NIGHTMARE HORROR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 08, Issue 88, 10 July 1945, Page 5

NIGHTMARE HORROR

MR DOIDGE TELLS OF BELSEN NOTORIOUS CONCENTRATION CAMP Some first-hand knowledge of the horrors of Bclsen were given bv Mr F. W. Doidge M.P., in the course l of his address in Tauranga last week. ► Mr Doidge said that a few days . after his return to London from > Italy he and Mr S. G. Holland were asked by Mr Churchill to go to Belsen and Mr Fraser who was then in San Francisco also asked them to go. A plane was placed at their disposal to take them to Germany and a Brigadier accompanied, them. They drove many miles through the forests of north-west Germany and lunched in a beautiful sylvan glade in the forest in which the camp was. situated. The first tiling that happened when they arrived at the camp was to go through a delousing process having previously been innoculated for typhus. They were then taken into • the compound and what, they saw there will ever remain a nightmare to Mr Holland and himself. # "Anything you have read about the conditions In the camp arc no said Mr Doidge. "I can assure you that what we saw no newspaper could tell." Inmates were dying at the rate of a thousand a week. As many as 5000 had been buried,in a common grave. They went into the huts and the floors were covered with people in rags and dying. "When/ they speak of human skeletons I know now what it said Mr Doidge, "and when jthey speak of skin and bones I know ; now what it means." Many had gone out of their minds some for all time. One "woman he spoke to was an experienced hospital nurse. I asked 'Why are you here,' and she replied: 'I ani a Jew.' He also spoke to an emaciated girl and asked her why she was in the : camp and. the reply was: "I hated j Hitler. v , Many of them, added Mr Doidge } ' would never be able 1 to give an intelligent answer to any question. s Mr Doidge added that the camp j had been in existence, for 10 years. It held 60,000 persons. Twenty-five ' per cent, died every month but there were always 60 5 000 ii\ it. j "Belseri 4vill remain a horror and a nightmare to us, but Mr Churchill and Mr Fraser were right } the story j has got to be told " concluded Mr ] Doidge. ,