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