Allied soldiers who liberated the concentration camps were met with horrifying scenes. Liberated camp inmates were in appalling physical condition – malnourished, exhausted and riddled with infection and disease. Emotionally, they were traumatized and shell-shocked. For many, liberation had come too late. Some lay motionless in their barracks, unable to move. In many cases, army rations were distributed: canned meat and vegetables that were unsuitable for the starved, sick survivors. The liberating armies' medical teams immediately began to dispense medical assistance to the survivors, and tried to prevent the outbreak of epidemics. Despite their dedicated care, tens of thousands of Jews died after liberation. Those who survived were sent to sanatoriums to recuperate.
One such recuperation center was the St. Ottilien Hospital, a field hospital in operation from 1942, situated in a convent adjacent to the Landsberg DP camp. After liberation, Allied soldiers turned it into a hospital for displaced persons, and concentration camp survivors were housed there. St. Ottilien Hospital served as a rehabilitation center for Holocaust survivors from April 1945 until May 1948, administering to some 6,100 Jewish camp survivors during that period.
Erika Grube was born in Lübeck, Germany in 1921. Between the years 1942 and 1944, she studied at the Art Academy in Munich. She started working at St. Ottilien as a physiotherapist in late 1944. After the war, 23-year-old Erika was asked to direct the hospital's physiotherapy department. Working with the survivors, some of whom were still clad in prisoner garb, she witnessed their debilitated physical state and mental anguish, and used her art to express their feelings and her own experiences.
Recalling her initial treatments as a staff member at the hospital, she wrote:
"(An appropriate) diet… could have been very helpful but indescribable anarchy reigned everywhere. They received a lot of canned meat and butter from the good-hearted Americans. Some picked unripe strawberries in the convent garden, and the German doctors (who immediately entered the camp) and the Jewish ones who were still active, were not there in time to intervene."