19-In Belsen

Here, over an acre of ground, lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which, except perhaps by a convulsive movement, or the last quiver of a sigh from a living skeleton too weak to move.

The living lay with their heads against the corpses, and around them move the awful ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and no hope of life. Unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them.

There was no privacy, nor did men or women ask it any longer. Women stood and squatted, stark naked in the dust, trying to wash themselves and to catch the lice on their bodies. Babies had been born here, tiny, whizened things that could not live.

A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British century to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny knight into his arms and ran off crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days.

This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.