Don Shepherd, N.O.I. R.A.M.C. was a member of the British Liberation Army and wrote this testimony following a visit to the Sydney Jewish Museum.

"If I should live to be a hundred years old I will never forget Bergen-Belsen. I was a medical orderly in the British Liberation Army. The Medical Officer and I went to Belsen Camp and when we arrived we had to pump D.D.T. powder under our clothing and inside our hats. Outside a room boards were painted with numbers and fixed to poles. 'What are these for?' we asked. They were for the large mass grave pits.

The camp was divided into three sections. First for the new arrivals, second for those that had been there a while and third, the people in a very weak state. A very sick man was being carried on the back of a prison guard with a British soldier behind him with a rifle. We were told it was the wish of this very sick man that he be carried out of the gate of this dreadful camp to know the feeling of freedom.

A woman had little children behind her in the new arrival section. Why were these little ones brought to such a horrible place? A few tears ran down my face. The army came in with tanks of drinking water and those who could make it were already coming. A lad was crawling on his knees and elbows. A woman who was in a bad way in front of us had dysentery and prolapse of the bowel.

We went to the huts, whitewashed inside, with bunks made of wood. One of the inmates told us that when someone died they had to get help as they were often too weak to remove the body. Outside the huts the refuse was piled high and the smell was horrible. We kept our handkerchiefs over our noses. If I think about this I can still smell it after all these years. The M.O. and I spoke to many of the inmates. A woman came with a younger woman who had been a Polish concert pianist. They wanted to know by the condition of her hands if he thought she could play again.

We made our way to walk around the mass grave pits. There were hundreds of naked bodies with excessive wasting of body tissue. The M.O. had to make his report on the condition of the bodies. The people had died of starvation, typhoid and many of dysentery. This was a time for the army to work out how best to deal with this dreadful situation. We had to report back with the Army Information Officer to H.Q.

These memories have been with me as we come up to the 50th year. I did not see any other camps. Belsen was enough for me. Over the years I have often had nightmares. How and why could such dreadful things happen to bring about a 'Hell on Earth' for other human beings?"