BERGEN-BELSEN 1945: A MEDICAL STUDENT'S JOURNAL

by Hargrave Michael John, David Bowen Hargrave

Between 1941 and 1945 as many as 70,000 inmates died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northwestern Germany. The exact number will never be known. A large number of these deaths were caused by malnutrition and disease, mainly typhus, shortly before and after liberation.It was at this time, in April of 1945, that Michael Hargrave answered a notice at the Westminster Hospital Medical School for 'volunteers'. On the day of his departure the 21-year-old learned that he was being sent to Bergen-Belsen, liberated only two weeks before.This firsthand account, a diary written for his mother, details Michael's month-long experience at the camp. He compassionately relates the horrendous living conditions suffered by the prisoners, describing the sickness and disease he encountered and his desperate, often fruitless, struggle to save as many lives as possible. Amidst immeasurable horrors, his descriptions of the banalities of everyday life and diagrams of the camp's layout take on a new poignancy, while anatomic line drawings detail the medical conditions and his efforts to treat them. Original newspaper cuttings and photographs of the camp, many previously unpublished, add a further layer of texture to the endeavors of an inexperienced medical student faced with extreme human suffering.

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, unique perspective on the Holocaust. What I found most interesting is how detached and matter-of-fact the author’s tone is, which is quite a contrast to how anyone today would write about a concentration camp. That being said, after giving it some thought, it’s not necessarily surprising for a 21-year old medical student who came of age during World War II, where unspeakable tragedy was everywhere. I don’t believe the author ever identifies any patient by name, they are all described as “patient”, “young woman”, etc. Towards the end, he wrote, “Somehow I cannot bring myself to like the internees [ie survivors] as they are making such an infernal mess of the camp…” The closest he comes to emotion/compassion is when, after a patient died due to a nurse’s mistake, he wrote “Felt extremely annoyed with the nurse… because it was an easily avoidable death and with so many people dying anyway we do not want any avoidable deaths.” I don’t judge him for any of this – I don’t think it’s that uncommon for people sacrificing a great deal to help those in dire need to view it as a “job” and be detached from the day-to-day emotions. (One could argue that’s what all doctors do?)

Nonetheless, I’m giving it 3 stars because the book was mostly pretty dry (though occasionally quite funny) and focused a lot on medical details that I wasn’t so interested in (and in some cases struggled to understand).

[Ben Vos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting snapshot of what must have been deeply affecting couple of weeks in this young doctor's life. Not that you would necessarily know it as he is professional throughout and the account is to the not at all emotional.

[Emmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not really a book. As mentioned it's a diary. However, I appreciate for those young medical students who served for people in the difficulties.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very pleasant way to end 2019.

[Usfromdk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a very long book, but an interesting one. The book gives you some insight into what life in a recently-liberated camp was like, and hints at what it used to be like, some of the problems the survivors still faced - both the ones which were ill and the ones which were not - which issues the medical staff faced and how they dealt with them, etc. The book also provides a strong reminder that the sorrows of some of the people who survived the war far from ended when the war did.

One curious aspect of these particular diary notes, which I couldn't help thinking about once or twice while reading, was that the author wrote this diary just weeks after the author of probably the most well-known diary from World War 2 (Anne Frank) had died in the same camp in which he wrote the diary notes included in this book.