Bershadskaya, who helped the camp doctor, Julian Fuster, take care of the wounded, writes of 500 dead: Fuster told me to put on a white cap and a surgeon’s gauze mask (which I keep to this day) and asked me to stand by the operating table and write down the names of those who could still give their names. Unfortunately, almost nobody could. Most of the wounded died on the table, and, looking at us with departing eyes, said, “Write to my mother . . . to my husband . . . to my children,” and so on. When it became too hot and stuffy to bear, I took off the cap and looked at myself in the mirror.
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