Dr. P---- came into the wards with these words: "Sisters, there is no
time for weeping. Those who have no one dependent upon them, come. Put
on your white surgical gowns, and the red cross. Make ready to go on the
battlefield at once. God knows how many of our sisters and brothers are
already killed." Tears were just running down his cheeks as he spoke. In
a minute twelve nurses and eight doctors had volunteered. There was one
Red Cross nurse who was in bed waiting to be operated on. She got up and
made ready too. Nobody could keep her from going with us. "Where my
sisters and brothers fall, there shall I fall," she said, and with these
words, jumped into the ambulance and went on to the City Hospital with
us. There they had better equipment, and they sent out three times as
many nurses as the Jewish Hospital. At the City Hospital they hung
silver crosses about our necks. We wore the silver crosses so that we
would not be recognised as Jewish by the Holiganes (Hooligans).
Then we went to Molorosiskia Street in the Moldvanko (slums). We could
not see, for the feathers were flying like snow. The blood was already
up to our ankles on the pavement and in the yards. The uproar was
deafening but we could hear the Holiganes' fierce cries of "Hooray, kill
the Jews," on all sides. It was enough to hear such words. They could
turn your hair grey, but we went on. We had no time to think. All our
thoughts were to pick up wounded ones, and to try to rescue some
uninjured ones. We succeeded in rescuing some uninjured who were in
hiding. We put bandages on them to make it appear that they were
wounded. We put them in the ambulance and carried them to the hospital,
too. So at the Jewish Hospital we had five thousand injured and seven
thousand uninjured to feed and protect for two weeks. Some were left
without homes, without clothes, and children were even without parents.
My dear reader, I want to tell you one thing before I describe the
scenes of the massacre any further; do not think that you are reading a
story which could not happen! No, I want you to know that everything you
read is just exactly as it was. My hair is a little grey, but I am
surprised it is not quite white after what I witnessed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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