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Folder 1: Letters by Muriel Knox Doherty, May-July 1945May-July 1945

by Muriel Knox Doherty
Transcript: 

Hospital Ward. In one week after the arrival of the students the death rate was halved and in two weeks halved again.Mention must be made of here of Dr W. A. Davis M. S. Army member of the Typhus Control Commission who was working at Belsen on the control of the typhus epidemic – Typhus ‘Jo’ as he is called can today look back on a task efficiently completed.

Within 2 weeks of the medical students setting up this hospital in the camp, 1,200 patients had been washed, disinfected and admitted, where they were treated & nursed entirely by the medical students & volunteer nurses from among the internees. It has been authoritatively stated that a large number of patients owe their lives to this achievement.

This venture was so successful that the hospital was allowed to function until all the other patients in the horror camp had been transferred to the German Barracks. They eventually evacuated patients, equipment & nurses to the very palatial ‘Round House which had been the German officer’s mess of the Wermacht [sic - Werhmacht], and where it is said Kramer, the beast of Belsen, once entertained