Pat Lynch
Born: United States
Describes the establishment of a hospital to care for liberated camp survivors [Interview: 1995]
Those that were then...those that were really too sick to move, we had to find a building, or put a tent up outside. We had to get them out of the camps. It was too dirty in there. And so we put tents up, and we, we knew how to run a hospital under tents because that's what we'd been doing. See, the evacuation hospital that I was with was all tents. So we knew, even surgery. We knew how to run a hospital under tents. So we put them up, put tents outside and got clean bedding for them. And they were bathed, and took care of them there, until we could move them someplace else. But mainly to get them out of those buildings that were just terrible. They were infested with mites, and, oh, just awful.
Those that were then...those that were really too sick to move, we had to find a building, or put a tent up outside. We had to get them out of the camps. It was too dirty in there. And so we put tents up, and we, we knew how to run a hospital under tents because that's what we'd been doing. See, the evacuation hospital that I was with was all tents. So we knew, even surgery. We knew how to run a hospital under tents. So we put them up, put tents outside and got clean bedding for them. And they were bathed, and took care of them there, until we could move them someplace else. But mainly to get them out of those buildings that were just terrible. They were infested with mites, and, oh, just awful.
Pat was one of thousands of U.S. nurses who served in evacuation hospitals during the liberation of concentration camps in Europe. She cared for camp survivors, many of whom were in critical condition upon liberation.
