U. S. Army / National Archives
POLISH PRISONERS TOAST THE LIBERATING AMERICANS AT DACHAU. POLISH PRISONERS MADE UP THE LARGEST ETHNIC GROUP AT THE CAMP DURING THE WAR, AND WERE JOINED BY RUSSIANS, FRENCH, YUGOSLAVS, JEWS, AND CZECHS. AT ITS HEIGHT, THERE WERE MORE THAN 100 SUB-CAMPS SURROUNDING DACHAU.
There was one incident with some of the soldiers in the 42nd Division. They claimed a group of these German kapos didn’ t put their hands up and so they killed them. It went back and forth with accounts of how this event transpired, but it was decided by General Patton and others that the American soldiers were so enraged you couldn’ t blame them for acting the way they did. So this was kind of swept under the rug, probably correctly.
When we arrived, we were mobbed by the many thousand remaining survivors. These poor people appeared to have an average weight of about 80 pounds. Our first impulse was to hand out as much food as we could, but we were told there were many known cases of typhus and if we feed them too much they wouldn’ t be able to take it. There was also the concern that we would pick up the disease, so we were moved out of the camp within 24 hours and continued onward to Munich with the images we had seen still burning in our minds.
Skipping ahead a bit, I went to a 50- year reunion in 1995 that took place in Munich. It was a big affair and a close friend and I, we sort of piggybacked on the 42 nd Division; there were about one hundred of them there. There were only the two of us and one other veteran from the 20th Armored Division and we’ d never been officially invited, but I was able to get us in because I knew our counsel general and ambassador. At dinner, I would up next to a German general who was head of all the medical corps and he asked if I would talk to some of his students a few days later. I said I would and that was kind of a bizarre experience. I was picked up at the hotel by a German colonel and I drove out and had lunch with several German officers before I was asked to speak to about 200 young German medical lieutenants about my wartime experience. They presumably were comfortable English speakers because my German was weak, but after I explained all that happened I drew a loud applause so I’ m hopeful it was an effective message. Still, it was certainly a change being fearful of those German 45s 50 years earlier and then being driven around by a German colonel.
Prior to Dachau, most of us knew almost nothing about these death camps. Stars and Stripes published something about Auschwitz, but of course that was in an entirely different area. Auschwitz was in Poland and it was filled with almost entirely Jewish prisoners. The prisoners in Dachau were only about 16 percent Jewish. The larger percentage of the inmates there were German Protestants and various other people that Hitler didn’ t like who were taken as early as 1933 when the camp opened. Later they rounded up gypsies, homosexuals, and virtually anybody they didn’ t like. Then when the invasion of Russia took place, hundreds of Russians were captured and sent there. This was an awful thing. The Russian officers were sent to Dachau and about 4,000 of them were supposedly told that if they ran down the field and got away, they would be freed. But when they took off running, they were all shot in the back.
The most powerful event at Dachau for me was certainly meeting the survivors that first night. Since my German wasn’ t great, but I spoke French well, I ended up meeting several of the French survivors— several of whom I’ ve stayed in touch with— and I got to hear them share their story. Some of what they shared was just unbelievable.
When you go back now, there’ s a powerful history told about the events that transpired there including an emotional piece about what happened to these Russian officers. In addition to a visitor’ s center and museum, they have a beautiful new Catholic chapel that is also used by the Protestants, as well as a Jewish synagogue and Russian Orthodox chapel. They’ ve preserved one of the barracks as a symbol and they’ ve made a real effort there, especially since 1995, by requiring Germans high school and college students to go through the whole scene. A tremendous number of Germans have been brought up with a requirement to go in and visit the place in addition to many foreign tourists. One of the stories that stood out came from one of the survivors recalling how the SS officers took a bed count every
34 AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY