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	» Site Map » Home Page Historical Info » History » QAIMNS for India » QAIMNS First World War » War Graves Memorials Nurses » Book of Remembrance » QA World War Two Nursing » Belsen Concentration Camp » National Service » Korean War and the QARANC » Gulf War » Royal Red Cross Medal » Colonels In Chief » Director Army Nursing Services (DANS) » Colonel Commandant » Matrons In Chief (QAIMNS) » March » Motto » QA Memorial National Memorial Arboretum » Army Recruitment Posters » Museum » QA Association » QA and AMS Prayer » Books Former Army Hospitals UK » BMH Cowglen Glasgow » CMH Aldershot » Colchester Military Hospital » DKMH Catterick » Ghosts » Hospital Ghosts » Haslar » QA Centre » QAMH Millbank » QEMH Woolwich » Musgrave Park Hospital Belfast » Netley » Royal Chelsea Hospital » Royal Herbert » Tidworth Military Hospital France » Ambulance Trains » Hospital Barges » Hospital Ships Germany » BMH Berlin » BMH Hanover » BMH Iserlohn » BMH Munster » BMH Rinteln Cyprus » TPMH RAF Akrotiri » BMH Dhekelia » BMH Nicosia Egypt » BMH Alexandria China » BMH Shanghai Hong Kong » BMH Bowen Road Hong Kong Overseas Old British Military Hospitals » BMH Gibraltar » BMH Malta » BMH Nepal » BMH Singapore » Belize Hospital			Belsen Concentration Camp Information about the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp liberation and the role of the British army doctors, nurses and medics As the Allied Front Line advanced towards the end of World War Two the Commandant of the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp was in charge of thousands of Polish prisoners who were suffering from typhus and typhoid. He knew that when the British army liberated the camp many prisoners of the Nazi concentration camp would escape or be freed and would have spread these and other deadly diseases across Germany. So under a white flag of truce he went to the nearest British HQ and explained the situation. A neutral zone and a truce was declared for 48 hours whilst administration and care of the prisoners was handed over to Britain. The British inspection party under the command of the Divisional Director of Medical Services Royal Army Medical Corps went to the Belsen Concentration Camp and were the first to see the horrors of this Nazi Concentration Camp. This included thousands of emaciated bodies lying unburied or decomposing in open pits and thousands of dying people in the overcrowded prison huts. The book Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story has a collection of photographs of the Bergen Belsen camp including the burning by flame throwers of the contaminated huts, a QA nurse caring for a Russian Jewish prisoner and the RAMC and QAIMNS staff enjoying leave at Belgium after the horrors they had witnessed. British troops took over the Belsen camp on the 17 April 1945 and at gun point ordered the Nazi guards and some of the locals to bury the dead. British engineers set up proper sanitation and a water supply. Number 32 Casualty Clearing Station and No 11 Field Ambulance were posted to care for the survivors of the Belsen Concentration Camp. The senior Sister was Miss Higginbotham and other QAs included Sister Mary Sands. An army report from the 10 May wrote that Field Ambulances are ideal because ...initiative, drive and improvisation are essential requirements. (cited in the book Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Famous Regts. S) by Juliet Piggott). Most of the survivors were Poles and Russians (cited in the book Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Famous Regts. S) by Juliet Piggott) and included men women and children. Those that survived the Nazi atrocities were like walking skeletons and despite the best care of the QAIMNS and the RAMC hundreds of the prisoners died each day. When the British Army entered Belsen Concentration camp there were two camps. The people were housed in huts much like those used to house about 30 people. However the prisoners at Belsen were crowded into these huts without beds, furniture, sanitation, blankets and even no clothes. One hut had 1100 people housed along with corpses of varying stages of decomposition. Six hundred men were counted in the other building (cited in the book Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Famous Regts. S) by Juliet Piggott). The patients and their accommodation were thoroughly cleaned in an operation called human laundry. Each internee was hosed clean each day, shaved and sprayed with DDT (cited in the book Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Famous Regts. S) by Juliet Piggott). All were ridden with lice and each patient had to be thoroughly deloused before admitted to the now cleaned ward accommodation. One QA Sister was placed in charge of the camp kitchen because food was still scare in the area and the patients had to be re-hydrated and given close monitoring of malnutrition as well as treatment for dysentery, tuberculosis, typhoid, typhus, diphtheria, heart and kidney problems and many more medical conditions. The book Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story has an account by QA Molly Budge who nursed at Belsen Concentration camp and met the notorious female guard Irma Grese and the camp Commandant Josef Kramer. Both were hanged as war criminals in December 1945. Sister Budge’s account narrates the difficulty the Nursing Sisters faced and the lengths they went to care for the prisoners. During this period the Bergen Belsen Concentration camp was attacked by a German Luftwaffe pilot and several RAMC personnel were severely wounded and one medic was killed. Help Needed: Qaranc.co.uk would like to add a page about the QA lanyard but need some help. Can anyone please help with a photo of the lanyard on the uniform and a photo of just the lanyard? It would also be helpful if anyone can give some tips on how to site and fit the lanyard. Please use the e-mail address on the contact page. Thank you! Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story by Nicola Tyrer is an account of the QAs during the two World Wars. It includes first hand accounts of the Queen Alexandra nurses who were in the dressing stations, casualty clearing stations and field hospitals of Dunkirk, D Day, the fall of Singapore and many more locations where the QAIMNS served. Buy Now. Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story is also available as a talking book read by the actress Barbara Flynn and Sian Thomas. Buy Now. View More British Army Nursing Books - with free delivery available. Amongst the internees there were many doctors and nurses. Unfortunately their moral values had been destroyed by their treatment in Belsen. They were unable to help with medical treatment or nursing care because they would scrounge the food from patients for themselves. Many were incapable of giving care to others because of their own physical weakness (cited in the book Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Famous Regts. S) by Juliet Piggott). As the patients health improved they became more difficult to manage prior to their repatriation. Many turned to stealing food having been starved and ill treated by the Germans. For their own safety the CO had to stop QAs working night shift and would only allow infantry guards to keep the peace at night. There is more written about Belsen Concentration Camp in the book Quiet Heroines: Nurses of the Second World War by Brenda McBryde. Two weeks after the liberation of Belsen the Royal Army Medical Cops (RAMC) performed the same relief work at Sandbostel camp (cited in the book Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Famous Regts. S) by Juliet Piggott). The Relief of Belsen The Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp liberation was featured in the drama documentary The Relief of Belsen that was broadcast on Channel 4 television on Monday 15 October 2007 at 9pm until 11:05pm. It starred the actors Jemma Redgrave and Corin Redgrave (acting for the first time together), Iain Glen, and Tobias Menzies. The Relief of Belsen showed real life footage film from the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and factual events re-enacted as well as news footage from the Second World War. The Relief of Belsen drama depicted the British ambulance unit that was diverted from the frontline to Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 during the local truce with Nazi troops. It captures the horrors that was witnessed by the British Army and those serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Services (QAIMNS) though the uniform worn by Jemma Redgrave looked more like a Red Cross nurse or a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse. The Relief of Belsen also has scenes of a survivor of Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp talking about her experience and how fellow inmates, including her son, died in the camps. In The Relief of Belsen on Channel4 TV Corin Redgrave played Brigadier Glyn Hughes, Iain Glen was medic Colonel James Johnston, Tobias Menzies was Derrick Sington, Jemma Redgrave was Mac, Simon Day was Stadler, Nigel Lindsay was Gonin and Paul Hilton played Rabbi Leslie Hardman. The Director was Justin Hardy and The Relief of Belsen was written by Peter Guinness. Buy The Relief Of Belsen On DVD. There is more written about concentration camps and WWII on the QA World War Two Nursing page. A British Army Nurse In the Korean War A newly published book about the QARANC is A British Army Nurse In the Korean War by Elizabeth Jilly McNair. QA Sister McNair saw active service in Korea and Japan and this book is based on her letters home and photographs she took during her 18 months spent nursing at the British Commonwealth General Hospital in Kure, Japan and the British Commonwealth Zone Medical Unit in Seoul, Korea. Buy Now! If you would like to contribute to this page, suggest changes or inclusions to this website or would like to send me a photograph then please e-mail me. The photos and pictures on this page have been kindly sent to us for inclusion on this page. If you would like to contribute photographs then please contact us. Findextrawork Since leaving the QA's we have done an assortment of self employed work and jobs, some which only take an hour a week, others have been full time. We have written about these at our other website Findextrawork at www.findextrawork.co.uk where we share the information for free to help others with information and resources about earning more money. Visit Findextrawork for more information. 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