25 April, 1945
Wednesday
15:10 p.m.
As a volunteer for the British Red Cross society I have seen many horrifying things over the past few days. On 15 April we liberated the Bergen- Belsen concentration camp. This was an "exchange camp", where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. We found over 13,000 unburied bodies and 60,000 inmates, most severely sick and starved. I struggled to hold back my tears. Many of the prisoners had died from starvation, tuberculosis, typhus, typhoid fever and dysentery. Thinking how many families this war has torn apart made my heart break. Being thankful that my family was safe, I treated the injured, fed the starved and comforted the devastated.
It was traumatising to bury so many corpses. There were so many children who were terrified and refused to believe they were safe. There was this little girl who was injured and while I was treating her she kept on asking for her mother. I couldn’t to tell her that her mother was gone. The day passed in transferring the survivors to Wehrmacht barracks.
On 21 April five of our teams were sent to Belsen. Red Cross doctors and nurses staffed the hospital, welfare officers took care of children, and cooks established canteens to feed the inmates. Other teams, which included me, set up first aid posts, handled stores of fuel and clothing supplies and drove patients from the camps to the hospital.
I hope that the war ends soon until then Red Cross will continue its honourable work.
Anikaa.
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