen~ up to hut 197 to help Dick - found that the Tanalbin had not

had much effect upon the diar r hoea; possibly the, dosage ~as not high eno~gh,
. I
so stepped it up t o 3 tablets every 2 hour s .

Found several lice on one of the women, who I think has got ~
Typhus , but as yet I could not see any pete chiae . Dropped some

D.D. T . onto the lice and this killed them in about li minutes - gave her a
couple of handfulls of D. D.T . to rub into herself anq then sprinkle~ some on

her blankets - that should kill all the lice.

, ent back to 217 and found ~hat Raja was still in bed complaining that

she had a "weak heart" and would I give her some "cor arnine" . I had refused

to do so yesterday and I refused to do so to - day.

Came back to the hut after lunch , though really it ~as my afternoon off :

Collected a tin of D. D.T. and then threw handfuls of it allover the hut -

that ought to kill all the lice in th e hut.

Raja came and s a id that she did not want to stay on and nurse but wanted

t9 go to Bergen (Camp III), as we had been told that the conditions. in

Camp III were ba d , I warned her a boi11i it , but she s·till wanted to go and so I

l et her go as she was very lazy and I do not think that she will like Camp III

very much - the trouble is that she can speak Eng li ~h and also she is taking

7 of the other nurses with her, so that now lam only left with 5 nurses to

look after any patients whichrnay come in .

Spent the rest of the afternoon teaching Zosia English , she still learns

quickly and can carryon quite a good convers'a tion. MY grammar ~. ia definitel y

not s o hot 1

Came back to Camp I I , laad our ' photographs taken by a Movie Cameraman who

was, making a fi l m about Belsen. He photographed us at a conference with

de Greefe lecturing to us ••

b1641_Diary.indd 44 8/28/2013 8:46:59 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-43-

Brigadier Glynn-Hughe s R.A . M.C. S. M.O. 2nd Army came to dinner and after -

wards talked to us about Belsen.

He gave us an account of how when conditions got completely out of hand

in Belsen, the Germans decided to pass on t he baby to us. and so they asked us

to take over the Camp. We agreed providing that we also had an Area round the

oamp and that the bridges over a nearby river were left intact.

This latter the Germans refused to do and so it was deoided to fight for

the bridges - but it was agreed that there should be no firing into or out of

the Area round the Camp which they were going to give up.

This worked in practice although a faw shells did land in the ar ea .

There was no actual fighting in the area. though t~e Germans did not completely
evacuate it .

It was agreed that all the Administrative Officers wer e t o ~ stay on in the

Camp and also the German guards J who would then be given safe transport back

to their own lines •

• From German~ ' we gathered that the political ("t<affen) S . S . were in

charge of the Camp and they handed the Camp over t o us on April 13th at 1200

hours J leaving only administ. ative officers and introducing Wetarh!",.-a'Cft'tt Guards .

e arrived on the afternoon of Apr il 15th .

Br igadier Gl ynn- Hughes was the first man to enter the Camp. and he was

foll~ed by one battery of Antitank men. consisting of 120 men. in the Camp

were 4000 Hungarians. 400 German guards and 200 S . S . and they all behaved l ike
sheep to the British .

He found that Kram.r had stayed in 'the Camp. why he could not imagine. and

aoting on Or ders from Berlin had burnt all ~he reco r ds 2 days before .

b1641_Diary.indd 45 8/28/2013 8:47:10 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-«-

That evening there was a riot over a potato-dump. Some German guards

fired at internees who were trying to get hold of some of the potatoes.

Several internees were killed.

Glynn - Hughes tol~ KramRr that there Was to be no more shooting or he

would have 1 S.S. guard s hot for every Internee who was shot - there was no

more ahooting from the Germans.

Throughout the night, high rifle fire was used to oontrol the orowd - this

did not have much effect against some Russians but one burst of machine gun

fire "Hair High" stopped themj

The next morning he decided that a display of British force was indicated

80 he toured the Camp in a jeep, followed by tanks, armoured cars, and rnotor~

cyclists - the people in the Camp hardly bothered to look up as the Cavalcade

passed. What struck him most forcibly was the fact that neither Kramar nor

the German dootor who was responsible for the health in the Camp were in the

least bit ashamed about the Camp.

He made both Kramlr and the doctor bury bodies but all the time they

maintained an air of dumb insolenoe. The S.S. guards were made to bury the

bodies at the double.

There wa~ Typhus raging in Camp I. Inside the huts the conditions were

appallin~ - the dead and the living were lying together in the huts - he

personally oount?d 20 women living in an area of 30 square feet; a soldier,

never under any conditions gets less than 45 square feet living space. There

were piles of dead everywhere out in the open - these were the results of a

fortnight owing to the fact that the Crematori~ had broken down. omen were

leaning up against these piles of dead eating their food.

b1641_Diary.indd 46 8/28/2013 8:47:21 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

The first page of Michael Hargrave’s original handwritten diary. The typewritten copy
printed in this book was later typed out by Michael’s secretary.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 1 8/28/2013 9:42:56 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Michael Hargrave collected newspaper clippings for his diary upon return from Bergen-
Belsen. Copyright Evening Standard/Independent.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 2 8/28/2013 9:43:12 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Copyright Evening News/Associated Newspapers.

Copyright Evening News/Associated Newspapers.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 3 8/28/2013 9:43:14 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

The medical students from Westminster Hospital before leaving for Belsen. Michael
Hargrave is shaking hands with G.H. McNab, the Dean of Westminster Hospital Medical
School. Photograph by Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Westminster Hospital Medical School students ‘in battledress’. Photo credit Fox Photos
Ltd. The copyright owner of this photograph was not found although every effort was
made to trace them and obtain permission.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 4 8/28/2013 9:43:18 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Group photograph of the British medical students from London medical schools who
participated in relief work at Bergen-Belsen. Brigadier H.L. Glen Hughes, Director of
Medical Services 2nd Army, is seated centre. Michael Hargrave is in the second row, ninth
from the right. ©Imperial War Museum (HU59497).

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 5 8/28/2013 9:43:23 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

A general view of the squalor and filth in the camp at the point of its liberation by the
British Army. ©Imperial War Museum (BU 3764).

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 6 8/28/2013 9:43:24 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Women needing care in the hospital huts after the occupation of the Bergen-Belsen camp.
Photograph by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 7 8/28/2013 9:43:25 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Doctors
- ~
and nurses faced the foulness
,

Report to Britain
on Belsen
I t doctors
has been established beyond doubt that German
in Belsen hor ror camp injected inmates with
a solt.tion of benzol and creosote to induce paralysis, as
an excuse to send their victims to the crematorium.
When our own doctors a n d l ' - - - - -- __ = ===
nurses now aproach the patients
with life-s'a ving injections the),
in terror, and beg not to
to the crematorium. I·
. Dr. W. R. Collis. a
working" .
!)l'!;'.'.!;)';:.'': .';~

world
forward
children .
.. The p roblem of
with the forsaken.
adults is immense. but
if not tackled will
~'ffo rts here a wasle

Copyright Evening News/Associated Newspapers.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 8 8/28/2013 9:43:26 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

The only crematoria oven in the Bergen-Belsen camp, 15 April 1945. Photograph by
Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 9 8/28/2013 9:43:35 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Scene inside the cleansing station, nicknamed the ‘Human Laundry’, which was housed in
a former stable for cavalry horses at the newly established hospital for Belsen inmates. The
photograph shows some of the 60 tables, each staffed by two German doctors and two
German nurses, at which the sick were washed and deloused. ©Imperial War Museum
(BU 5474).

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 10 8/28/2013 9:43:38 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Women burying an inmate who was starved to death in the concentration camp. Photograph
by LAPI/Roger Viollet/Getty Images.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 11 8/28/2013 9:43:39 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

A German SS guard carrying an emaciated corpse over his shoulder to one of the mass
graves at Bergen-Belsen. ©Imperial War Museum (BU 4191).

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 12 8/28/2013 9:43:42 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

German soldiers forced to load trucks with the dead bodies of the thousands of victims of
the camp for burial. AP Press/Press Association.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 13 8/28/2013 9:43:43 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Women carrying bodies of prisoners to a communal grave. The hut in the background is
Hut 210, which Michael Hargrave was in charge of at the beginning of his month-long stay
at Bergen-Belsen. AP/Press Association.

SS guard women moving bodies of their victims from a truck into a communal grave under
surveillance of the Allies soldiers. Photograph by LAPI/Roger Viollet/Getty Images.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 14 8/28/2013 9:43:44 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

A crowd watching the burning of the last hut. Colonel Bird, Commandant of Bergen-
Belsen, gave the order for the last hut at Belsen to be burnt on 21 May 1945. A rifle salute
in honour of the dead was fired at the same time as a flame-thrower set fire to the last hut.
A German flag and portrait of Hitler went up in flames with the hut. AP/Press Association.

Board at the entrance of the burnt Bergen-Belsen camp to remind of the horrors perpe-
trated at the camp. Photograph by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 15 8/28/2013 9:43:48 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Centrepiece 28 Aug 2013 9:37 AM

Copyright Evening News/Associated Newspapers.

b1641_Centrepiece.indd 16 8/28/2013 9:43:51 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

Thero were about 10.000 dead lying around in the open a~d the Tommies

killed about 1000 more by giving them chocolates and their mvn r ations - 17,000

people died during March. Since we ~.-have had the Camp j3,000 people ad died.

There was no Typhus' in Camp II Concentration Camp and the inhabitants were

f~irly fit - the first scheme was to turn out all the people from Camp It and

idllet them out and then. to evacuate Camp I in~o Camp II - at least the healthy

people. This was not done on account of the difficulty of finding billets

for the Camp II inmates. So the present scheme was put into operation an~

was wor~ng fairly well. Finally he ~- thanked us all ' for coming out. He ."d
that the death rate in Camp I had fallen from 000 to about 90-100 per day.

We asked him questions about the Camp and he s~id muoh the same as we
were find.ing out for ourselves, that there was 'h ard work with occasional

beatings - but no aotual atrooitiew, bar some cremating before the people were -

aptually dead. MOst of the atrocities were at Auschwitz.

And so to bed. Ronnie Citrine rolled in tight after playing the piano

at 8. party the Officers were giving to t he men as a victory party - they had

plugged ijim with wine on an empty stomaohJ

SATURDAY l/B.y 12th.

_ Ralph's birthday. Up early and shaved in cold water • . No diarrhoea

~ gD. ~pium stopped that alright.

Found out last night that Crisp was going to start converting 217 into
a; Hospital. Asked George oodwer. if he would like to join me in 217 &s 216

was nOW cleared, he said he would.

ent to, the Camp - got D.D.Td - collected- 3 Hungies and set them to

clearing everythigg out of the hut. Told the people in 217 - there were only

6 of them - that we were going to begin turning it into a Hospital • • They ~ll

seemed quite pleased and willingly lent a hand.

b1641_Diary.indd 47 8/28/2013 8:47:31 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-4 6-

Decided that I would make the 2 nurses rooms into 1 big room. This was

easily done as the partition was only made up of wardrobes put together.

Then got the hut completely brushed out. . George then appeared and we

went off in search of a fimhose - got .one from 220 but found that it would

only reach as far as the door, so we went off to try and scrounge two more '

lengths. e saw some piles of hose lYing by a resevoir into which a German

fireman was pumping water, we waited until his back was turned and there wa s

no-one in sight and then we sneaked up and took two old lengths of hoae.

Then just as we were walking off we hearda shout of "laen! N1enZ" behind us

and the German fire~n dashed up, took our two lenghhs of old hose, went into

a hut and then came out with two bnnd new lengths. presen'lied them to us

with a bow and said "these are better" 1

We got the hose "all fixed up, ready to start hosing the hut dOYfn after

lunoh • .
After lunch I hosed the hut down complet ely and got it quite clean as the

hose was very powerful, also got very wet myself •

. The Eungies did not turn up and I was too busy to go and fetoh them, so

I started to sweep the water up with Zosia helping me.

George turned up, after doing the dispensary, and started to organize the

Hungarians who were supposed to be mak~ng beds.

Crisp then turned up and got ~ us some Hungy labour. I then supervised the

making of the beds - boiling hot day. flies just beginning to come out, and the

Hungies did, not feel like working but kept them at it, while George hosed down

the floor of the hut.

b1641_Diary.indd 48 8/28/2013 8:47:41 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-47-

e got the whole place cleaned up and then 'cresoled'all t he walla

and the floor - burnt the skip off my (R) hand as I did not realize until too

late what a powerful solution of cresol I had made up.

e got about 20 beds made and by keeping our Hungarians working over-time

managed to get all the beds into the Hut, including 10 beds for the Nurses.

e were told that we were going to get 4 more nurses. The German engineer

came tn and turned on the water supply to the hut .

George and I came back fit to drop. Had supper with rum and beer.

Crisp says that we must be ready to-morrow as he is going to start moving

patients in to- morrow afternoon, but as yet we have got no blankets or

pal1ias~s •
Obviously a hard da y~ work ahead of me to- morrow and so am turning in

ear ly to-night .

SUNDAY ~y 13th.

Up at 7015 a . m. - had breakfast, no conference and so I got to the

Camp early - to find that there was some miX7Up about the Hungarians and that

there was no labour available. ·a ited for half-an-hour and managed to grab

2 Hungies. ent to 217 and collected a bed from~ 2ao on the way.

'Organized' the 10 Hungies down there onto making beds and also the

slats for them. , e were very short of these later and needed about 500 by

the afternoon. ThEm arrange d the

beds in the hut so that they were

3 feet apart and there were no beds

opposite the windows - worked out

like this we had room for 35 beds,

'.
that is 70 patients.

b1641_Diary.indd 49 8/28/2013 8:47:52 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-48-

~tr...:.l>u..u.l&o i: 3~
~GL~w....~a.e.t.. .

The making of beds and slats went on well and soon we had the hut com-
pletely equipped with beda, though as not all the beds had slats we stopped

the Hungies. turning out beds and transferred them to making and cresoling slats
I aanaged to get the door at the far end of the hut open - the day was
boiling hot and like this we got quite a good breeze going throughout the hut.
Our next headache was palliases - we got the covers from the
"quartermaster U and also some straw and set our Hungies to work on filling
palliases. Got about 10 palliases filled by lUnoh time a~d ~ of the beds now
had slats.
After lunoh carried on with making slats and getting the palliases filled.
Got blankets from the Q.M. and Zosia and co started to make up the beds - they
worked hard an'<i well all through the day.
The ambulances came up with the patients who had been taken mainly from
Hut 208 - gone through the Human Laundry at Camp I, been D.D.Td and had then

come down to us.

e sprayed them and the beds with D.D.T. and then put them to bed and did

any urgent dressings. Some of the patients were in a very bad oondition.
but they were all very grateful and thankful to be on beds with palliases and
blankets instead of lying in all the filth on the floor of 208. There wa.s a

bit of difficulty because in many cases sisters had been separated as they

went through the "laundry" but we were all too busy to worry about that and
hoped that it would oome right in the end.

b1641_Diary.indd 50 8/28/2013 8:48:01 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-49-

Altogether we admitted about 20 patients to-day ami then the "laundry"

packed up. so George and I went off to the Q.M. stores to colleot cups, plates,

knives, forks, spoons, bedpans etc. and also to try and scrounge some more

palliases as the supply had run out.

Collected 80 cups, 60 plates, spoons, knives and forks and 8 bedpans -

more stuff to come but as the Hungiea had gone we deoided that the rest could

wait until the morning.

Zosia, Rosa and Co invited us to tea - some butter had come from the

cookhouses and they were very pleased as it was the first butter they had had

for 3 years - the tea whioh was lukewarm was made of Grade III water - So

what 1 e were very thirsty_

Back for supper and had 4 "!iota of rum, we l'were told that L1 and 1.2 were

needed for the internees and so we would either have to go under oanvas or

double up in 14 - put my name down for canvas - should be quite nice if the

~. r
weather stays fine - proposed camping site is in a field by the Mess .

for awa~ roun~a ~~AI

... :
t()02QQQ~

.I ~ ~

-I~ ~
~.

-- ------ - ---
--- ----
-- - ---~<-

1
- - o r - - 100 lcwdoa - ___ --?»

b1641_Diary.indd 51 8/28/2013 8:48:08 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-50-

MmlOAY May 14th.

Up at 7.30 - breakfast and then went to Camp I. Not nearly so warm

to-day.

Another mess-up over the Hungari~n labour - this time due to

Captain Gluck (R.A. M. C. Captain in charge of the medical part of Camp I).

After half- an - hours wrangling managed to get hold of 2 Hungarians.

Went to 217 and much to my relief no dreadful crisis had arisen during

the night. Perhaps it was just as well that we only had 20 patients as it

"broke in" the Nurses without too much strain.

Set 2 Hungarians making steps for the far door, as the original ones

had been used for firewood. Set 1 Hungy to sweeping the floor and the other
to cresoling stools.

George then arrived and so did the first patients, one 6f us supervised

the D.D.Ting of them and getting them into bed; Zosia and 00 worked marvels

in the speed at which they got them into bed.

In order to out down the work for the Nurses, George and I decided that

something had to be done about the diarrhoea sO"!j lWe went round giving out

Tanalbin - 5tablets stat. and then 3 tablets, 2 hourly - haw we blessed my

English lessons as we tried to explain all this toZosia.

We got all but nine beds filled by ltnoh time. Lost my pentorch by

dressing an axillary uloer while she was still on the stretcher and then

leaving my torch on the stretcher. Probably swiped by one of the Hungy

stretcher bearer••
After lunch the other 9 patients arrived, inoluding I dead woman,

probably she died of shock as she went through the "Laundry" - always surpr~

me that more of them do not die, as t~ey go through the "Laundry".

b1641_Diary.indd 52 8/28/2013 8:48:19 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-51-

e had now got our full quota of 70 patients well spaced in a hut that
once held 460 people under us and 900 under the Germansl

e now went round and had a look at the patients - they all looked

much thinner now that they were clean, but in some c~ses they looked more

healthy.

e then had to sit down and think out some system on which we were
going to run our Hospital. e decided that we would have 2 sheets for

each patient one at the foot of the bed with their name, age, c/o and

treatment, and then another on which we would record the results of our
examination.

At the end of 3 hours we had examined and written up 6 patients

between us, and so some revision of the scheme was needed. Decided that

the first thing to be done was to find those people who had hunger Oedema

and get Casein Hydrolyzate into them.

ent round and found that we had over 40 cases of quite bad Oedema
and that 18 of these were urgent.

There was one Italian girl, aged 18 - very weak, po~t Typhus weakne~s

unable to walk or eat and who would certainly die if something was not done

quic~ly. Tried to pass some of t he tubing which we had to use as stomach

tubes via the nasal route - could not get it down as it kinked (afterwards

found that David Bowler had the same trouble) and so I passed it ORally and

much to my su~prise it slipped down quite easily (the only lubricant we

had was teal) - then set up a protein Hydrolyzate drip GAVAGEl!!, ran in

one bottle ~f Hydrolyzate in i an hour, and then started another bottle

going at about 40 drops to the minute.

b1641_Diary.indd 53 8/28/2013 8:48:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-52-

George then had a go at passing a stomach tube on another girl with

Oedema - she did not like it and vomited hard, so we gave up the attemp~ on

her.
Had tea with Zosia and Co, quite enjopd it and then we drove back to

Camp II in a car which George had managed to wangle off an R.A.F. Padre, who

brought round 3 R.A.F. cars to hand over to the O.C. ~elsen Camp, but George

I managed to convince him that he did not want to give them to the O.C. Belsen

Camp but to the relief workers i.eo .the Medical Students and then 3 of them

grabbed the cars and drove off before he could f i nd out his mistake,

George grabbing one and driving a car for the first time in his l ife.

Our washing came back after supper and was given out, I towel and

several handkerchiefs were missing. Someone had gone into Dados and

collected 100 watches and we were ea ch given a watch.

Also told that we were going to move under canvas to-morraw morning.

Heard that Marlene Dietrio~ j had been to the Camp looking for her sis~

and had found her there!

TUESDAY May 15th.

Got up early and started to pack up my room. Found that I had got a

touch of diarrhoea again and also a spot of nausea - packed up as well as I

could and t hen went and had breakfast - did not feel like eating mUch.

After breakfast transferred all my belongings including my spring bed,

table and chair, to the ~ent; which I am sharing wi t h George ' oodwark. He

still had hi~ car and we transported several of the heavier things in this.

e heard that Arthur Baines, who had had a fever and headache the day

before, had gone to the German Hospital as a patient - it was thought that
it might be Typhus.

b1641_Diary.indd 54 8/28/2013 8:48:39 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-53-

George and I hitched a lift to the camp on an ambulance, as he had

been found out in his car racket and he was not · allowed to drive it out of

Camp II.
When we reached the Camp collected 2 Hungarians and then went to 217 .

Here we decided that we would content ourselves with filling in the form at

the foot of each bed which we had designed.

e filled in what the patients complained of and then treated them,

symptomatically, writing down whatever treatment we gave and the date .

'.
There wa s much diarrhoea and also some very bad cases of Oedema.

The Itil i an gi~~~ gave the Casein

..
N.
Of tfnME. RGE.
!WI Ct>~ '(oXOJ: -
Hydrolyzate by stomach tube, had died. She c...u..t:.
died ab out i of the way through the second

bottle of Hydrolyzate - we were rather worried .J

1.
in case we had passed it down the trachea, but

decided that as she was able to speak to a certain

lJ
o~,,~ .. J..o.>UA..
extent and had no respfratory embarrassment that it had been ~n the stomach

alright .

Most of our treatment was directed a gainst diarrhoea - though treated

one case of ? Rheumatic fever with 40 gr. Aspirin. law one case of quite
severe Cancrum Oris - t h~re was nothing we could do about it except give

her Permanganate Mouth 'a shes.

After lunch - I did not feel like eating much - we carried on w~th our

ward round which was getting a bit boring as it all had to be done through

our interpr~ter Zosia and the going was hard.

George had managed to regain his car for the afternoon and so we took

a woman who had a large abscess at the base of her (L) Index finger, to

Hut 209 where there was a minor Surgery of sorts. e had to wa it for

b1641_Diary.indd 55 8/28/2013 8:48:49 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-54-

about half an hour. in order to get a vaguely sterile knife and then while

I acted as Honarary Anaesthetist and sprayed Ethyl Chloride onto it George

.
opened it - had a bit of l ifficulty as the knife was not quite so sha rp as

he had expected. e felt a bit anno~~d after having waited for half an

hour to get a sterile knife , to get a blunt one given usl Dres sed it with

Gauze and Acriflavine; Zosia had come with us and was so pleased with the

car ride that George drove her all round the Camp whdoh pl eased her immensel~

I was beginning to feel pretty rotten by t his time as my Nausea was

increasing - did one more dres s ing and t hen we were invited to tea by Zosia ,

could not very well refuse ani 80 sat there while George ate hard, eating

pancakes filled with jam and I nearly vomited .

e drove baok to t b.16 Camp and gave a lift to 2 Tommies ; half way to the

Camp the~etrol ran out, but luckily we managed to get a full can off a

passing jeep.

When we got back we found that ~ Internee women had t r ied to loot our

tent - they had emptied our kitbags onto the irass and were walking off with

our packs and haversacks when they were caught and driven off.

At supper we heard t hat Ronnie Citrine had lost all his kit except for

his greatcoat, all looted by the internees , including a gol d cigarette case

worth £25, which he had brought over by mistake .

Ate I sardine at supper, finis hed rear ranging the tent and went to bed

still fee l ing pretty rotten .

Hut 217 returns =Total = 80 .

Sick ': 70
Nurses =
10
dead = 2 (1 died in afternoon) .

b1641_Diary.indd 56 8/28/2013 8:48:56 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-55-

, ct.Ai.>
.'
I
I
o
~ _. .. UoH..sk..-..-e
"

....,)1 ~~. ]
WEDNESDAY May 16th.

Was up durimg the Ddght with diarrhoea and vomiting. Got up for

breakfast but felt so awful that I did mot go to the camp - but sat outside

my teut in a chair and wished that I was back in England: constipatedJ

The trouble with this sort of diarrhoea is that while you have got it,

you can think of nothimg else but - diarrhoea .

Camp II is now filled with internees who are turning what was once a

really beautiful camp into a cess-pit. ent up and had a look at 12, and

it really was a heart-breaking sight, all our gas masks 3 and tinhats which

we had had to putili .one room, as they were all being recalled, had been so

smashed about as to be almost completely unrecognisable. Saw 1 man chopping

up a cupboard for fire woodJ
Anything in 12 which ' they could not loot they smashed, including the

wash basins and iron stoves.

I

At ~unch I heard that 10,000 cigarettes had been looted from the
'Comforts' store in Camp I, the culprits have not been caught, but yesterday

they caught one man in the act of loot~g - he was taken to the Guardhouse
(after he had been . D. Td)and was then taken to Cell~- where he will appear

before an al}ied court charged with looting.

It is rather rotten as all these cigarettes were given up by the

soldiers and .A.F. in the dist~ict for the internees.

b1641_Diary.indd 57 8/28/2013 8:49:02 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-56-

Did not go to the hut at all to-day and ate very little but tried to

keep t he fluid intake up, felt thoroughly rotten in the afternoon but
fortunately I went to sleep for most of it.

In the evening went up to have a bath only to find that the water was

lukewarm, which did not make me feel any better.

Came back to the tent, took 1 grain opium and some Magnesium Peroxide, ---
and went to bed early.
6.

THURSDAY May 17t h .

Feeling just as bad to-day and did not get up for ,breakfast. At about

10 o'clock Dr Meiklejohn came and saw me and said that there was not much to

be done, except to wait for it to go and to keep up the fluid intake •

. Got up at about 11 o'clook and sat in the sun, but it was so hot that

I had to sit in the shade.

George came back at about 11.45 feeling awful and looking pretty rotten,

like me, he also had the queer feeling that after he had walked about 10
yards his legs were going to give way under him and it felt just as if we
had been in bed for about a month and then just got up. Having a rest did
not seem to help this terrible feeling of weakness.

George has also got a feeling of stiffness in his (L) deltoid

, - where
he had his Typhus injections and thinks that he may be having an abortive
attack of TyphUS.

At lunch heard that Arthur Baines was vmmiting every i of an hour and
that his temperature wa s beginning to rise, but that he was ttill not

dia,g nosed.
In the afternoon George and I both went to sleep and did not wake up

until about 6 o'clock. fuen we woke I was feeling much better and he was
about the same.

b1641_Diary.indd 58 8/28/2013 8:49:08 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-57-

Had supper and then sat in the tent all evening. Learnt that George's

father (Sir Stanley ooawark) died 3 days a go of Coronary Thrombosis. Felt

very sorry for George. I had only seen his father once, and that was at
,
the Shrove Tuesday dinner at 'e stminster, but he struck me as being an

extremely nice man and must have been an equally nice father. Rotten luck

for George to be out in Germany when he died.

e both went to bed early - hoping to feel better to-morraw.

FRIDAY liay 18th.

Had a good night and felt much better in the morning, so did George.

Ate a good breakfast and then went down to Camp I.

' e had been told at breakfast that all of Crisp's Hospital area in the

Camp totalling some 800-900 patients ~a s to be evacuated to-day into the

"Roundhouse" in Camp II, which had been equipped with beds and
, was ready to
become a Hospital.

When I got down to 217, found that the ambulance teams were already

evacuating Hut 213 which was just next to us. The rumour went round that

they were not taking patients unless they had been washed and.D.D.Td, so I

set the Nurses to work wa shing the patients, a job they did not like at all

as many of the patients had scabies. I went up to the main gate in order to

get a tin of D.D.T.

On the way up I watched them burning three of the huts in the men~

laager. They soaked them in petDol and oil and then set light to them -

clouds of black smoke rose up and then floated out over the German country-

side - luckily for us the wind was blowing away from Camp II. It took

about 10 minutes for a hut to be completely destroyed.

b1641_Diary.indd 59 8/28/2013 8:49:15 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-58-

On the way back £rom the main ga~ e met George Woodwark and t hen together

we saw Crisp and explained to him that it was quite impossible . to get all the

patients washed by the time they were due to leave - he agreed and said that
he had never given the order that they should be washed anyway!

Went back to the hut and told the nurses that they could stop washing

the patient s , but that they all had to be sprayed with D~D.T. they quite
enjoyed this work and so our shares rose considerably.

e then saw the American Ambulance people and £ound out that our hut

would not be evacuated until the a£ternoon, so we had some time to have a

look round the patients - found that several of them had died, mostly those

that I had expected to die. including the Cancrum Oris. and that several

other patients were in 'Status Gravis'. Ge~rge and Russell Barton, who
had helped in my absence, had been trying to get them to drink protein

Hydrolytate, a Herculean task as the stuff smelt just like vomit, but the

results on the Oedema had not been very encouraging.

~ went round giving each patient who had diarrhoea ~r. opium - there
were less oases of diarrhoea than 3 days ago, indicating that the new dosage
of Tanalbin had worked.

I was then presented with the bombshell, which George had warned me

yesterday he thought was coming. Zosia and the rest of the nurses said

that when the patients went to Camp IV Hospital (Roundhouse) they did not

want to carryon nursing them.

Personally I do not blame t hem at all as no compensation is offered to

them for nursing. All t he other fit internees have quite a good time with

b1641_Diary.indd 60 8/28/2013 8:49:21 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-59-

no work to do and t hey just wander a round all day loot i ng and agitating to go

back to t heir countries - while t he nurses have to work hard and because

t hey are doing good work will probably be t he last people to go baok to their

countries.

The only difficulty was t hat t hey t hought that as soon as t hey got into

Camp IV it would only be a mat~er of ,days before they were repatriated to

Poland.

Tried to explain to them why t hey would not be going back to Poland for

many month s as there were neither houses nor food nor Government i n Poland

at t he moment. Then I had to sit down and' explain the International

situation about Poland to t hem; all about t he Curzon Line and t he 'Lublin

Poles' eto J t hey all wanted the London Govermment and would r at her die than ,

live on the wrong side of the Curzon Line as t hey hate t h e Russians just as

muoh as t he GermansJ ' saying t hat t hey got no better treatment at the hands

of t he Russians when they marched into Poland in 1939 than they did at the
hands of the Germans. They said all this after being in German Concentra~

Camps for 3 years.

After t hey had exp l ained all t his t o me (they all ~ived on the wrong .

aide of the Curzon Line) with many gesticulations and flas hing eyes J I had

an uncomfortable feeling that they held me responsible for t he Interna tion~l

situation and sOJ deeming t ha t discretion was t he better part of valour, I

beat a hasty retreat for lunch.

At lunch George and I decided t hat I should go dawn to the Hut in order

to supervis ~ t h e evaouation and that he would go up to the Roundhouse to

meet t he patients on t heir arrival there.

b1641_Diary.indd 61 8/28/2013 8:49:27 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-60-

So went down to the Hut and learnt that the ambulances would be coming

to 217 in about half an hour. So I went and had a look at what I thought

was one of the most impressive things about the Camp.

It was a pile of boots, made up of the boots taken off the victims they

cremated. I don It know how many years it had taken the Germans to build

up this pile, but it was about 20 yards l&ng by about 5 yards across and

about 12 feet high - the shoes at the bottom were squashed as flat as paper

and so you can imagine how many thousands of pairs of shoes there were there,

and each pair of shoes ha~ once had an owner, and though the Germans may

have destroyed ~ll the reoords of the Ca~p, this pile of shoes and boots

bore mute but absolutely damn ing evidence of the number of people who had

died in this Camp before the ,British arrived, because we did not add the
, ~
shoes of the dead onto this pile. and yet we buried 13,000 people.

The ambulances then arrived and such was the speed at which they were

working that they cleared the whole hut in 10 minutes.

There was one woman, whom I did not evacuate, she was aged 18, she was

Comatose and obviously dying fast and when I examined her I found that she

had absolutely classical Cheyne Stokes Respiration

On account of the fact that she was obviously going to die it seemed a
waste ~f time to take her to the "Roundhouse".

My next headache was getting the nurses paoked up and into the lorry

which was wa iting to take them to Camp IV, found that once the patients had

gone they ha~ all gone off for a walk except r Zosia so I told her to start

packing and went off in the lorry to find the others. Found them and took

them back to the hut - in all ~t took me about 2 hours to get 10 nurses

packed up, but eyentually all was ready and so leav~ng a notice nailed to

b1641_Diary.indd 62 8/28/2013 8:49:33 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-61-

t he door saying that there was one dying and Comatose woman in the hut, we

drove off saying good-bye to Hut 217 for 'the last time .

Was not quite sure what I wa s going to do with Zosia and Co but they were

on my hands now and I had to find them somewhere to sleep for the night .

Drove up to the "Roundhouse" and saw ~s Crossthwaite ' and she told me

to take them to the off ice in Camp II . Took tgem there and they told me that

I would have to take them to the office in Camp III - when I got there they said

that be~ore they could take them they would have to be registered. Just as

I was taking them off to be re gistered, the Army Major who was in charge of

Camp III said that they had stopped admitting people for the day and that I

would h ve to take them to 612 1ulitary Government in Camp II - we went there

and in the office I found a Major and a Captain, the MajQr told the Captain that

they could not take thel'll and that they must go to Camp IV - 'Ehe Major then left

to go riding and the Captain sai d it Was o. K. and he would fix them up for the

night in Camp II and then see that they were transferred to Camp TV in the

morning .

So We drove round to one of the German sta bles wh ich ha d been equipped with

beds and palliases and got them fixed up for the night . Then I said good- bye '

to them and thanked them for all the help' they had given me, and drove off back

to the Mess to arrive just in time for supper .

I hope Zosia and Co get comfortable billets in Camp IV as they have worked

hard and are probably stuck here for many months and possibly for the Whole of

the winter .
I
After supper I went up to the Roundhouse to have a look round found that

they had converted the Banquet - cum - dance hall into a Ward and that it con-

tained about 200 beds and th~t all the rooms off the two flanking pas sages which

used to be the German Officers rooms had been converted into

b1641_Diary.indd 63 8/28/2013 8:49:40 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-62-

wards. The two large semicircular rooms jutting out at the back of the

buildings, because they had such large windows and were so light, had been

made into T.B . Sanatoria. ~ .

Managed to locate most of the patients from 217 in wards 1 and 12 - they

were all very hungry but wer8 on spring beds with palliases and blankets.

They had been given brown bread and marzarine and they wanted the

biscuits which they had been having in the hut - still nothing has been dons

about getting them white bread and giving them brown bread is just a com-

plete was te of time as they will not eat it.

f1~iN £Nm M~

~w .u...~ -tU.1.o t.\. tJG...lct. ~csu...:..u;..q .

~~Q...c:I;o .

R"..w...s c:K.:.tJ.,. e-....., iH..:.t.l.

~w. Vu-.r e.~r,VtJ>.r
~· ; .w.>.c.tL.....,
1!c:tW- .. ~""" ~"l6S~. "" ........
Tj, r ....... .:t-... w........

of

b1641_Diary.indd 64 8/28/2013 8:49:46 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-63-

Someone had liberated about 100 fo~ntain pens from Dados and we drew

lots for t hem. I got a 'r aterman' whdiit will probably write with a bit of
I

ooaxing, if I can get hold of some i nk for it, which is scarce i n t hese parts

SATURDAY May 19~.

Cold this morning but t he sun wa s up - felt hearty and so had a sha~

out in t he open - only just arrived in time for breakfast.

After breakfast George and I went up to the Roundhouse (only about 400

yards away £tom t he mess) - gone are the days of having to ' hitch' transport

to Camp I.
,
e were allotted wards 1 and 12 and in t hose we located about half our

patients, t he rest had gone into other wards in t he chaos of yesterday.

Bur patients all seemed quite pleased to se e us - mainly I think because

t hey thought that we were g oing to give them food.

e started to do a ward-roynd of all our patients (totalling now 42),

acting in the s ame way as we had done in our ~ln Hospital - giving only

palliative treatment but keeping t he usual record at t he end of the bed of

what t hey complained of and what trea~ment wa s given.

An R.A. M. C. Capta in from t he Army Blodd Transfusion Unit came round and
we pointed out our worst cases of. Oedema and working on the principle that

the cause of the Oedema was loss of plasma proteins due to malnutrition

t hey started to transfuse 3 of them with recons t ituted double strength

plasma. There wa s one girl with diarrhoea with blood in her stools

(7 dysenter~) and on aocount of her gross anaemia we started to transfuse

her with wh ole blood. This took most of the morning - before we left for

lunch we had managed to get one bot tle a-piece i nto t he 3 people we were

transfusing with plasma.

b1641_Diary.indd 65 8/28/2013 8:49:52 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-64-

Came back after lunch and found that 2 of the people being transfused

with plasma were tolerating it well, but that the third was restless. By

slowing the drip down to one drop every 7 seconds she quietened down and

took the remainder of the second bottle well.

In the case of the whole blood transfusion, we had great diff iculty in

keeping the drip going - did not think that we were properly in a vein and

so I too¥ the neadle out and tried ,a gain - after that it 'went alright.

Gave ~ grain of phenobarbitone to t hose being transfused and it kept them

quiet ~ery nicely.

Carried on with the ward round doing any dres s ings which were needed,

then went round and had a look at the 3 Oedemas which were having plasma.

The plasma was not having the miraculous effect upon the Oedema which

I had hoped that it w ould have, but perhaps it is too early yet.

The transfusion people were going to. give them each a third bot t le but

persuaded them not to as all 3 of them had had Typhus and complained of weak

hearts and I was frightened that 3 pints would overload the heart.

Oval glucose-Vitamin solution was then brought round toward 12 while

I wa s not there, and one of t he ' Nurses' began pouring it down the throat of

a semi-comatose patient, who promptly a spirated it. 'Nurse' dashed into

ard 1 wh~re I was and tried to explain what had happened. When I got

there she was breathing with diff iculty and her breathing was very laboured

and bubbling - definitely Cyanosed. Listened to her chest and heard nothing

except bubbling vales right up to the Apices - there was nothing e v' ')jyl;

I could do f~r her except sit her up and hope that all the fluid would colleS

at the bases of her lungs and that any broncho pneumonia would be localize.

to the lower lobes, but she was too full of fluid and died about 10-15

minutes later. Felt extremely annoyed with the nurse, with the R.A. M.C.

b1641_Diary.indd 66 8/28/2013 8:49:58 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-65-

..
orderly for leaving the Gluoose with an untrained nurse, and with myself for

not being there, beoause it was an easily avoidable death and with so ~y

people dying anyway we do not want any avoi dable deaths.

Came baok to mess and had dinner. After that we were eaoh given our

N.A.A.F.I. bottle of whisky (prioe 8/6) and the Panzer trousers to matoh our

.oats. t hen had a bath and went to bed.

Found out tha t one of the nurses in Ward 1 wa s a Sulphathiazole addiot

and so promptly removed all t he tablets of' Sulphathiazole from that ward -

don't think that I will be very popular with her to-morrow.

SUNDAY May 20th .

Up at 8 0' clock - we had marma l ade for brea kfast but not muoh; went up

to the Roundhouse and George and I started on our usual morning ward round.

Hunted out the oases w hich ~ad 'been transfused and found t hat t he

double strength plasma had oonsiderably reduced t he Oedema but had not oom-

pletely got r i d of it. but t hat it had not done much good as f ar as the
general condition of t he patient was concerned.

e marked out more cases to be transfused with pla sma but t he trans-

fusion people wer e keen to tryout t h e 5% Casein Hydrolyzate whioh t hey had

~ ot with _t hem and so we set up two drips going as a clinica l tr i al. They
took t he Hydrolyzate muoh better t han t h e plasma and we gave t hem two

bottles each a t t he rate of a bout 1 drop per seoond - by t he time we left

it ha d not had much eff eot upoa t he Oedema and a s no glucose was given at

t he same t ime I do not expect much result from i t as t hey will just burn up
t he Hydrolyzate as fuel.

As for t he r e st of t he patients, t he y all seem to be picking up quite

qui ckly, and are all eager for cigarettes. They are still a little soared

b1641_Diary.indd 67 8/28/2013 8:50:04 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

- 66-

about t a king fresh mi l k and other fluids while they have diarrhoea - a
li B
"Belsen Fallaoy" whioh ha s probably killed as many people as the aotual

famine .
Saw one woman who had some very large cas eating g~s tuberculous

glands in the neck , with a long track under the jaw to ~n external opening

just beneath the chin - could only treat

it with dry dressings .

There is another woman who is also

a bit of a problem . She has about 5 huge

bedsores about the size of saucers, they are a l l

in a filthy condition owing to the fact that she

is incontinent of faece~ one of t hem has become a deep sloughing ulcer which

has ulcerat ed right t hrough Gluteus }~ ximus and now has its base formed by

t he Isch ial Tuberosity . Gave her t Morphine and t hen dressed her wound

with Sulphathi~ole cream and she has also t he beginnings of a Cancrum Oris .

There is another woman who I suspect has got Typhus as she has the

typically suffus ed look with -a high fever and quite bad dehydration with

headache. Gave her 15 grains Aspirin and told the nurse to see that she

drinks a l ot of water .

Hav~ 3 other cas es of fever which a r6 a oompl ete ~ystery t o me .

In the afternoon carried .on with t he symptomatic treatment. George

had to go off and look after t he dispensary - after I had finished my ward

round went downstairs and visited George in t he dispensary. He has now

got a huge ~d wonderful coll ection of German drugs - all in Ampoules -

some diffe r ence to t he m~ture dispens ary he had in C~mp I.

b1641_Diary.indd 68 8/28/2013 8:50:10 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-67-

Found a f ire screen down ·t here composed of 12 tiles, which I must see

if I can manage to get home.

Knocked off at about 6 0 'clock and t hen w ent and sat in th e sun outside

my b~Dt for an hour - supper at seven, after supper wrote a letter to Daddy,

then went down to t he mess to have some whisky and corned beef amd so to bed.

Returns from ards 1 and 12.

ard 12 Total c 22 Ward 1. Total = 20

V. Sick 11 V. Sick = 10
~o. to be evacuated =0 10. to be evacuated c 0
Dead = 1. Dead § 0

MONDAY May 21st.

Up at 8 o~clock - found that there was DO' marmalade for breakfast -
JI,*,~
great disappointment • . ent up to the roUlld Il all the pat ients were looking

much better, more ch~erful, much more interested in what was going on around

them - and they were all begizming to grumble about the food etc. which is

quite a good sign I · think.

Had a look at the two cases which had been given the 5% I .V. Casein

Hydrolyzate, in neither case had it had any effect upon the Oedema, though

in both cases it had made them stromger aud more interested in things, and

in one case the diarrhoea 'had gone, but as she had alae had Mist Opie and

Kaolin, difficult to know which one got rid of the diarrhoea.

There was: another i~teresting case in Ward 12, young girl aged about

19 with unilateral Oedema of her right leg from the foot up to and inoluding

the right Labium Majus she had a history of sudden onset with pain in the

R. I . F. and the Oedema is now sub s idtin~ gradually. Made our diagnosis of

? External Iliac Vein Thrombosis.

Another woman who had multiple small, superficial absc~sses allover
her body, ? Avitaminosis and so dosed her with Army Compound Vitamin tablets

b1641_Diary.indd 69 8/28/2013 8:50:17 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-68-

In ard 1 there was a:;girl with multiple deep discharging ulcers down th~

inner s ide of her left leg, with mas s i ve OedeIr.8. of the foot. e werO lnot

sure what this was J so we showed it to Major Halker, the Army surgical

specialist, whb was coming round in the capaeity of a Consulting Surgeon,

he diagnosed it as a case of suppurative 'phlebitis and auvised raising her

leg and flavine dressings - dres sed the leg and raised it on a box padded

with curtains - girl was only 15 so I gave her l5g . Aspirin and ~t .

Phenobarbitone to send her to sleep.

Also decided to raise the foot of the girl with unilateral Oedema and

did so with another box~

My diagnosis of the caseating glands was confirmed despite a rival

suggestion that it might be Actiaomycosis.

When I had finished doing dressings and dishing out tablets for

diarrhoea, pain, headache etc. I went down to the dispensary and "liberated"

my fi r e screen .

After lunch I rewrote sever al of the case sheets at the ends of the bede

and gave out any t ablets which were needed . e did not have any drips goiD@
to-day and I do not want any more Hydrolyzate as it is no use for the ·

Oedema - the only thing which touches the Oedema is double strength plasma

and several other people have had a 25% mortality from this - so I am rather

Chary about using it, n~vv~thelessJ I think that there are 2 cases which

should have it.

The girl we transfused with whole blood is much better, her diar rhoea

is going bu-t she has got a bit of a fever now - don't know why . I think
that she is one girl that we have quite definitely sav«d from dying as in

the hut at one stage Vie had labelled her status gravis and now she is
asking for chocolates and cigarettes .

b1641_Diary.indd 70 8/28/2013 8:50:23 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-69-

The woman with the fever, which I think is Typhus, still has a roaring

fever and suffuKed appearance but has still got no rash.

At 6 o'clock went along to Camp I to see the last hut in the

Concentration Camp being burnt down. There was a large crowd there - the

hut (No. 47) was soaked in oil and in front of it was a large Nazi flag and

also a flag with Eitler's face painted upon it. Round the hut was a
railing made of white tape, on the left were two flame throwing Bren carrierl

next to them was a Union Jack all neatly curled up, at the top of a flag

pole and next to that a platform with microphone and loud speakers.

Troops . .-m arched down and formed a guard behind the platform, then a

section marched infraat of the platform and drew up there - they were the

Guard of Honour for the people who had died in Belsen Camp. The crowd then

made a semi-circle round the hut and waited for whoever was going to perform

the Ceremony. ihile we were waiting, one of the flame-throwers accidently

sent a jet of flame over the hut - some of it dropping on the hut - amidst

cheers from the crowd the crew of the Bren carrier dashed towards the hut

,and put out the f l ames with fire extinguishersl

b1641_Diary.indd 71 8/28/2013 8:50:29 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-70-

Brigadier Glynn Hughes turned up and then Colonel Bird mounted the

platform and made a short but good speech - He reviewed the history of

Belsen Camp since the British liberated it on April the 15th, he ended up

by saying 'that "as the British flag did not stand for bestiality or cruelty

and that was why the Union Jack had never flown over Belsen Camp - now as

the la st Hub was being burnt the Union Jack would fly for the first time".

Brigadier Glynn Hughes ' and 3 other Colonels then got into the flame-

throwers and fired them aiming at the Nazi flag and Hitler and as the hut

burst into flame the Union Hack floated owt from the top of the flag pole.

Pure ceremony and melodrama, but most impressive l

On the way back went roulld to have a look at the mortal remains of

Hut 217 - there it was a mass of ashes - almost felt quite sorry as I had

rather looked on it as home while I worked there and now it was no more,

like the rest of Behen Camp.

Looking round Belsen Camp now was like looking at a wilderness of

ashes - with occasional raised squares of earthorising up out .t it, each

with their small piece of board saying "1000 unknown people buried here",

"8000unknovTn people buried here,"and completely surrounding the Camp was the

pine for.est, which would soon grow over what remained of both Belsen

Concentration Camp and the thousands of its inmates who died there.

Passed by the pile of boots, which like the rest of the Camp was a

smouldering mass of ahlles.

Betwee~ the administrative part of the Camp (which was still standing)

and the now extinct Concentration Camp a large hoarding had been erected

with the following words on it:-

b1641_Diary.indd 72 8/28/2013 8:50:35 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-71-

This is the 4ite of the

INFAMOUS BELSEN COnCENTRATION CAMP.

Liberated by British forces on April 15th 1945,

who when t~ey entered found}

10,000 dead lying around on the ground

.3,000 died after the liberation.

etc. etc.
ent back to Camp II, had supper and bath and then went to bed early

as it had begun to rain again.

( e were photographed both by a Movie Cameraman and Dr. Meiklejohn

against the background of the burning hut).

TUESDAY Mly 22nd.

Up at 8.15. e are steadily getting up later and later, j.st got

down to breakfast in time to have some treacle. We are all feeling con-

tinually hungry despite the fact that we appear to get quite a lot to eat -

main trouble is lack of jam etc. to go on the bread.

As it was my morning off and there was not much to do at the roundhouse

I decided that I would take the morning off; lounged around and tidied up

the tent a bit as it was beginning to bear a strong resemblance to the

oonditions in Camp I.

Then feeling bored, (it was raining and so I could not iit out in the

sun). I wandered up to the Roundhouse and round George doing a round of the

patients and explaining what they had got to the Polish woman doctor from

Hut 210. She and another doctor were supposed to tide over the time when

we left and the 29th British GelrBral Hospital arrived .

b1641_Diary.indd 73 8/28/2013 8:50:41 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-72-

Joined in the round and statted a woman on a course of Sulphathiazole

(Oedema .of right forearm followed an infected area on dorsum of right hand)

3 grammes stat and 1 gramme 4 hourly with fluids

'i e had found that in several cases, patients w~ we treated with

Sulphathiazole for some reason or other lost .their diarrhoea and so as

many other people also reported favou r ably on the us e of Sulphathiazole in

curing diarrhoea, we started about 5 patients who had reacted neither to

Tanalbin or opium on Sulphathiazole .

Then went down to the "Dispensary" and collected a couple of card-

board cartons in order to pack up my glasses . Came back t o the tent and

waited anxiously for lunch .

After lunch, which consisted of Bully Beef , went up to the , Roundhouse

and did a "treating round" of the patients - the diarrhoea appears to be

getting very much better, only about 10 peopl e now have diarrhoea badly.

The Oedema of the legs is going down now that we have elevated them - made

a sloping incline with bandages wound round a wooden fram~/ork - this was

more comfortable than a wooden box and she was not likely to get pressure

sores on her heels .

The girl with the unilateral Oedema of t he right leg is n~1 much

better, ~d the Oedema of the leg is going down. Set another woman, who

had Anasar. a, going on a double strength plasma drip - she has already had

two bottles of 5% strength Casein Hydrolyzate and it did not even touch

her . Casein Hydrolyza~e has I think been dropped. Proflre' ss or Davidson

(Professor of Medicine, Edinburgh) asked us some questions about the wor k

etc . He said that some Edinburgh students wer e coming e~t ea~e~ards .

b1641_Diary.indd 74 8/28/2013 8:50:48 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

';'73-

He raised some interesting points ,about t h e treatment of diarrhoea

- basing the treatment upon whether the cau se wa s Mechanical or Infective .

Thought it over in the evening and came to the conclusion t hat as

regards any concentration camps which may be liberated in the f ar East, if

someone can find a quick and reliable cure for diarrhoea there is no need

for any other form of treatment , as once you have stopped the diarrhoea the

patients regain both their appetite and their strength - over ~ of the

treatment which I have given at Belsen has gone towards trying to c~re

diarrhoea and as I have said be ~ore there must have been many hundreds of

deaths at Belsen Camp solely due to the exhaustion following diarr'h oea.

~thods used here:

Mechanical . (Opium - good but habit forming.
(Tanalbin - good in large enough doses.

Infecti:ve (Sulphathiazole - good in cases which do not react to

( opium or Tanalbin

? Pellagra (Nicotinic Acid - sometimes succeeds in cases not reacting

( to any of the 3 pre cedtng~_
Famine (Casein Hydrolyzate ? some people say that it is of
----". ( value .

and so the cure undoubtedly depends upon whether the cause is

(1) Mechanical
(2 ) Infective

But it is not so easy just to look at a patient and decid e whether the

cause is mechanical or Infeotive. The only practical' thing to do is to try

one cure, the Mechanical first as it i s easier to give opium and Tanalbin

than a oourse of Sulphonamide, and t hen if it does not react to that treat-
ment switch onto the other one.

b1641_Diary.indd 75 8/28/2013 8:50:54 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-74-

If of course the diarrhoea is due to the rich foo~ which they are

eating after a ~ong . period of semi-starvation, you are in a bit of a quandary

because you want to get the food into them and yet you MUST stop the

diarrhoea. Perhaps in these cases OTal Hydrolyzate with ! Gr . Opium is the

answer.

Went to the films in the evening "Show Business", came back and had

some Dully beef in the Mess and then went to bed.

EDNESDAY Nay 23rd.

Up at 9 otclock to-day and had an egg for breakfast also had diarrhoea

again. After breakfast I went up to the Roundhouse, and did a round of all

the patients. Nothing very much to report except that in 4 out of 5 cases

the Sulphathiazole has cured the diarrhoea.

Gave one woman an I.V. Mercurial duiretic as she has Oedema of hands

feet, abdominal wall etc. She has already ha d 2 bottles of Intravenous

Casein Hydrolyzate - but although t his appeared to make her stronger it did

not help the Oedema.

Did some dressings in Ward I and decided that I would leave Ward 12
/until after lUnch.

At lunch we had the usual bully beef, we are all g etting fed up with it

as we have had it for the last 3 days.

After lunch carried on inard 12. The girl with the T. E. Glands

and a SinU8 "has now g ot 2 openings beneath her chin, one from some c "'. es ;~~ .i..::

caascating glands on the left side of her neck now.

b1641_Diary.indd 76 8/28/2013 8:51:01 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-75-

She also has some crepitations at the

Apices of both lungs and a s she has a bad

cough she probably also has pulmonary f.B.
E;;::;t!:'-
? ~c · 9u k r#:C4
A..ot- ... .
She is one of the cases whose diarrhoea was

stopped by Sulphathiazole - the only disadvantage about her is that she does

not like having the nurse dress her Sinuses, and, so I have to do it each

day which pleases her immensely!

Had to dress the leg of the girl with suppurative phlebitis - did not

want to do it - but the nurse flatly refused to do it as there was so much

foul ssmelling pus knocking around and so as there was no-one else to do it,

I had to; all her ulce~ look much cleaner but they are still discharging

pus hard. The Oedema is not going down because she will not keep her foot

up but bends her knee. Decided to give her one more chance and so I

dressed it with flavine gauze and told her to keep her leg straight.

Crisp came and told us that Professor Davidson had decided to stay on

at Belsen for another 2 days and that he would be doing a ward round at

5 0 'clook to see any oases of famine Oedema. ~ e told him that we had one

case and then we were told that he expected a proper case history and

continuation notes!

Fortunately we managed to get hold of an interpreter and George asked

the questions while I wrote down the answers - just as well for us that

we had the interpreter as the woman was (a) Hungarian, £Qb ) Mad (c) could

not speak much German anYV'ay.

Eventually we managed to get some sort of History out of her

(fortunately not one of Nephritis as she was the same woman to whom I had

given the Mercurial dieretic in the morning). Copied out her con-
tinuation notes to learn that Davidson wa s not coming round to-day atter
all.

b1641_Diary.indd 77 8/28/2013 8:51:07 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-76-

Heard that we are going baok to England on Saturday or within 48 hours .

ent back to have suppe r , it has been raining all day and we are a l l

feeling depres~ed and dismal . After supper filled in some forms on disease

incidence, results of treatment of diar rhoea and Oedema, and the Value of

I .V. Plasma and Casein Hydrolyzat e .

Had a bath - on t he way up to t he bathhouse ~et Zosia and Rosa.

Zosia does not look so nice now that she has tried to make up, a s she did

i n Camp I . She is still trying to learn English, but ha s no-one to teach

her .

Most of t he women in Camp I seem to be get t ing t heir self- respeot baok

now that they are in decent clothe. , (every man, woman and child in the
province of Luneberg in ,which Belsen is situated has had to give up 1 suit

of olothes for t he internees) , they are at t empting to ke ep t hemselves clean

and to look nice .

Somehow I cannot bring myself to like t he internees as t hey ar e making

such an infernal mess of t his camp , and all t heir destruction is so wanton

as t hey destroy anyt~ing which is of no use to them at the pre sent moment ,

irrespeot~ve of the faot that they might want i t later, and they still

l ive by the "law of t he olutching hand".

And so to bed.

THURSDAY May 24th .

Only just got up in time for breakfa st t o-day. After br eakfast

George and I went up to the Roundhouse to do t he usual morning ward round

- gave some Santorium tablets to a woman who cl a imed that she had passed

a worm - she also ha d extremely advanced tubercle .

b1641_Diary.indd 78 8/28/2013 8:51:13 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-77-

Noticed for the first time that nearly all the young gi rls (15 - 19)

who we had in our w· rds, wer e Italian. The rest we re mainly Poles and

Hungarians with an oo casional German J mv .

Deciaed that we would leave most of the dressings until after lunch as

Professor Davidson was coming this morning and was going to gi ve a ward round.

He did turn up at 11 o'clock followed by a Brigadier, 5 Colonels and

umpteen Captains and they were given the ITard round and not us - most of our

thoughts and sayings on the matter were quite unprintable .

Carried on with our private ward round and t hen went off to have some

lunoh . At lunch there was great excitement, about the dance whioh we were

going to hold this evening - as far as we could gather there was going to be

no shortage of drink .

After lunoh went round doing the dres sings . The girl with the Supp .

phlebitis sti~l would not keep her leg straight and so after I had dressed

her leg t made a splint and bandaged her leg down onto it which rather

shook her.
Vte are all beginning to feel bored with the life out here nmv because

We feel that our work has really be en dona and What is needed here now is a

oompetent nursing staff with about 10 doctors to go round and have a look at

the patients each day and tell the nurses what to do.

We have not got enough time to examine each patient fully and yet there

is too much time to do just symptomatic treatment - one thing is oertain

hawe~er, and that is that all the patients are looking much better and are
stronger thoggh they are still phenomenally thin.

We have no Hungarian labour inside the Hospital, instead German women

are made to come in from the surrounding towns and wash the floors etc.
Went back to my tent at about 6 O'clock in order to shaYQ .a nd wash

b1641_Diary.indd 79 8/28/2013 8:51:20 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-78-

before s upper, which wa s a t p.30. After supper ~e lounged around until

7.30 when t he dance was due ~ begin. Actual ly it did not begi n until

8 o'clock .

There was a distinct shortage of women. but as t here was no shortage

of drink . wh ich was what ev~ r yone had come for anyway ,' we .di d not worry.

'i e had:-
Rum Punch with Bene dictine.
Gln and Lime.
Hock.
Chianti.
Lemonade and a Buffet.

I went to bed a bout twelve .o'clock but the party went on t i ll about

3 o'clock. Got up to the tent just in time to fi nd George WoodNar~. who

had turned in ear ly as he was trying to hitch- hi ke t o Berlin to-morrow,

st arting to groan and so I ha stily pus hed a bucket towards him i nto which he

vomi t ed with masterly precision .

f of an hour later I Wa S ret ching my guts out int o the self same bucket.

Derek Wells is in t he German Hos pi t al with Typhus.

FRI DAY May 25th .

George got up a t 6 o'clock t his morning i n h is a ttempt t o get to Berlin

and so I did not see him a l l day. I got up at 8 .30 and found to my sur-

prise that I had not got a hang-over a t all - Dick .Jenki ns on t h,e other hand
,..,.
st ayed in bed all morning as he had a sp lib t ing heada che.

I ent up to t he Roundhouse not fe eling like doing any work at al! ~

Neve r t heless di d the usual ward round.

Had a look at t he "cholin ised" dri p which Russell Barton and I ha d set

up ye sterday afternoon containing 6 mgm of Acetyl Choline, 1 co 1/1000

b1641_Diary.indd 80 8/28/2013 8:51:24 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-79-

Adrenal ine in 1 pint of plasma . It was Russell ' s idea , working on the

prinoiple that oholine was a stimulant to Kidney function and therefore tIle

Oedema woul d go down through the fluid being exoreted - her Oedema was

certainly less , but as it was impossible to keep any recor d of the Urinary

Volume, we had no proof that the b~nefit which she ha d got had not come from

the plasma, but as the other woman which I had got on singl e st r ength pl asma

was no better, there was circumstantial evidence that the choline was workitg .

Car ried on doing the ~essings - the girl whose' leg I s~linted has now

reduced her Oedema by half - but was beginning to get a sor e back as she was

unable to turn over with a splint .l on her leg , so I got a palliass half fill ei

with straw and put that behind her and thus got her sitting up after which

she was more comfortable .

'e have only got about 3 cases of diarrhoea l eft now and we have put

these onto Nicotinio Aoid 300mgm daily , as many of the others say that they

have f ound that it oures diarrhoea .

The girl',with the unilateral Oedema of her r ight leg is now complete l y

better except sh e has ~ot a stiff knee, but this will go as with a little

ooaxing ahe can flex and extend it all right . In faot all the patients are

very much better and need nothing so much as good nurs ing .

After lunch carried on with any treatment and dressings which still

remained to be done. Got these finished fairly early and went back t o the

tent and packed - especial ly my liberated wine gl sses - finished both my

packing and also adjusting my equ ipment and then three of us started

throwing baY3nets at trees - stuck a bayonet in my left index finger . Davi d

Bowler' sprayed it with Sulphonami de and dressed it .

b1641_Diary.indd 81 8/28/2013 8:51:31 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-80-

There was nothing much to do in the evening after supper an d so I

lounged around - heard that some Belgian medical students .had arrived and

that " ..:'!'.e re going to hand over to them to-morrow. Also that the ~igh

Commissioner for South Africa had visited th e Roundhouse in the afternoon.

I had seen him but had had no· idea who he was.

George had still not come back from his jaunt to Berlin and I began to

wonder if he was going to get back at all to-night as it is a good 200 miles

to Berlin.

And so to bed.

SATURDAY May aBth.

oke up to find that ~erge had got back all right at about 11 o'clock

last night and found out t hat he had not managed to get to Berlin as he had

been turned back by the Russians on the f a r side of the Elbe, but he had had

quite an enjoyable day.

Had another egg for breakfast and then George insisted that as he had

had the day off yesterday I should have it off to-day. I agreed and spent

the morning packing up some wine glasses which I had got off Russell Barton

and lounging around waiting for lunch - there was nothing else to do as it

was raining again to-day.

After lunch I decided that rather t han be bored for the rest ' of the

afternoon I would go up to the Roundhouse and so I went round with George

~ oOcINark - the Nicotinic Acid seemed to be clearing up the rell8.ining

diarrhoeas quite nicely and we now had only I case of really bad diarrhoea.

e did some dressings - about the only treatment which was now needed .

b1641_Diary.indd 82 8/28/2013 8:51:37 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-81-

We were told that we were going to hand over to the Belgian medioal

students at 4.30. Meanwhile some Army Nursing Sisters and a Major from the

29th British General Hospital had ar r ived and there were several blo~ups

between the nursing sisters and our chaps - the sisters tried to order them

around in their own wards and as we were still in charge they were told,

none too politely, where they got off.

Then the Ilhtron wen:b round and started to critize ~ Hospital and

another chap blew up at her. It was a great pity t hat these people had not

seen th e conditions in Camp I and been8ble to compa re them with the Round-

house !

Tempers were beginn ing to run pret t y high when the Belgian students

arrived - I showed two of t hem round our wards and explained what each patient -

had got and when I had finished one of the students asked me where the tem-

perature charts were - I had to ca refully explain to them that we did not

even have thermometers, whiohrather shook theml

We then said good-bye to Mts Crossthwaite and we ha d handed over the

Roundhou s e • Our work at Behen had now come to an end and in many ways we

were not sorry- The Light Ack-Ack had left a couple of days ago, going off

at about 8 o'clock in the morning with no-one to send them off. ~'le had not

realized that they were going until they had gone when it was too l a te. It

was a great pity be~ause they had done an immense amount of work for the

camp and had been the original people into it.

I In the evening went up to see a show at the cinema. called the "Barn
stormers". ,. -Geor ge and I took a lit t le internee boy in and he promptly lIIIilt

to sleep on my lap. Left half way through the show in order to listen to

a talk given by Captain Dan.s of the American Typhus Commission. He

b1641_Diary.indd 83 8/28/2013 8:51:43 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-82-

demonstrated a case of Typhus and then gave us a talk on how they had con-

trolled t he Typhus Epidemic at Belsen.

He was extreme ly go od and I took notes on t he back of some German

Propaganda postca rds.

~ 'e should have be en going home to-day but learnt that the transport

. had only been applied 60r, for Monday. And so to bed •

SUNDAY ~y 27th.

Got, up so late this morning that both George and I missed breakfast.

Managed to scrounge some bread and jam and ate that.

After breakfast went up to t he Bath-house and ha d a bath and a shave -

found that the water was almost cold and that did not improve our already

frayed tempers. I s at out in the. sun for t he r est of the morning while

George did some packing.

After lunoh we heard that Dr. MeiklejOhn was going into Cel Ie to arrange

for Hospital accommodation and wa s willing to take 4 of us in with him, so

George oodwark, Diok Jenkins and David Bowlen and myself decided to go

with him. Lionel Garstin, ~~iklejohn 's -driver, drove ·us in.

The road was extremely bad all the way and we lo~ked with interest at

the German oountryaide and civilians. One thing struck me forcibly, and

tha t was that all the Germans were laughing and happy, except when they
, saw
our truck and that soon wiped the smile ofrtheir f a ces .
Another thing wa s that all the German women and children were fair

haired and tha t a dark head wa s the exception - in Belsen I do not remember

seeing a blonde t he whole time I was there.

e drove into Celle, which is an extremely pretty town, and then up to

b1641_Diary.indd 84 8/28/2013 8:51:48 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-83-

t he Hospital which had been used under t he Germans for poison gas experi-

ments - here Meiklejohn disappeared into the off ice and we s at and waited for

h im. Aft er an hour he sa id that t he man he wa s looking for wa s at a foot -

ball match and that we had better drive round while we wa ited for him .

So we drove into Cel l a , found an R.A. F. information Centre and asked

t hem if there was anywhere whe r e we could get tea in Cel £a - they said no,

and our opinion of both Cel l ~ and t he R.A. F. dropped with a bang.

ent for a drive along t he Brunswick roa d and then drove back to the

Hos pital to pick up Meiklejohn; on the way back to Cel l a noticed that a ll

the German houses were different from one another and that they do not have

the rows upon rm{s of houses, a ll exact l y the same, l i ke we do .

When we got back to t he Camp found that Russell Barten had made a raft

out of Duok boards and four beer barrels and was happily punting himse l f

round the lake .

Not hing much to do in the evening except wonder whether we would be

going home to - morrow - bet George that we would and we had a bob on it .

ent to t he Cinema and saw "Flesh and Fantasy" . Good film but I had

seen it before - came back to the mess to f i nd an ambulance drawn up outs i de

t he Mess and f ound t hat another of our chaps wa s being taken off with Typhus

- rotten luck when we are due to go home s'o soon •

•e heard also t hat the Belgian students were completely lost up at the

Roundhouse - s t anding round in groups, not know i~g what to do .

Had several gr oup photographs taken to - day. One of t he estminster

group and one of the "Roundhouse " group standing on the front steps of the

Roundhouse with Brigadier Glynn Hughes.

b1641_Diary.indd 85 8/28/2013 8:51:55 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

- 84-

MONDAY Mly 28th.

Made sure that we got up in time for breakfast this morning and had 2

eggs for breakfast - the se were got by Dick Jenkins and Ken Easton who used

to go out to the local ~ erman farmhouses and give 1 cigarette for 2 eggs -

highly illegal as barter is strictly forbidden out here .

Looked as though it was going to be a fine day and so I sat a round in

the sun for the first part of the morning . No message had come through to

say that we wer e going to - day and as de Greeff ha d told us that we were on a

48 hours notice basis , many of our people de cided to hitch hike to Hanover

and Ham1:Urg for the day.

Half way through the morning Rus sell invited me to come out on his raft

with him - went on it and spent a t horoughly enjoyable morning punting round

t he lake . We saw . averal shoals of small fis h .

e had a quic k lunch and t hen went out on the r aft a gain . RUB sell

noticed t hat one of t he barrels ~as coming l oose and so we put into port for

repairs, which Russell ha d completed in about half an houri

e were just putting out t o sea again, when George V' oodwa rk das hed up
.:
to the bank and sa id that a Dispatch rider had just come from Celle. to say

that the Aircraft were waiting at Cel l~ an d due to leave at 3 o'clock - the

time wa s now ten to t hree~ Tom Crisp answered t he message and managed to

po,ppone their leaving until 6 0 'clock . We were then told t hat transport

woul. be leaving from outside the mess at 3.30.

Went up to the tent to find George hastily pac king the remainder 'of his

kit - fort unately except for my blankets I was alrea dy packed up. Packed

up 3 of my big wine glasses and my panzer coat in my blankets , and was ready.

b1641_Diary.indd 86 8/28/2013 8:52:01 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

- 85-

During the packing we plied two Tommies who we r e guarding t he t ents

with whisky , gin and any loot which we, decided that we could not get home .

- th~y were very grateful and were half tight by t he time we left .

v: e then <got into our equipment and waited for the transport. Talked

to a Lieut - Colonel wh o told us grisly stories about t he Oust oms • which male

our hair stand on end , as we we re all packed up to the necks wi th "liberat i '

stuff" • .

Then t he lorries came and we all piled onto t hem being 'extreme l y careful

of our kit . e moved off amid the envious stares of several Tommies . but

we had to wait half an hour. while one of the lorrie s picked up some of th ~

people from t he German Hospital .

Then at about 4 . 30 p.m . we left t he Panzertruppen Schule for ever'

On the way down we sa.ng hard all the way reserving "Tipperary" until we

were actually passing t hr ough Celle and i t l ooks could have killed we would

have all dropped dea d. there and t hen .

The lorries missed the wa y ~o the "Airstrip twice and on t he second

attempt we sa',. a Dlaltvellous piece of bombing by the R.A. I<' . on a facto r y -

completely wrecked wit h very few of the surrounding l ouses damaged.

On the Airst rip we found t hat the Dakotas were all lined up wa iting for

us and h~d been lined up since 3 o'clock . Secretly we were all very glad

remembering those three days of waiting when we were coming over .

There was no waiting on t he Ali! rport to - day , as they, were only too keen

to get us off , We bundled into the planes. waited 5 minutes wh ile t h?y ,

warmed up t h~ engines and taxied onto the runway . The engines roared. the

pitch rising highe r and higher and hi ghe r , until you felt sur e that some-

thing would g? bust , t hen slowly we began to move forwa.rds . Got faster and

fa.ster - bumped once or t wice t hen all the bumping stopped and we were
Airborne ll

b1641_Diary.indd 87 8/28/2013 8:52:07 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

- 86-

Ye circled Cell~ and then set cour se for home, feeling rather sorry

for the chaps who were still in Hanover and Hambe rg as they probably won It

be leaving for 2- 3 days as another movement control order ha s to go through

for them .

e. passed over Hanover and noted all the damage whioh had been done to

the marshalling yards and surrounding districts. There was nothing else

to see after that, except t he Autobarns pointing like long white fingers

to t he hea rt of Ger many.

'''lie ran into several thunder storms - one of these just as we were

crossing the Rhine and then the next town we kDaw we were over was An~/erp,

away down there on our right . 1 e then flew parallel with t he coa st .

~.

-
~.

r eached the French Coast opposite Dover we crossed the channel t

and crossed the English coast at Deal and then landed at Croydon at ~{enty

to ten, with our ears buzzing .

N~'T came t he ordeal which we had all been dreading - the Customs . Ye

went in and were given all sorts of forms to fill up - had to hand in our

Allied Mi litary permits and heard over the loud speakers that we were to

hand in our uniforms to - morrow at 2 . 30 . _e then went into another room and

there wereour kit bags all laid out on table s . , e were asked to find them

b1641_Diary.indd 88 8/28/2013 8:52:13 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Diary 12 Aug 2013 5:13 PM

-87-

and t hen asked if we ha d any "wines s pirits or cig aret t es'to decla re.

I s a id t ha t I had half a bot t le of wh isky and t h e Cu stoms Off icer just said

"Oh l r ea lly", marked my kit ba g and passed on.

Te Wer e then asked if •..we had any l ett e rs for anyon e in t his country.

I said no and t h en we were let out a n d clambered onto . B.L.A. Lorrie s which

were going to take us up to London.

On t he wa y up to London we whistled and waved a t everybody we passed,

barring a f ew girls t he only peop le who waved back wer e policemen, - every

policeman we passed waved to us.

Ye arrived a t Victoria Station a t about 10.45, and I sta rted to walk

home , thinking how much happier everyone in Ger many looked compared to the

people in Eng land ~ tAnd yet we had won t he ~. ar J

Arrived home to a n enthusia stic welcome.

b1641_Diary.indd 89 8/28/2013 8:52:20 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Glossary 26 Jul 2013 11:55 AM

Glossary

?: Question marks are used throughout the diary as shorthand for ‘possible’ or to
indicate an uncertain statistic.

21st Army Group: British-commanded military formation consisting primarily

of the British 2nd Army and the First Canadian Army.

Ack-Ack: Nickname for anti-aircraft artillery.

American Typhus Commission: United States of America Typhus Commission,

established on 8 December 1942 with the goal of finding the most efficient way of
preventing the spread of typhus, primarily for the protection of the US armed forces.

Auschwitz: Name given to a network of camps in and around the town of

Oświęcim in Poland, and consisting of three main camps: Auschwitz I (the base
or administration camp), Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the extermination camp) and
Auschwitz III-Monowitz (the labour camp).

B.L.A.: British Liberation Army, the original name given to the Army of
Occupation in Germany following the end of the war.

Barts: St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

Battery: An artillery unit generally consisting of between 100 and 200 men and
between six and eight guns.

Bengal Famine: The Bengal famine of 1943–1944.

Blakehill Farm: Refers to RAF Blakehill Farm, an air base situated near
Cricklade, Wiltshire.

88

b1641_Glossary.indd 88 7/26/2013 11:53:38 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Glossary 26 Jul 2013 11:55 AM

Glossary 89

Blockleiter: National Socialist (Nazi) party term given to those prisoners who
spoke for huts/blocks.

Bob: A shilling.

Bren carrier: A light armoured vehicle produced to fulfil a number of roles in

the British Army, including reconnaissance, transport of large infantry weapons
and hauling artillery. All vehicles were armed with the Bren light machine gun.

Brigadier Glyn-Hughes: Brigadier Hugh Llewellyn Glyn-Hughes RAMC,

Deputy Director Medical Services, British 2nd Army; was the senior medical
officer during the advance across the Rhine. While attached to the 11th Armoured
Division he became the first Allied medical officer to enter Belsen.

Bully Beef: Finely minced corned beef in gelatine traditionally packaged in

small, oblong-shaped tins.

c.c.s.: Casualty Cleaning Service.

c/o: Country of Origin.

Celle: Capital of Celle District in Lower Saxony, north-eastern Germany.

Colonel Bird: Colonel H.W. Bird, Commander 102 Control Section and Allied
Commandant of Belsen.

Colonel Johnstone: Lt Colonel James Alexander Johnstone RAMC, Officer

Commanding 32 Casualty Clearing Station; was the senior medical officer at
Belsen after its liberation. Belsen was liberated by the British 11th Armoured
Division on 15 April 1945, and Johnstone and his unit arrived on 17 April.

Crossing of the Rhine, 1945: Coordinated airborne and amphibious operations

named Operation Varsity and Operation Plunder had begun on 24 March and had
secured the beach head on the east bank of the River Rhine by 27 March.

Croydon: Location of the Croydon Aerodrome, London’s main international

airport between 1920 and 1952.

Curzon Line: The Curzon Line was a demarcation line proposed at the end of
the First World War between the new Polish republic and Soviet Russia. After the

b1641_Glossary.indd 89 7/26/2013 11:53:38 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Glossary 26 Jul 2013 11:55 AM

90 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal

Yalta Conference in 1945, the line was confirmed, with minor variations, as the
new post-war border between Poland and the Soviet Union, which saw large parts
of pre-war eastern Poland become part of the Soviet Union.

Dakotas: Name given to the RAF versions of the US Douglas C-47 Skytrain
transport aircraft.

Down Aphny: Refers to Down Ampney, the RAF air base located to the north-
east of Cricklade, Wiltshire.

Dr Meiklejohn: Dr Arnold P. Meiklejohn of the United Nations Relief and

Rehabilitation Administration.

Drugs and dosage: In the diary Michael Hargrave uses opium and aspirin for
diarrhoea and pain relief. In the diary he uses various dosage measurements
which translates as follows: Aspirin — 15 grains is equivalent to 900 mg (3 aspi-
rin tablets); Opium — ½ grain is equivalent to 30 mg of opium.

Eskimo Nell: The Ballad of Eskimo Nell, a traditional bawdy poem.

Flesh and Fantasy: 1943 anthology film starring Edward G. Robinson, Charles
Boyer and Barbara Stanwyck; directed by Julien Duvivier; distributed by
Universal Pictures.

German doctor: SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Klein, a medical officer at the

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from January 1945 until its liberation.

King’s Speech: King George VI made a broadcast of thanksgiving to the nation

at 21.00 BDST on 8 May 1945.

Kramer: SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Kramer, commandant of the Bergen-Belsen

concentration camp from December 1944 until its liberation.

Laager : Camp.

Light field ambulance: Name given to a mobile medical unit by the British
Army.

Limber: A two-wheeled cart designed to support the trailing element of an artil-

lery gun, thus allowing it to be towed.

b1641_Glossary.indd 90 7/26/2013 11:53:38 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Glossary 26 Jul 2013 11:55 AM

Glossary 91

Lublin Poles: Name given to the pro-Soviet government set up in Poland, which
first met in the town of Lublin. This was one of two competing Polish govern-
ments, with the other being the anti-Soviet government-in-exile in London.

M.C.: Military Cross, a gallantry decoration then awarded to commissioned

officers in the British Army.

Macintosh: A type of waterproof raincoat made from rubberised fabric.

Mae West life jacket: Name given to the first personal flotation device issued to
aircrew in the RAF. So-called because of the supposed resemblance the wearing
of this jacket gave to the torso of Mae West.

N.A.A.F.I.: Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes, an organisation created by

the British government in 1921 to run recreational establishments needed by the
British Armed Forces, and to sell goods to servicemen and their families.

PanzertruppenSchule: Refers to the panzertruppenschule, the armoured troop

training school of the German Army.

Professor Davidson: Professor L.S.P. Davidson, Professor of Medicine at the

Polish School of Medicine, University of Edinburgh.

Quartermaster: The unit in charge of distributing supplies and provisions in

larger military formations.

R.A.M.C.: Royal Army Medical Corps.

R.C.A.F.: Royal Canadian Air Force.

Ralph: The author’s brother.

Russians march into Poland, 1939: The Soviet Union launched an invasion in
the east of Poland in September 1939, approximately two weeks after Germany
launched its invasion in the west.

S.S.: Schutzstafel, paramilitary organisation and military wing of the Nazi party.

Show Business: 1944 musical starring Eddie Cantor, George Murphy, Joan
Davis, Nancy Kelly and Constance Moore; directed by Edwin L. Marin; distrib-
uted by RKO Radio Pictures.

b1641_Glossary.indd 91 7/26/2013 11:53:38 AM

 b1641 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal b1641_Glossary 26 Jul 2013 11:55 AM

92 Bergen-Belsen 1945: A Medical Student’s Journal

Shrove Tuesday dinner at Westminster: A tradition started in 1940 by the hos-

pital chaplain at the Westminster Hospital to help raise the spirits of both the
doctors and medical students during the Blitz. Sir Stanley Woodwark was guest
of honour at the first dinner in 1940.

Sir Stanley Woodwark: Sir Stanley Woodwark CMG CBE MD FRCP,

Consulting Physician at the Royal Waterloo Hospital and the Miller General
Hospital; President of the Institute of Hygiene; Governor of the Foundling
Hospital and the Westminster Hospital.

Tanalbin: Albumin tannate.

Tommies: Plural of ‘Tommy Atkins’, a colloquial term for a soldier in the British
Army.

U.C.H.: University College Hospital.

Ung. Hyd. Ammon.: Ammoniated Mercury, a compound used as an antiseptic

ointment for skin conditions.

V-E Day: Victory in Europe Day; the day that the German Instrument of
Surrender was signed by General Alfred Jodl at Reims.

W.A.A.F.: Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

(Waffen) S.S.: The armed, military formation of the SS, which paralleled the
structure of the German Army and served alongside it, but was never formally
part of it, instead remaining the armed wing of the Nazi party.

Wehrmacht: The unified armed forces of Germany between 1935 and 1945,
consisting of the army (Heer), navy (Kreigsmarine) and air force (Luftwaffe).

b1641_Glossary.indd 92 7/26/2013 11:53:38 AM