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Oral history interview with William McWorkman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1269.15 | RG Number: RG-50.470.0015

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    Oral history interview with William McWorkman
    Transcript
    Slate one coming up.
    Gee, it's nice and quiet, isn't it?
    Mr. Workman, camera one, marker one.
    Perhaps I should start by saying that I was in the 12th Armored
    Division, one of several armored divisions in the 3rd and 7th
    Army who drove south toward Austria.
    Our original mission was Munich.
    But through an OSS agent, whom we had sent forward earlier
    in the week, we found from the Munich Burgermeister or mayor
    that they were going to give up the city without a fight.
    So our mission was changed, and we headed more
    to the south and the east, on the west side of Ammersee
    down through.
    Our objective-- initial objective was Weilheim.
    And from Weilheim, we were to go down through Oberau,
    thence into Innsbruck, and finally down to Bringer Pass,
    where we were to hopefully finish the war at that point.
    Things were very confused, though, both on the German side
    and in the American and British side.
    We changed missions quite often.
    We had usually three columns of armor moving down
    south parallel to each other, distanced by several miles.
    And I was with the division artillery commander, Colonel
    Geldart as we moved south from Augsburg
    toward Lech and the town of Landsberg.
    We didn't know that the camps were there
    as we came down through there.
    But we finally crossed the Lech river, and most of the camps
    were from Landsberg strung up through the village
    of Kaufering, a few kilometers to the north.
    And we entered camp number four, I found out
    later the number of that.
    And I was with a group of about 10 people,
    I think, from the division artillery.
    Although other members of the division were there.
    And I had some impressions, I think, of our movement
    into that area.
    The first one was of utter horror at what we saw.
    There must have been a pile of 400 to 600 bodies piled up
    in one part of the camp as we entered.
    Another pile was burning.
    Some of the low shacks in which the poor prisoners lived,
    or supposedly living, had had the door
    locked with the prisoners inside and set fire.
    And these were just a mass of charred bodies still burning.
    The stench was awful.
    I think one of the big impressions
    that I first had as we came in was that the blueness
    of their skin.
    They'd been so starved and so emaciated
    that the skin hue was a definite blue, and looked like a chicken
    after it had been picked and ready to boil.
    Some of the bodies were burning back
    in other parts of the camp.
    We saw various buildings in various stages
    of disrepair and burning.
    We saw what appeared to be German guards in the area.
    And of course, these were being surrounded by Allied troops
    as they came into the camp.
    In effect, it was not a capture of the camp as much
    as it was an overrunning of the camp.
    We had no resistance, really, as we came up there.
    One of the things I remember particularly
    was what later turned out to be an SS guard who
    had changed his uniform from his SS suit
    into civilian clothes, who was standing knee-deep in bodies
    out there with the Allied troops more or less surrounding him.
    I found out later from the Holocaust people
    that they had identified this guard, who the next day had
    been killed by a prisoner, who had just had enough,
    I think, and took a board, hit him over the head,
    and killed him.
    We weren't there for that event.
    But I think it happened quite frequently throughout the camp.
    Also, you must remember that the--
    as these camps were overrun in the Landsberg-Kaufering area,
    many of the prisoners either escaped
    or were released through open gates
    and were wandering down the road.
    And some of the most pitiful sights we saw
    were these inmates in all stages of undress,
    with the striped pajamas on or with very little clothes
    on at all, wandering around down the road in a very
    dazed and glazed eye condition.
    They begged for food.
    They weren't sure who we were at first,
    but finally, they were told that we were American troops,
    and seemed overjoyed.
    Back to the camp for a moment.
    We were particularly impressed with the joy with which they
    greeted the American troops.
    One of the people in my group was a Jewish master sergeant,
    or our operation sergeant, Dick Manson,
    who very fortunately had received
    a box of matzo bread or matzo crackers that day
    or in the previous day's mail.
    He had those with him.
    And he went outside to a group who were standing there
    and distributed these matzo bread or matzo crackers
    to the Jewish prisoners there.
    And to a man, they were crying, because it's the first matzo
    bread that they had seen in five years
    or however long they'd been in the camp.
    It was a very, very emotional and moving thing.
    The horror of it hit us even afterwards
    as much as it did as we saw them there.
    But the prisoners were well-behaved.
    One of the key problems that we had as we entered this camp,
    when others did who entered their camp,
    was the disease problem.
    We knew that people under those conditions
    must have been suffering from typhus, as well
    as many, many other diseases.
    And we were told to be very careful
    and not get too close to them or touch them,
    even though our natural human inclination
    was to see what we could do to make them comfortable.
    In some cases, they had been given blankets, and K rations,
    and C rations from our supplies to cover up those who were
    still uncovered, so to speak.
    It was a cold, wet day, as I recall,
    and even with our uniforms and jackets, we were uncomfortable.
    And you can imagine what the poor prisoners suffered
    in that same vein.
    I talked to a friend of mine from the 493rd Field Artillery
    Battalion, who was in one of the efforts
    moving south parallel to us, Pete Bramble.
    And he mentioned the fact that his wire truck pulled up
    to a camp, which had evidently not been entered at all.
    And the first thing they saw were barbed wire fences.
    So they hid their truck, took their carbines and machine
    guns, moved forward in there, and found
    out what the situation was.
    The prisoners came up and kissed their trousers.
    And one of the most memorable recollections of either Pete
    or one of his work crew was that someone
    stood at the edge of the camp as they entered and saluted them.
    Which really was an emotional thing
    for these American soldiers, who had never
    seen this kind of mistreatment of people in their life.
    General Allen, the division commander of the 12th,
    entered the camp while I was there and was
    as shocked as we were to see the realism of what
    these camps were.
    And later in the day, I understand
    that he ordered that all male villagers
    from the nearby village-- and I can't tell you
    which village it was because there were several around.
    But he had them walk through the camp,
    look at all of the things, from the ovens
    to the burning huts in the ground,
    to the stacks of bodies, to the living people.
    And he had them bury the bodies the next day,
    that evening and the next day, with their bare hands, which
    they did.
    I don't recall that they took the women of the village
    through the camp and can understand why.
    That evening, we were told the Burgermeister
    or the mayor of the little village shot himself.
    Most of the village observers who went through
    claimed that they didn't even know that the camp was there.
    We found that difficult to believe because in many cases,
    you could see the wire fences from the village.
    But we ran into a lot of this denial,
    as we called it, as we went through other camps
    and through that part of Germany.
    All kinds of different incidents occurred.
    Many people were there at the camp before I arrived.
    So mine is a very poignant observation of the camp.
    But I wasn't the first one in, so I
    don't know what actually happened
    as the first troops arrived.
    We have to stop.
    Good.
    We're just--
    Yeah.
    I'll start with that, maybe, yeah?
    Yeah, that's fine.
    Oh, OK.
    Two.
    OK.
    Just wait just a sec.
    One of the things that was most noticeable
    was the color and countenance and the appearance
    of the prisoners themselves.
    I do remember that most of them appeared to me
    to have almost blue skin, very little circulation, starvation,
    riding only on bones and no flesh.
    And the stench was awful.
    The appearance of their eyes was glazed,
    and they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
    And their voices were weak.
    We did talk to several of them.
    They were overjoyed, tears running down
    most of their faces.
    But these men were in not a normal condition.
    They were far worse.
    I would have guessed that the majority of them
    ranged in weight from maybe 70 pounds up to 80 or 90
    at the most.
    Very few people that we see who weren't
    pure skeletons with skin stretched over the top.
    Another very impressive thing about the environment
    or the ambience of that meeting was the careful silence
    of Americans.
    We talked in whispers to each other.
    And it was almost like being at a wake, which it was,
    many thousand times enlarged.
    And the emotions of the Americans
    were very, very noticeable as we sat
    there talking to the inmates and then among ourselves as well.
    Tell me about the SS men.
    The primary German we saw in this group was
    what later turned out to be an SS soldier guard who
    had changed his clothes in civilian clothes,
    had a black vest on.
    And we took his picture, which turned out very well.
    He was standing knee-deep in bodies,
    which were not burning, but were stacked up, ready for burning.
    And I would imagine those bodies came up above his knees.
    And he was standing there, talking
    to himself a little bit.
    But kind of muttering and professing his innocence.
    And he had a head shaved like an SS trooper would.
    We were told by Holocaust people who
    got some history on him that he was killed
    the next day by an inmate prisoner, who hit him
    with a board after months of being mistreated,
    and killed him.
    So it was just the rewards for his wonderful work for the Nazi
    Reich.
    That enough?
    Yeah.
    One other thing-- talk to me about what you thought you
    or you and the other servicemen could or couldn't do.
    How big of a problem were you faced with?
    Or were you worried when you left there?
    As we viewed this terrible scene, I think most of us
    did think of what we could do to relieve the situation.
    Our battalion surgeon was with us and he said, do not feed--
    overfeed these people immediately.
    They won't be able to take it, and it'll possibly
    kill some of them.
    So we were very careful.
    We did give them K rations, with the admonition
    to treat it carefully and not try to eat very much of it
    at a time.
    There were already people arriving
    from some of the rear echelons, who
    took these people, attempted to segregate them into those who
    were in dying condition, those who were a little bit better,
    and so forth, and so on.
    We remember one building was marched contagious diseases.
    And of course, we stayed away from that at the moment.
    And later, people came in and made
    just a triage of what should be done with those people.
    It appeared to be enormous problem,
    and it appeared even more so as we learned
    of the extent of these camps and the deprivations
    that the prisoners had undergone in doing that.
    Thank you.
    Oh, one other thing that you mentioned to Diana
    was the expressions on their faces, even in death.
    Yes.
    The expressions on the faces of the dead people
    was one of pain, horror, a few of relief.
    Many of them were beaten to death.
    But particularly, the grotesque countenances
    of those who had been put in these long pit housing
    with a wooden roof over the top and locked the door
    and then set on fire.
    You could see them crawling to the edge.
    You could see a hand clawing its way,
    trying to claw its way out of that place.
    And you can imagine what kind of a death that might have been.
    This appeared on all of them.
    A reaction that I had after I left
    the camp was that we were so shocked by the appearance
    of the hundreds of bodies that were in here,
    a stack of maybe 500 or 600 in one spot and 300 or 400
    in another, was that we were so aghast at that
    that I think we spent more time looking at that then we did it
    in trying to take immediate care of those who were living.
    And as I look back on it 50 years later,
    I would have spent more of my time trying
    to comfort the living, and find out
    if they knew of any of their particular friends
    who were there, and so forth.
    But we didn't do that.
    We were all so shocked by that.
    Thank you.
    Now, let's just be very quiet.
    You can cut, Erish, and we'll record the sound
    as this jet flies over.
    And we'll just record room tone.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    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.
    Interviewee
    McWorkman, William O.
    Interviewer
    Sandra Bradley
    Date
    interview:  1995 February 21

    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
    McWorkman, William.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with William McWorkman on February 21, 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 08:41:35
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn511060

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    Time Coded Notes (English)

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    Contains oral history interviews with 25 Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators recorded in preparation for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibition, "Liberation 1945," which opened in June 1995. The collection includes interviews with: Boleslaw Brodecki, Sonia Brodecki, Jim Cacioppo, Helen Fagin, Suzanne Foldes, Nesse Godin, Henny Gurko, Irving Heymont, John Holmes, Joseph Kahoe, Henry Kanner, Abraham Klausner, John Komski, Pat Lynch, William McWorkman, James Moncrief, Judah Nadich, George Salton, Richard Seibel, Milton Shurr, Alfred Sundquist, Fella Warshau, Nick White, and Alan Zimm

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    Oral history interview with Jim Cacioppo

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    Oral history interview with Helen Fagin

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    Oral history interview with Suzanne Foldes

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    Oral history interview with Henry Kanner

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    Oral history interview with Abraham Klausner

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    Oral history interview with John Komski

    Oral History

    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.

    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 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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