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Oral history interview with John Komski

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1269.13 | RG Number: RG-50.470.0013

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    Oral history interview with John Komski
    Transcript
    I'm going to start asking now.
    I want you to tell me--
    just start at the point just before liberation
    when things were getting very bad, tell me where you were
    and what the conditions were like,
    and then just describe the liberation to me.
    Maybe I start this way, that I say that 29 of April in Dachau
    began as a very quiet day.
    Nothing in the surroundings and in the air
    indicated that there will be a drama this day, you know.
    And there were several days like that before--
    when I came to Dachau from Hersbruck--
    this was a subcamp of a large camp of Flossenburg--
    I came to Dachau in the evacuation March
    that lasted about 20 days.
    When we came to Dachau I was lice-infected.
    All of us were in the same condition.
    And we waited for several hours, almost the whole day,
    before we were received by Dachau, by the camp of Dachau.
    And finally, we have been accepted
    and signed up or given the numbers and taken the showers.
    And after that, I was completely naked.
    Everything has been taken from me.
    All my belongings that I brought from Hersbruck--
    and my uniform, old uniform.
    And I was not given anything that was used in Dachau.
    Instead I had a blanket.
    I wrap around the blanket, and I stay several days this way.
    It has one good thing because we didn't
    have to go to work because we were naked.
    You know, but we only had to participate in roll call
    three times a day.
    And there was a quiet days, and we
    lived in area which was called a quarantine--
    several blocks that were completely
    separated from the rest of the camp by the fence.
    And there was a guard at the fence.
    And we couldn't get out of that area.
    But on 29 of April, when I get up and went out outside,
    I saw that the gate was open, and there
    was nobody at the gate.
    So I took a chance, and I went outside
    on the main street of the camp.
    And I walked to the place before the kitchen
    where usually the roll call were held.
    I remember seeing, when I arrived,
    a big tent over there in which there were
    clothing-- all kinds of things.
    You know, so I hoped to find that tent.
    And I did found it, but it was complete almost empty.
    But still I could find a pair of trousers and a jacket.
    And I took this with me.
    And I came back to the block.
    And by this time, everybody was already outside,
    and there was supposed to be a roll call.
    And we assembled the roll call.
    And we stood for two or three hours and nobody came.
    Usually there would be an SS man who would come and count
    everybody and take the--
    I mean, report this to higher authorities.
    This time he didn't come.
    Instead we were ordered to go into the block.
    And the block was closed.
    And we were told that we will have to sit inside
    locked indefinitely.
    So this is how the day started.
    And it really-- and the only contact with the outside world
    was through the window.
    And when we see through the window
    a strange thing happening.
    Because all of a sudden there appeared a German gestapos
    with canes as a guard.
    And they were stationed all around,
    on all corners around this area.
    But there were no SS guard of any kind.
    There were nothing in the air.
    Usually for many days, there was always
    a British airplane hanging above the camp, spying over the camp.
    There were nothing there-- absolutely quiet.
    And when the 5 o'clock arrive, we
    were starting to get a dinner.
    You know, dinner which was one slice of bread and water
    is all.
    And at that time, the block shook because fighting began.
    And it lasted about 1/2 hour--
    terrifying fighting.
    And all the walls were shaking.
    And of course, we immediately thought
    that probably this is it.
    You know, that the Americans are coming.
    Because we knew that the Americans are
    marching toward Dachau.
    We know this even already when we
    were marching from Hersbruck-- that they already are coming.
    The fighting lasted about 1/2 hour, and then it stopped.
    And nothing happened again.
    And it took about another 20 minutes
    before we heard individual shots--
    pop, pop-- here and there-- from all directions.
    And then I look in the window, and I
    see there are a lot of people running toward the fences.
    Prisoners from other block which were not in the quarantine.
    And I see that some of them are carrying guns--
    rifles already, you know.
    So we broke through the window outside
    because the door was still locked, you know.
    And we started running toward the fences.
    And we see that this area was completely already demolished.
    It took only maybe five minutes to demolish all the fences,
    all the fences of Dachau.
    And then I see at the far end on the corner,
    you know, American soldier.
    He was walking, and behind him were other soldiers.
    He were m commanding the guards that
    were on the tower, the Germans, to descend and to surrender,
    you know.
    Those who were too slow to surrender
    were shot immediately, right on spot.
    So I saw this, but I didn't venture outside.
    Some people already tried to go through the broken fences
    to the outside.
    There was a ditch filled with water.
    You know, I didn't know.
    I was not familiar with Dachau-- really how to go about.
    So I went in the other direction.
    I ran toward the area where I'd been
    before to the big square in the front of the kitchen
    where the roll calls were held.
    And here I saw another row of the fence.
    And behind right behind the fence
    there were already about 50 prisoners of war--
    German officers and men--
    sitting in the ditch.
    And I saw these funny little Jeeps, you know,
    cruising here and there.
    And for the years, for many years, we always
    discuss eventual liberation--
    how this will happen.
    And we always wish that there would be
    an Americans who liberated us.
    And in those talks, the Americans grew up to a giants.
    They look like giant people themselves, the soldiers.
    And the trucks were tremendous trucks--
    like trains, you know.
    And here I am seeing a little Jeep.
    This was really funny, you know.
    And of course, I look around, and I
    see thousands of people gathered on the square.
    And I see thousands of national flags--
    looked like everybody was prepared for that occasion
    and was carrying in their pocket a flag of some sort--
    Polish, and Russian, and Czechs, and French, and Italian.
    Wait, wait, wait.
    Yeah.
    We have to reload.
    Yeah.
    Camera roll two.
    is up-- slate two is up.
    OK, John, go back and start when you came into the big place
    where they held a roll call.
    Yeah, yeah.
    So I came to that after the incident with Jeeps?
    Right, OK.
    So I notice all around me thousands, thousands
    of flags of all nationalities that were, at that time,
    present at Dachau--
    Polish and Russian and Czechs, Italians, French.
    And when I took a walk along the main street,
    I saw many blocks decorated.
    It took probably only minutes, you know.
    All the decoration must have been already waiting in storage
    somewhere in secret.
    It was drizzling-- rain drizzling--
    during that hour of liberation.
    But as the time went by it cleared up,
    and the sun began to set down.
    And there was a glorious sun setting,
    but there were also a very dark clouds on the east.
    This was-- you know, east, that's communism.
    That's what I always remember later on.
    That this was a warning.
    You know, that this freedom is not complete.
    You know, this is only personal freedom and not
    the freedom of my country.
    When it became dark, in between the blocks
    there were hundreds of fires--
    fires it hit up and all those who venture outside the fence,
    and who manage to bring some foodstuff
    were cooking a supper, because we didn't get anything
    to eat that night.
    And joyfully, we went to--
    when it's around probably about 10 o'clock in the evening--
    we went to the blocks and to sleep.
    But we couldn't.
    And maybe about 1/2 hour later, again, a big detonations
    broke the silence above Dachau.
    It was a SS division that was marching from Munich to take
    back Dachau from the Americans.
    The Americans were only a small unit that
    were patrolling in that area.
    And when they found out that there
    is a Dachau in the neighborhood, they took advantage.
    I mean, they took on themselves the job
    of liberating the Dachau.
    You know, and they were not really equipped fully
    to protect camp and the prisoners.
    So I understand, and we were told later on the next day,
    that the orders were already given to wake us all up
    and send us up north into the area where
    they were many American forces.
    Of course, they stop the advance of that SS division
    shortly before the Dachau.
    And we could stay in the camp until the next day.
    And it was several days later on that make history--
    some sort.
    First of all, the next day we were given too much food
    to eat.
    Everybody got a 1 pound pork conserve and a loaf of bread.
    Some people who ate that got immediately sick.
    Consequently, there was dysentery in the camp.
    There was a lot of dead people.
    And of course, typhus was one of the reasons that
    decimated the camp population.
    I understand there were about 16,000 people died
    after the liberation, you know.
    This is tragic.
    I too got sick.
    I got typhus.
    And when I get out of it, there was no more
    former prisoners in the camp.
    They all were moved to Freimann.
    Before we go on, did you see any revenge on the SS?
    Did the Americans kill any SS other than when they first--
    Yeah, those who resisted in any way
    were shot immediately right on the spot.
    And there were corpses floating in the ditch, I mentioned,
    that was around the fence area--
    German soldiers that were dead.
    And a lot of Germans Kapos were caught, denounced by prisoners
    and caught by them immediately and arrested.
    There were tense moments from the very beginning,
    because they camp--
    from the next day, was under the authority of the Americans.
    And they consider us almost like prisoners again.
    We couldn't get out, because they were afraid
    that most of the prisoners are sick, that we will
    infect the population outside.
    So they kept us in.
    Yet, they didn't know how to handle this population.
    Therefore, so many people died.
    So when you got typhus did they take you to a hospital?
    Yeah, they took me to the American hospital.
    And the nurses were the--
    how you call it?
    They have a special name, that unit that--
    Army nurses?
    Army nurses, yeah army nurses--
    but there are a lot of people who died in that hospital.
    OK, let's go on to leaving the hospital
    and going to the DP camp.
    As I say, you know, when I get out of the hospital,
    I get out of in a funny attire, you know.
    I was given a SS jacket, prisoner's trousers,
    Albanian hat, you know, and a Russian boot--
    winter, I mean, winter boot.
    And the time was the middle of June.
    I came out this way.
    And of course, a few days I stayed at Dachau.
    So I signed up to work for--
    there was a lot of workers, you know.
    There was a kitchen functioning.
    The blocks has to be kept in order.
    But the day came when they rounded us up, all of us,
    and without much discussion and so, they
    loaded us into the military trucks,
    and drove us into the countryside to a DP camp.
    This is how I went to [PLACE NAME],,
    which was right in the boondocks--
    nowhere, no roads, no railroad, nothing.
    Everywhere the nearest railroad was about 10 kilometers
    from this place.
    It was absolutely in the fields.
    And so of course, we complain about it.
    Because our real destination was Freimann.
    And this is where all our--
    my friends were all the prisoners from Dachau.
    Here in different camp were the people
    who were gathered from the farms, from the German farms,
    and brought those who are forced laborers.
    So we--
    OK, you're just getting into the DP camp out in the boondocks.
    And tell me what you then did to rebuild your life.
    Really, you are not doing anything,
    because the whole camp was in the process of organization,
    you know-- of building up.
    It was a former military barracks.
    And it had to be adopted to house families and children.
    And there were a lot of children in that camp.
    So there was some work has to be done in order
    to occupy the children and teach them.
    A school has to be open.
    You know, there got to be some instruction written
    for how this whole business should be conducted.
    So I was involved a little bit in those things,
    while there are others just sit and didn't do anything.
    And their only excitement was to get a permission
    because all the movements were controlled by the army.
    There was a-- at the gate of that new camp,
    there was a MP sitting.
    And he would not let out anybody unless you have a permission
    that entitled you to go out.
    And this was the only excitement to get
    a permission in the office.
    And then go and travel to Munich,
    let's say, which was about 15 kilometers.
    Otherwise, there was just a--
    it looks like any UNRRA establishment
    where the people sit idle, do nothing.
    Tell me where had the children come from?
    The children?
    It looks like a lot of children came with the people who
    work on German farms.
    Looks like they were born in that town where
    they were brought from--
    the countries like Poland, like Russia, like--
    of course, this camp was primarily Polish, you know.
    But there were few other than Poles too.
    But most of them were Poles.
    But so they just get born--
    were born on German soil during the war times.
    Just the same way there were a lot
    of children who were born in concentration camp--
    in women camps.
    You know, women always have represent a special problem.
    Problem that I don't know much about it,
    but when I read the books about the women camps,
    there were all kinds of specific problems.
    Because these were women.
    You know, thousands of children were
    born in concentration camps.
    So I imagine the same thing happened also
    in the situation where of forced labor.
    And in this camp, were people trying
    to go back to Poland or not?
    Not only that they were trying, they were really
    forced to go to Poland.
    The UNRRA policy was to repatriate
    all the people who are available,
    who were at that time on German soil.
    You know, the existence of the UNRRA camp
    was for the purpose of the repatriation.
    But as the time went by, we were getting a strange messages.
    For example, Poles were contacted
    by the government in exile--
    resided in London.
    And the agents who used to come and talk to us,
    they were talking about new war.
    Everybody in this times was expected that there
    will be a war with Russia.
    Because nobody in their right mind after liberation
    thought that this is the end of the war.
    You know, we expected war with the communism.
    You know, and since this didn't come,
    we start looking for places to go for immigrate,
    while the UNRRA in between was trying to repatriate us
    to other countries--
    to Poland.
    And Russian, for example, had to go also to Russia.
    You know, and they were sent mostly to Siberia immediately
    by the Stalin, and so forth.
    So this was a dangerous thing, repatriation.
    It went so far that the UNRRA promised
    those who would go back to their countries of origin,
    extra food, supplies.
    And they were really giving it.
    Of course, you know, they are not giving anything
    worthwhile-- usually some potatoes and flour and nothing
    like a threat or anything-- water no--
    only some very primitive foodstuff.
    But anyway, they were giving people some supplies just
    to make them go back to Poland.
    Tell me about being asked to identify Germans.
    One of the reasons why we had to move out from Dachau
    was that the American authorities
    were planning to bring to Dachau all they arrested SS.
    And in a few months, there were several thousand of us
    as the inmates of Dachau.
    And once a week we were brought by trucks to Dachau,
    and we are seated in the outside of the fence area.
    And they were parading in front of us, in circle.
    And whoever was lucky and identified,
    immediately MP re-arrested the man
    and put him to the side for trial.
    And I was not able to identify anybody because, you know,
    I was not familiar with the SS that were in Dachau.
    They were strange people.
    But anyway, I participated.
    And it was quite a show.
    And it was once a week.
    And tell me about traveling around Germany
    in those first few months.
    How did you do that?
    When I get out of the hospital, my biggest desire
    was to go and see the Bavaria, especially mountains--
    Alps.
    Because I come from the area near the mountains in Poland.
    So I understand mountains.
    And I love mountains.
    So very early when I still was living in Dachau,
    I went by train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen,
    which is a distance about 101 kilometers.
    And the first ride took me 12 hours.
    There was a situation where the train was so overloaded,
    that uphill we had to get out of the train
    and walk along the train because it couldn't pull.
    The locomotive was too weak to pull all the masses of people,
    you know.
    So when I arrived in Garmisch, I went to this
    to Zugspitze station--
    you know, the highest mountain in Bavaria is Zugspitze.
    And there is a train that go up the mountain.
    So I wanted to get to that train,
    and I was waiting in the ticket office.
    And I couldn't get a ticket because it was reserved
    for the Americans only.
    And here they come--
    truckloads of the American soldiers.
    And I notice one soldier.
    He was a prisoner artist from Auschwitz,
    who through the evacuation, landed eventually
    before the camp was liberated in Buchenwald.
    And Buchenwald was liberated about two months
    before Dachau was.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    John Komski discusses being taken to Dachau concentration camp from camp Hersbruck and staying there for 20 days; being made to shower, but not being given anything to wear except a blanket; being in an area separated from the rest of the camp; finding on April 29, 1945 that the camp gates were open to the rest of the camp; finding clothes and standing for 2-3 hours for roll call, but no SS came; how the fighting began in the afternoon and then there was silence; some prisoners running to the gates, and some getting guns; a US soldier who came into the area and commanded that the guards surrender or be shot; how thousands of prisoners gathered and many had flags of different countries; seeing a glorious sunset with dark clouds in the east; some people lighting fires and cooking food; many of the former inmates dying from eating too much; being moved to a displaced persons (DP) camp; not being allowed to leave the DP camp; being very sick and moved to an American hospital; going to a DP camp outside of Munich in June 1945; UNRRA officials forcing people to be repatriated to their native countries; going to Garmisch, Germany; meeting an artist who was a former prisoner of Auschwitz, and receiving help from him; meeting his future wife; drawing and painting scenes from the concentration camps; and immigrating to the US.
    Interviewee
    John Komski
    Interviewer
    Sandra Bradley
    Date
    interview:  1995 February 14

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (D2) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Komski, John, 1915-2002.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with John Komski on February 14, 1995, in preparation for the exhibition "Liberation 1945," which opened in June 1995. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a copy of the interview on August 25, 1995.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:41:34
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn511058

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    Time Coded Notes (English)

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    Oral history interview with Henny Gurko

    Oral History

    Henia (Henny) Gurko (née Durmashkin), born in 1926 in Vilnius, Lithuania, discusses being deported from the Vilnius ghetto to Kaiserwald concentration camp for two days and then to Dünawerke for nearly a year; being sent to Stutthof, Ponewesch, and Landsberg; being forced to sing at Landsberg with six other musicians in front of the SS and others; singing the Schubert Serenade in German; walking with the orchestra for miles on Sundays to other camps and giving concerts; performing forced labor in Moll, where she was made to walk up and down a man-made mountain carrying rocks and stones; being with her sister during this time; being sent on a forced march; hearing encouragement from anti-Nazi people on some of the farms they passed; arriving at a Ukrainian camp, where the men were very rough; being liberated by the Americans; the hanging of the camp’s leader; the orchestra continuing on for years after the war; being taken to St. Ottilien, a church in Eresing, Germany; going to Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany and staying there for two years; participating in the orchestra; hearing David Ben Gurion speak; Leonard Bernstein conducting the orchestra in 1948; conditions in the displaced persons (DP) camp; learning that her brother Shimshonzaev (Vladimir Durmashkin) had been killed in a camp; finding it difficult to be happy after so many losses; the orchestra performing during the Nuremberg trials in striped jackets; and singing songs from the ghettos about children, because so many of the children were killed.

    Oral history interview with Irving Heymont

    Oral history interview with Irving Heymont

    Oral History

    Irving Heymont describes coming upon a sub-camp of Mauthausen, Gunskierken, in Austria with the United States Army 5th Infantry Regiment, K Company; visiting the camp and the conditions of the surviving inmates; not knowing about the concentration camps before seeing one; testifying to a board proceeding in Paris, France in September 1945; going to Landsberg, Germany where his unit was stationed; going to a German displaced persons camp, which was created for the survivors of Dachau’s sub-camps; the poor conditions in the camp; receiving orders from General Anslau Ralph to clean up the camp; his efforts to improve it; making the camp an all-Jewish DP camp; tensions between Jews and non-Jews; the survivors creating a camp committee, which established a hospital and schools; the nationalities of the camp’s Jews; the role of Dr. Jake Wallaisky who was part of the committee and worked for the Jewish Organization for Rehabilitation; the black market in and around the camp; preparing the camp for the winter; the crowding of the camp and the resistance of the residents to spread to another camp; his relations with the camp residents and the local Germans; holding elections in the camp; sanitation in the camp; the treatment of children in the camp; visitors to the camp, including Rabbi Abraham Klausner; the trouble caused by the camp’s truck drivers; and helping a man find his son.

    Oral history interview with John Holmes

    Oral history interview with John Holmes

    Oral History

    John Holmes, of Chicago, IL, describes coming upon a labor camp with his unit after fighting in the Hartz mountain sector; conditions of the surviving inmates; the German’s abandonment of the camp; his role as a tank commander; exchanging fire with German soldiers while saving the 14th Reconnaissance Platoon; hearing that German troops were scared of black American soldiers; delivering a letter for a woman he met in the camp to her sister in Illinois; being ordered not to feed the inmates; the impact of the experience on his life; and his combat experience.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Kahoe

    Oral history interview with Joseph Kahoe

    Oral History

    Joseph Kahoe describes being with the United States 761st Tank Battalion in Austria when he and his unit saw individuals coming out of a prison camp; being the liaison officer between his company and the regimental headquarters; the conditions of the inmates and being warned not to feed them by his superiors; only seeing male inmates; and being the commandant of the Polish displaced persons camp near Nuremberg, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Henry Kanner

    Oral history interview with Henry Kanner

    Oral History

    Henry Kanner discusses being in Auschwitz working in the laundry when he was 15 or 16 years old; the death of his family members in the Belzec gas chambers; being taken in January 1945 on a death march; conditions during the march, including the extreme cold and the deaths of many of the prisoners; killing a pig on the second day and eating it raw with other prisoners; being put in an open-air train car; arriving at Mauthausen; encountering a prisoner who had once worked for Henry’s father; the man saving Henry’s life by changing his information in the registry and telling him to pose as a Polish Catholic; noticing the SS officers either disappearing or changing into regular Wehrmacht uniforms in May 1945; three American soldiers who were shot down, beaten, and thrown into the gas chambers; the day of liberation; the capture of many of the German guards; leaving the camp on foot with another boy; walking to Linz, Austria; going to Passau, Germany, where they were captured by German farmers and escaping before being shot by the farmers; staying in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Passau (possibly Pocking DP camp); going to a DP camp in Nurnberg, Germany; working in the office with a US Army captain, who was a representative of UNRRA; conditions in the DP camp; details on the emigration of people from the camp; immigrating to the US, where he had relative; getting married and having three sons; and feeling lucky as well as guilty to have survived.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Klausner

    Oral history interview with Abraham Klausner

    Oral History

    Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner discusses being attached to the 116 Evacuation Hospital during WWII; entering Dachau concentration camp in May 1945; arriving at night, and seeing the devastation in the morning; the efforts they all made to bring the survivors back to life; helping to organize lists to name survivors as well as their places and dates of birth; how people were helped to get to Italy where they could get on ships to Palestine; finding Hungarian women survivors in a displaced persons (DP) camp in the Alps; learning how former inmates hid prayer books while living in the camps; finding a Polish Hebrew library in Munich, Germany that had been confiscated by the Nazis and taking a few books at a time and distributing them to people; finding the Klausenburg rebbe in Dachau, nursing him back to health, and bringing him to Feldafing DP camp; seeing Jewish and non-Jewish survivors in the DP camps; the administration of the camps; the DP camps Feldafing and Landsberg am Lech; the issues with the mixed nationalities in the camps; segregation in the camps; the lack of freedom in the camps; the compulsion people felt to find their family members; a center that was set up in Munich where people could search for family on lists; the efforts to reconnect children with their parents; finding a printer in Landsberg and getting books published and distributed; helping to establish a newspaper in Feldafing along with journalist Shalatin Levy from Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania); meeting with David Ben Gurion in Munich, and taking him to St. Ottilien hospital, Landsberg, and Feldafing; and working near Dachau for several years with the US Army.

    Oral history interview with Pat Lynch

    Oral history interview with Pat Lynch

    Oral History

    Pat Lynch discusses being an American nurse attached to the 123rd Field Evacuation Unit during WWII; being near a subcamp of Dachau; how the nurses did not go into Buchenwald because the conditions there were too terrible; going into the camp and being shocked by how horribly sick the survivors were, with typhus and TB; Germans from the area who were conscripted to work in the kitchens and laundries of the various DP camps; the young Hitler youth who marched in cemeteries; moving from tents to real buildings in the summer of 1945; praying often to St. Jude about the conditions; seeing a big difference in some of the survivors between March and August as they regained some strength and bodyweight; seeing a lot of Russian children in the summer; treating some pregnant women; being told that the women officers in the camps were often more cruel than the men; and her long working days during that time, which prevented her from speaking more with the patients.

    Oral history interview with William McWorkman

    Oral history interview with William McWorkman

    Oral History

    William McWorkman discusses being with the 12th Armored Division during WWII; going through Weilheim, Oberau, Innsbruck and south to Bringer Pass; entering into Landsberg concentration camp; seeing hundreds of dead prisoners; interacting with the former prisoners; the arrival of the 493rd Field Artillery Battalion; being told not to get too close to the prisoners because of typhus; giving the former prisoners clothing and food, but not too much food; the battalion surgeon who said not to overfeed them or they would die; the attempt to triage the survivors; General Allen, commander of the 12th division, entering the camp and later ordering all males in nearby village to walk through the camp; and his regret that they did not spend more time comforting the living.

    Oral history interview with James Moncrief

    Oral history interview with James Moncrief

    Oral History

    James Moncrief discusses being a Lt. Colonel during WWII; working as a staff officer in general headquarters when the 11th Army overran Buchenwald; leaving supplies and a medical company at the camp; being sent to the camp by Captain Bennett; conditions in the camp; the crematoria; and the US soldiers’ awareness of the camps.

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral history interview with Judah Nadich

    Oral History

    Rabbi Judah Nadich discusses being a chaplain in the US Army during WWII; being stationed in Paris, France, where among other activities, he helped 600 Jewish survivors go from Germany to illegal ships in Marseilles to get to Palestine; being asked to be the liaison officer to General Eisenhower to coordinate efforts to help the Jewish survivors in August 1945; being stationed in Frankfurt; the Jewish survivors in the American zone and the displaced persons camps (DP camps); differences between the DP camps; the unforeseen problems in the DP camps; inspecting the DP camps in August-September 1945; food and medicine in the DP camps; the running of the camps by UNRRA ,the Joint, and the military; immigration of the refugees; and visiting camps with David Ben Gurion.

    Oral history interview with George Salton

    Oral history interview with George Salton

    Oral History

    George Salton discusses being a prisoner of the Nazis; being liberated from camp Wöbbelin in the spring of 1945 and his memories of that day; the prisoners’ fears that the Germans would return; a soldier who shared his rations with George; his attempts to contact his relatives, including his brother; going to the British zone in Lübeck; staying in the Neustadt displaced persons camp (DP camp); the different refugees in the camp; being sponsored by his relatives for immigration to the United States; living in Deggendorf, Germany until his paper to the US came through in 1947; and seeing German teenagers in Deggendorf before he emigrated and his feelings envy, pain, and loneliness, knowing he would never have normal teenage years.

    Oral history interview with Richard Seibel

    Oral history interview with Richard Seibel

    Oral History

    Colonel Richard R. Seibel, US Army veteran and participant in WWII, discusses being on a patrol when he came across the concentration camp Mauthausen; his lack of knowledge about concentration camps before seeing Mauthausen; reporting back to General Daiger who asked him to take supreme command of camp; the two Americans in the camp, one of whom was Lt Jack Taylor of the OSS; his memories of the camp; seeing corpses piled up; the unrest in the camp and division between the inmates; a former prisoner, Premislav Dobius, who was the interpreter for army; how the Jewish survivors wanted to be separated by their religion, not by nationality as the others were; members of a Swiss Zionist organization who arrived demanding the Jewish survivors be given their own space; the prevalence of typhus and TB; the deaths of hundreds of people after liberation; 400 Wehrmacht soldiers who were brought in to repair the sewage and water system; the conditions of women prisoners; the camp’s former SS commander Franz Ziereis who was absent from the camp before liberation; and the capture of Ziereis.

    Oral history interview with Milton Shurr

    Oral history interview with Milton Shurr

    Oral History

    Milton Shurr, US Army veteran and participant in WWII, discusses being part of a displaced persons team (DP2 unit) attached to the 1st Army beginning in the fall of 1944; being in Verviers, Belgium; his previous work as the head of a Jewish community counsel in Oklahoma City; the approximately 500 displaced persons; contracting hepatitis; rejoining the regiment in April 1945 in Wetzlar, Germany; going to Buchenwald; seeing barracks with two-story bunks and 6 people in each slot, buildings full of clothes and shoes, and piles of bodies; disinfecting survivors with DDT; the high rate of death for survivors; one of his colleagues who spoke German and acted as an interpreter, and how this affected the officer’s mental health; his work with administrative tasks; Allied prisoners being sent home; the desire for many survivors from eastern countries to not return home; the work of the Red Cross to reunite families; being told by the Joint to take care of about 2000 children; being in Buchenwald until the area of Thuringia was turned over to the Russians; and paying the Poles in the DP camp with cigarettes to run trucks.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Sundquist

    Oral history interview with Alfred Sundquist

    Oral History

    Dr. Alfred B. Sundquist, a major and physician with the XVIII Airborne during WWII, discusses being stationed a few miles from Ludwigslust, Germany; being instructed to go to a small concentration camp (Wöbbelin) and report back; arriving in a jeep, and seeing that the Germans had already left; conditions at the camp, which took up a few acres and had no crematoria and a couple of barracks; seeing corpses piled up and prisoners with striped uniforms who were too weak to get up; seeing the physical results of starvation in the former prisoners, including the loss of teeth and swollen legs; seeing evidence of cannibalism; writing a report recommending survivors be sent to apartments in Ludwigslust; many survivors dying from complications from starvation; the 82nd Airborne connecting to the 18th Airborne; the civilian Germans from the town being made to dig graves and attend funerals for the camp’s victims; taking pictures of the camp (he donated these pictures to USHMM); his thoughts on the local Germans of Ludwigslust; and his thoughts on Hitler’s mental health.

    Oral history interview with Fela Warschau

    Oral history interview with Fela Warschau

    Oral History

    Fela Warschau discusses being in a labor camp outside Hamburg at end of March 1945; being forced to clean streets after the city was bombed; being taken by train to Bergen-Belsen; the conditions in the camp; staying together with two friends and her sister; sharing a single potato amongst themselves for several days; liberation; survivors being disinfected and given different clothes; staying in Bergen-Belsen for two months; German doctors and nurses who were brought to the camp to work; her feelings of satisfaction seeing Germans being forced to help bury the dead; finding two of their cousins; hearing that her father had died at Auschwitz; going to Feldafing displaced persons camp; life in the DP camp; signing up for ORT courses; the tendency for survivors to marry each other; getting married in 1946; the differences between the American and British leaders of the DP camps; the children in the DP camp; and her thoughts on emigration.

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral history interview with Irene Weber

    Oral History

    Irene Weber discusses being liberated from a prison in Czechoslovakia at the end of WWII; the Russians who liberated the prison; being deloused and sent to a hospital; being given a change of clothes and a little money; her decision to not return to Poland; staying in an apartment with a friend; registering as a Czech citizen; going to Prague in an attempt to leave the country after the communists took over; going to the American Zone of Germany; staying in Landsberg am Lech displaced persons camp; the crowded conditions in the DP camp; living in Rosenheim, Germany; working on a farm to pay rent; attending an ORT school for nursing in Föhrenwald; graduating and then working in a hospital in the DP camp in Pokcing where she cared for survivors; continuing to live in Rosenheim and taking the train to get to her job; and receiving assistance from UNRRA and the Joint even while she was working as a nurse.

    Oral history interview with Nick White

    Oral history interview with Nick White

    Oral History

    Nick White discusses being with the VI Corps, part of 7th Army, when he saw Dachau for the first time on April 29, 1945; going to the camp with his colleague Englehardt, who was a photographer and took pictures of the camp; seeing a trench in the camp filled with dead SS soldiers killed by American infantry which had been in the camp before them; being overrun by the survivors who were joyous to see them; giving out caramels and k-rations to the survivors; conditions in the barracks; a large room that led from the gas chambers where several thousand bodies were stacked up; the high rate of mortality for the survivors after liberation; finding 39 boxcars with corpses inside; and his incomprehension of the inhumanity they found.

    Oral history interview with Alan Zimm

    Oral history interview with Alan Zimm

    Oral History

    Alan Zinn discusses being sent from Buchenwald in January 1945 to Dora concentration camp; conditions in the camp; seeing American planes at end of March going to bomb Nordhausen; being taken by train for six days to Bergen-Belsen; the Russian POWs who set up a tribunal in the camp after liberation and executed about 50 SS guards; being liberated on March 29, 1945; the delousing of the inmates; the deaths of many survivors from typhus and other diseases; returning to Łódź, Poland in June 1945; meeting his future wife in Łódź; going with his wife and her two sisters to the displaced persons camp in Landsburg, Germany; reuniting with his brother; and immigrating to the United States.

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