RESERVE LAZARET COSEL (P.o.W. Section).

Visited February 5th, 1942.

British Camp Leader: Corporal William SMITH, 12721

Strength: 271 patients, 39 British and 229 Russians.

MEDICAL PERSONNEL.

        2 Doctors and 19 Members of the Serbian Medical Service

        1 French Doctor.

        This Lazaret was opened on December 3rd, 1941, and has been in quarantine since December 13th for exanthematic typhus. We had a long talk without witnesses with the Camp Leader, but were unable to visit in detail the patients' wards.

QUARTERS

        This Lazaret is installed in wooden hutments, three of which are reserved for patients. In each hutment there are 9 wards for patients and one room for the medical personnel, as well as a washroom with three showers, a bath and a tap. There is a second tap in the room reserved for medical personnel.

        The water closets are barely adequate for a Lazaret.

        The beds are in double tiers of wood or metal. All the men have two blankets provided by the Germans, and sheets which are changed every 3 weeks or whenever a new patient occupies the bed. The rooms are very well heated.

FOOD

        There are two categories of menus.

                1. For the prisoners of all nationalities, with the exception of the Russians, the food is very plentiful and very good. The doctors say that this is the first time they have eaten so well since they were captured.

                2. For the Russians: Some potato soup twice a day, the quantity of which is about half that given to the other prisoners, and two pieces of bread.

        It is the convalescents, and at the moment the British in particular, who help to do the cooking.

CLOTHING

        On their arrival at the Lazaret the patients are given a vest and a pair of drawers which they return on their departure. Exchange of clothing and or personal linen of the medical personnel is done through the Stalags to which they are attached. There were no complaints on this subject.

MEDICAL ATTENTION

        This Hospital is only a branch of a big German Reservelazarett, thus all the specialised examinations are done in other branches. The majority of the patients are medical cases, as the hospital has no equipment to allow of surgical operations.

        Up to the day of our visit, there had been 38 cases of exanthematic typhus, 35 amongst the Russians and 3 amongst the members of the Serbian medical personnel. Three of the Russians have died.

        The British cases are not of serious illness - mostly boils, eczema, etc.) All the deaths registered at this Lazaret have been amongst the Russians.

        Disinfection is done by means of a mobile apparatus. The Doctor-Commandant of the Camp has arranged that the new hutments shall be constructed away from those of the Russians for the use of patients of other nationalities, as vermin remains abundant in rooms used by the Russians.

CORRESPONDENCE

        The British only receive mails from their families very irregularly, and also receive very irregularly the formulas for correspondence which pass through their Labour Detachments before arriving at the Lazaret. It would be a good thing to have a stock of these formulas in the Lazaret itself.

        There is no Canteen. The German Authorities purchase in the town the articles desired by the prisoners, but these desires, however, can only rarely be satisfied.

INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS NEEDS

        There is no priest and no clergyman at the Lazaret. They have not yet got a Library, but the British have about 50 personal books.

        Nothing has so far been done to occupy the leisure time of the prisoners, and they have no games at all.

        The Camp Leader does not yet possess a copy of the Geneva Convention.

WELFARE

        This Lazaret has never received its share of the collective consignments. Nine Britons out of 39 have received their weekly parcels from their Labour Detachment, but this has never happened for the remainder.

TREATMENT

        All the patients are very well treated and the relations between the German Doctor and the doctor prisoners are excellent.

CONCLUSIONS

        The Lazaret at Cosel is only a branch of a big German Reservelazarett. Only medical cases are treated there. It is very well equipped.

        The prisoners there are well treated and are properly fed, with the exception of the Russians whose rations on the contrary have been stringently reduced.

        It is desirable that the hutments of the Russians and those of the other prisoners should be completely separated on account of the lice, and of the exanthematic typhus which rages amongst the Russians.

        A stock of correspondence formulas should be kept in the Lazaret itself, and also a stock of standard British parcels, as the prisoners only receive theirs very rarely from their Labour Detachments.

REQUESTS

        Books (for the present only English books).

        All kinds of games.

(Signed) Dr. RUBLI

              Dr. EXCHAQUET