After Daybreak
The Liberation of Belsen, 1945
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Publisher Description
'The things I saw completely defy description': when British troops entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, they uncovered scenes of horror and depravity that shocked the world. But they also confronted a terrible challenge - inside the camp were some 60,000 people, suffering from typhus, starvation and dysentery, who would die unless they received immediate medical attention.
After Daybreak is the story of the men and women who faced that challenge - the army stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers, medical students and relief workers who worked to save the inmates of Belsen - with the war still raging and only the most primitive drugs and facilities available. It was, for all of them, an overwhelming experience. Drawing on their diaries and letters, Ben Shephard reconstructs events at Belsen in the spring of 1945 - from the first horror of its discovery, through the agonising process of trying to save the survivors, to the point where Belsen became 'more like a Butlin's Holiday camp than a concentration one'.
By the end of June 1945, some 46,000 people had survived at Belsen; but another 14,000 had been lost. Should we therefore see the relief of the camp as an epic of medical heroism - as the British believed? Or was the failure to plan for Belsen and the undoubted mistakes that were made there further evidence of Allied indifference to the fate of Europe's Jews - as some historians now argue? After Daybreak is a powerful and dramatic narrative, full of extraordinary incidents and characters. It is also an important contribution to medical history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Why did 14,000 inmates of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp die after its liberation and under British control? Shephard, creator of the Emmy-winning documentary series The World at War, casts a critical but judicious eye on British management of the camp. Drawing on letters and diaries by British military and medical personnel, he paints a textured picture of the camp's desperate state, rife with starvation and typhus. Shephard acknowledges the enormity of the problems the British faced and the logistical difficulties of wartime. Yet he makes clear that many deaths could have been prevented. Some died from food that was too rich and heavy for starving people, and the evacuation of both the sick and fit was delayed. At the same time, he commends some people, often outside the military structure, who saved lives through individual initiative and heroic measures. Shephard draws lessons for today in, for instance, the difficulty the military has in dealing with a humanitarian disaster, and the basic reality that there's only so much that can be done when confronting a den of disease. B&w photos.
