South Carolina Voices: Lessons from the Holocaust

Teaching Lesson Nine

Materials: Handout 9A: Survivors Remember Liberation; Handout 9B: American Soldiers See The Camps

Key Terms: Liberators, Fuhrer, displaced persons

PROCEDURE

Motivate: In this lesson, students look at the closing days of the war and the opening, or liberation, of the concentration camps. The handouts for this lesson examine these events from two different perspectives: the perspective of the concentration camp survivors students have read about in other parts of this booklet and from the perspective of two American soldiers from South Carolina who visited these camps shortly after liberation. Explain that the Allied soldiers who freed the men and women imprisoned in these camps were known as liberators. You may want to locate the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps on a map of Europe.

Develop: Both Buchenwald and Mauthausen were operating in 1939 before the war began. They were both liberated by the Americans, Buchenwald on April 11, 1945, and Mauthausen on May 3, 1945. They were among Hitler's first concentration camps. Along with Jews, their first inmates were such groups as political prisoners, homeless street people, Gypsies, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Buchenwald was a slave labor camp where guns were made. Mauthausen was also a slave labor camp. It was designated by the Germans as a punishment camp, specializing in working people to death. Inmates worked at a stone quarry, carrying heavy stones on their backs. Doing this brutal work on a starvation diet, they lived an average of six to twelve weeks.

The Germans took everything they could from their victims. Even before deportation, the Germans took all money and jewelry. After the war, enormous piles of wedding rings were found where they had been stored awaiting resale for their gold. Watches, wallets, pens, pencils, razors, and scissors belonging to the deportees were sold to the army troops. Clothing, bedding, and personal items like eyeglasses, combs, mirrors, and canes were also sold.

The money from these sales was deposited in a special account in the Reichsbank, the main German bank. According to David Altshuler and Lucy Dawidiowicz in their book Hitler's War Against the Jews, the income for the German government from the sale of one group of personal items stolen from Jews and other Holocaust victims amounted to about 180 million reichsmarks, about $72 million, for the period from April 1, 1942, to December 15, 1943. Personal articles that had not been taken in the many searches victims endured were removed, cataloged, and sold after victims went to their deaths in the killing centers. Auschwitz had huge warehouses stuffed with clothing, shoes, eyeglasses, and watches. Women's hair was collected, cleaned, and woven into glove and sock liners. The tooth shop Allen refers to was the place where teeth were extracted for their gold fillings.

Divide the class into small groups. Give each group copies of Handout 9A and 9B. As students read, have them look for details in the accounts of survivors that are supported or corroborated by details in the accounts of the liberators. For example, Rudy, a prisoner at Auschwitz, Senator Strom Thurmond, an observer at Buchenwald, and Henry Allen, a soldier who viewed Mathausen, all describe the bodies stacked like cordwood. Ben Stern, who was also at Auschwitz describes himself as sick, weak, unable to talk, and weighing 87 or 89 pounds. Both liberators remark on how the people at Mauthausen looked more dead than alive.

Focus discussion on the accounts of the soldiers:

1. Judging by these interviews, how do you think the soldiers felt about what they saw? How were their reactions to these events different from those of the survivors of these camps?

2. What interactions did the soldiers have with people living near the camps?

Write on the board or read aloud the following statement from Henry Allen's testimony: For many, many years I refused to be interviewed. I just wanted to come home; get readjusted to life.

Ask students why they think Allen felt this way. Should Allen and other liberators be encouraged to share their memories of this experience with others? Why or why not? Ask volunteers to role play a dialog with Allen in which they tell him why they feel he should talk about the Holocaust experience or tell him their own.reactions to his account.

Extend: A United Nations task force, composed mainly of American soldiers, was sent to Somalia to help with the distribution of food supplies and other aid. Unlike the liberators students have just read about, the U.S. soldiers sent to Somalia received training in coping with the extreme conditions of human suffering they were going to see. In Somalia, men, women and children died by the thousands of starvation and other related illness. Discuss with the class the effects these sights had on the soldiers. Do you think the preparation they received helped them cope with their feelings? Do you think the human suffering the soldiers witnessed in Somalia will cause them to feel reluctant to discuss their feelings 50 years later.

If class members have access to family members, friends, neighbors, or school staff who participated in World War II, they might make audio or videotapes of wartime experiences and compare these oral histories to the experiences of the survivors and liberators noted in this guide. If no one is available to interview, students might review family letters or diaries from the time period or use firsthand accounts in books, newspapers or periodicals. Before beginning this activity, the class might agree on a set of questions so that responses can be compared.

HANDOUT 9A: SURVIVORS REMEMBER LIBERATION

(In the readings below, four Holocaust survivors you have read about in other parts of this guide describe their liberation and how they reacted to their sudden freedom.)

Renee Is Liberated

I was liberated in January 1945. All day bombs fell. The Russians were bombing. The German guards opened up the barracks and told us to come with them. I knew that if I went and got my brother, they'd take him right away from me because boys and girls were being separated. So I dressed him like a girl. We stayed in the barracks. There were a lot of Jewish policemen in the camp. The Germans sent a Jewish policeman into the barracks to make sure everyone got out. The policeman came into the barracks and told us in German, "Raus, Get Out." Then in Polish he would say, "Don't move. Stay."

From this I knew that if we went with them, they would take my brother away from me and they would kill us. I thought, "Well I'm not going anywhere." We sat in the barracks for a few hours. It was very quiet.

Then all of a sudden the policeman came back. He said, "They're all gone." So we came out of the barracks. We were so trained to be pushed around that we marched in groups of eight. We walked until we came to the end of the camp. We looked around and there were no Germans with us. Near the barracks there were houses where the German commanders lived. We went there, but the houses were empty. The Germans were in such a hurry to leave, their dinner was still on the table.

The next day we didn't see anybody. We didn't know where to go or what to do. A Polish policeman came and warned us to get out of there. He thought the Germans had mined the camp and it might blow up. We went out, but there was nowhere to go. No friendly soul. No friendly Poles. I remembered that my parents and my grandparents used to say that after World War I people couldn't find each other for such a long time. They always told us, that if anything like that happened again, and we survived, come home. So we went home.

We went back to Kozenice, but there was nothing to come home to—no family, nobody we knew, no food, nowhere to work. We went to the house that we used to live in. This house was empty because the Germans had been using it for an office. We moved into the kitchen because it was the one room we could heat. I went to my grandparents' old house and tore off some boards so I could heat the house. We stayed there.

But a few weeks later the story started all over again. Too many Jews had come back. The Polish people started killing Jews in small towns. In a little town not far from where we were, two sisters, that I was in camp with got killed by Polish villagers.

We had nothing to eat. To live there was unbearable. Every corner, every place I went reminded me of somebody. Everything we had was taken except a few pictures. So we decided to go to a larger Polish city called Lodz. We stayed there a few months, and then we went back to Germany to the displaced persons camp in Stuttgart. In the camp, I wrote a letter to my uncle in Charleston. With the help of Governor James F. Byrnes, my uncle was able to get us to the United States in 1947.

Ben Is Liberated

One of the inmates runs into the little camp at Allach and hollers "I see a white sheet up there." Everyone looked at the guard towers. The guards had left the towers. They put up a white sheet, but they weren't there. Everybody who had one ounce of strength left ran out of the barracks and into the kitchen to get food. I couldn't move.

Then the American Army marched. That's the way I got liberated on April 30, 1945. I couldn't exhibit any emotions because I was so sick and so weak. I weighed 87 or 89 pounds. Inwardly I was overjoyed, but if you had been an American soldier and had looked at me, there was no reaction because I could not move. I was flat gone.

It was a blessing in disguise that I couldn't eat. Other prisoners went to the bunkers, the area where potatoes were stored underground, and started eating raw potatoes. Many died. Then the American army realized what was going on. They put us in quarantine and rationed the food.

Pincus Is Liberated

It was a Friday morning, April 20, Hitler's birthday. The SS came and gave us an extra pat of margarine in honor of the Fuhrer. The British army was approaching so they began moving us again. We were on the train packed 100 to a car. All of a sudden we heard sirens. American fighter planes came and started strafing our train. They didn't know there were prisoners on the train. While they were strafing us, the two SS guards hid under the wagon.

Something told me, maybe it was instinct, "This is your chance. Run." I jumped out of the train and ran about three miles. Several others jumped too. The fighter planes strafed us. I could see the bullets flying practically right by my nose. But I kept going. This was my only chance. All I had on was shorts. I didn't even have a shirt because it was very hot in the train and I was barefooted. But I kept running.

I met another fellow who had also escaped. We started walking. It was already late in the morning. We were hungry and cold. We saw a farmer's hut. We went into the farm house. The Czech farmer helped us a lot. He gave us food and clothes and kept us warm for about a day. We were skin and bones. If the Germans had caught the farmer hiding us, he would have been executed.

The next morning we had to leave because the Germans were searching for us. Although the war was almost over, they still came into the village looking for prisoners. The farmer found out about it. That night he took us into the forest and gave us a shovel. We dug a deep hole. He gave us blankets, and we slept there for two weeks. Every night he brought us food until the American soldiers came.

The Americans came on May 5 to Czechoslovakia. The Fifth Army, General Patton's army, liberated us. Five years later when I came to America, I was drafted. I served in the Fifth Army.

Rudy Is Liberated

Around April 24 or 25, officials at the underground factory in Gusen, where we were working, started to burn and destroy documents. We knew then the end was near. The first Red Cross packages began to arrive and the SS disappeared. They silently stole away. They were replaced by Austrian military police, who guarded the camp from then on. We still couldn't get out. We were prisoners, but there was no more work, and we waited.

On May 5, 1945, a tank came up to the barbed wire area where my barracks was located. The conversation was in Yiddish mixed with some English. "We are the American army. Your camp is being liberated. Stay here. You will get soup. The soup column is right behind us. You are free. The American army is behind me, but stay in the camps so that there is no confusion. We assure you that you will be fed." This tank was followed by some jeeps and trucks. The Americans picked up the Austrian military police and took them away. The guards' rifles were thrown on a pile and set afire by the American troops.

I felt truly like a bird who has flown out of a cage. I did not know what the future would bring. I made my way to Linz, Germany. I went to a hospital. I got number one American food. The first time I ate it, I could not even keep it down. After a while I could eat white bread, some toast. I gradually got a little bit of strength back.

HANDOUT 9B: AMERICAN SOLDIERS SEE THE CAMPS

(The readings below are parts of interviews with South Carolinians who witnessed or helped liberate concentration camps in Germany and Austria at the end of World War II. Most South Carolinians know Strom Thurmond for his close to 40 years in the United States Senate. However, in 1945, he was serving his country in the army as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division. In the selection below he describes what he saw at Buchenwald (Boo-Kin-Wald) concentration camp in Germany.)

Thurmond: I was with the First Army all through the war in Europe. We observed the Buchenwald concentration camp a short time after liberation.

In looking over the camp I was told that most people died from starving. There must of been several hundred people who had died from starvation stacked up like cordwood. A big pile of dead people, and some of them were not dead. Some were barely living, and some of our doctors were able to save some of those people. I never saw such a sight in my life.

Interviewer: When did you get over there?

Thurmond: I landed on D-Day with the 82nd Airborne Division in Normandy, and we took that part of the country there in France. We went through Paris and into Belgium. That's when the Battle of the Bulge occurred. We were stopped in Belgium, and we had to drop back. That was a terrible fight, the Battle of the Bulge, but we stopped them.

Then we went back through Belgium and on from one place to another until we finally crossed the Rhine River into Germany. Then we got near Berlin and sat on the banks of the river while the Russians took it. That was the order General Eisenhower gave. We were disappointed we didn't have the honor of taking Berlin.

Interviewer: Then you went on from Berlin to Buchenwald?

Thurmond: That's right.

Interviewer: The First Army came to Buchenwald and you observed the camp.

Thurmond: We got there right after it was liberated. Some troops ahead of us had just liberated it. That's when I witnessed these things I'm telling you about. I just can't imagine how any person could be so inhuman as to do to those people what I saw.

Interviewer: At Buchenwald did you have an opportunity to speak to any of the survivors or have contact with any of the survivors?

Thurmond: The survivors were lying on the ground and were so weak they couldn't talk. The doctors had a difficult time telling whether they were living or dead, but they could detect that a few of them were living, and, of course, they were taken and treated and helped anyway they could.

Interviewer: Did you remain there some time?

Thurmond: No, we remained there long enough to survey the situation and to determine it was stabilized. Then others came in and took over the actual work of removing the bodies. The medical corps was still trying to tell who was dead or alive among those who were piled up like cordwood, a great high wall of people, some barely living, others dead.

Interviewer: Could you tell me some more about how people reacted in your group?

Thurmond: We wondered why the German people didn't know what was going on. If they did know, why they didn't do something about it. Some of them claimed they didn't know about it, and they may not. But others were scared to do anything or take any part. Some of course were indifferent and were trying to save their own lives.

Interviewer: Do you have any idea how many people were left there by the time you got there?

Thurmond: They disposed of them as they died. This particular pile of people must of been several hundred.

Henry Allen at Mauthausen

(Henry Allen arrived in Europe in January 1945. He served with the Third Army in France, Germany, and Austria. In this reading he tells what he saw at the Mauthausen (Mat-House-En) concentration camp in Austria.)

Allen: The concentration camp that I saw is located near Linz, Austria just across the Danube River at a tiny village called Mauthausen. In the Mauthausen concentration camp I saw wagons loaded with bodies. They were stacked like cordwood. They should have been interred earlier, but the Germans had not because they vacated when the Americans came and didn't bury a lot of the dead. A lot of them probably were waiting to go to the crematorium.

In Mauthausen I saw the crematorium. Also I saw the gas chambers. They had modified and rigged showers stall after shower stall. I assume going in there they thought they were going in for a shower when actually it was gas. This was the gas chambers that they used.

It's just hard to believe that people could be like that to treat people the way they did and starve them for days and weeks. These survivors looked like they were dead. Eyes sunk back like a dead person.

Interviewer: So you saw the barracks where the prisoners were kept. You saw the crematoria where the bodies were burned after they had been gassed in the gas chambers, and you saw the gas chambers. The people that were there, tell us how they reacted when you arrived, the ones that were still left alive.

Allen: I was not the first unit to arrive there. The concentration camp had been secured when my people arrived there. In most cases those that were there were still suffering from malnutrition and were not able to communicate a great deal. It was so hard to communicate because we had to be concerned about many things. First of all the sorrow and our own feelings for those people. Also medical persons were moving in to assist these people, so, therefore, I did not have close contact with them. Later on my unit drew the mission of securing a German airfield in Austria near the town of Traun, ten miles out of Linz.

This airfield had many, many barracks and the American government started moving in POWs and DPs, displaced persons, from various camps. There was thousands of people being brought in. Normally they brought the worst cases in first and the barracks at this airfield had been converted into a temporary hospital. These people were brought in by stretcher and were treated by the medical personnel.

I stayed four months, and I saw thousands go through there. A lot of them didn't make it. A lot of them were dead on arrival from malnutrition and the treatment that they had gone through. I was happy to get away from there and move on to the rear.

Interviewer: Did you talk with any of the people you met during these few months?

Allen: Yes, I talked with a few, and I saw the markings, the tattoos on several. Mauthausen had a tattoo shop also where they tattooed numbers. Also they had a tooth shop. This is where prisoners were taken in and, I guess, their teeth checked. If they had gold, in their teeth, the teeth were extracted before they went into the crematorium. So I saw what we called the tooth shop where they extracted the teeth. I saw also so many personal items that were removed before they went into the shower, thousands and thousands of articles of clothing and things that had been taken from the prisoners before they were put to death.

Interviewer: Can you remember your feelings about what you were seeing?

Allen: It's a feeling you wish to get rid of entirely especially back in your younger days. That is something that you want to forget. I think we all have feelings for our fellow man. It was hard to concentrate on your everyday job because it could be me in that condition. It could have been my brother, my mother, my father, my sister. It could have been my family, but it so happened, I was an American from the land of the free. The memories are still there. You don't shake them entirely. For many, many years I refused to be interviewed. I just wanted to come home, get readjusted to life.

Interviewer: While you were in Germany did you have any contact with villagers and German citizens to know whether they knew what was going on at the concentration camps?

Allen: I did talk with a lot of people in Austria and in Munich, Germany. I can't believe this. People in the village near the concentration camps Mauthausen and Dachau swear to you that they knew nothing about it. I don't understand how you could miss it living so close. I think a lot of them knew.

Interviewer: Was there a smell in the air?

Allen: Yes, in the immediate area. You never forget the burnt smell. For a long, long time you feel like you still have it in your nostrils.

Teaching Lesson Ten

Teaching Lesson Eleven

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