Diary of dr. Alfons Van Orshoven. Collection

Kazerne Dossin Research Centre Prof. em. dr. Alfons Van Orshoven was born on 16 April 1922 in Hoeilaart as the oldest of eight children. His parents were Hector Van Orshoven en Maria Vandervaeren. At the start of the academic year in 1939 he began studying medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven (KULeuven). In May 1940, at the outbreak of World war 2, Alfons Van Orshoven was not in the army, but the Belgian government ordered all young Belgian men to flee to France. So did Alfons, but he returned home after a few weeks, as well as most of his comrades. Alfons devoted himself to helping the less fortunate during the war by assisting with winter aid. He was in his last year of studying, when he went to Bergen-Belsen with some fellow KUL final-year medical students. There was an appeal by the British after the liberation of the camp on 15 April 1945 to provide medical care to the former prisoners there. Typhoid had broken out in the camp. When the camp was evacuated, the British burned down the wooden barracks with tanks with flamethrowers because of the very high risk of typhoid and lice infection. The students were conscripted into the British army in 2nd Lt BA to work in Bergen-Belsen. From one day to the next, doctors there were confronted with catastrophe medicine, and with the problems of group pathology. After the war, Alfons Van Orshoven became a general practitioner in the village of Hoeilaart and, among other things, lecturer and professor in general practitioner medicine. Alfons' uncle (brother of his mother - Frans Van der Vvaeren, also mayor of Hoeilaaert) was also a doctor. Alfons married to Marieke Herbosch from Merchtem, who was already his girlfriend at the time living in Merchten when he was in Bergen-Belsen. This collection consists of three elements. First is a diary by Alfons Van Orshoven which he noted at Bergen-Belsen itself during his volunteering work, the first entry dating from 24 May 1945 and the last from 4 August 1945. Within the diary, there are some numbered pages which, however, remain unwritten. Among the things and people mentioned inside is friend and fellow year-old Prof. Jozef Vandepitte (called "Pitten") who was one of the other doctors that came to Bergen-Belsen together with Alfons. Second, there is a notebook in which are written the disease symptoms and treatment of patients from countries of Eastern Europe which Alfons Van Orshoven tried to help, as well as fiches for requests for laboratory examinations for certain patients. Thirdly is documentation surrounding Alfons Van Orshoven’s stay in Bergen-Belsen. This documentation includes: one resident’s card for a hotel, one landscape picture postcard, four photographs of the area outside the camp, six letters and three envelopes including notes on how medical students were recruited to work at Bergen Belsen, one allied expeditionary force permit, five notes made later about the layout of the camp and about the other present Belgian doctors from his group, a minute of a letter about a manifest error in a book about the camp and 1 brochure which Alfons Van Orshoven brought with him on a later visit.