Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Bernard Mellman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1992.A.0123.3.4 | RG Number: RG-50.035.03.0004

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward”

    Oral history interview with Bernard Mellman
    Transcript
    This is January the 31st, 1995, and we are at Wright State
    University Television Center.
    Since this is the 50th anniversary
    of the liberation of the concentration
    camps from World War Two, we are interviewing a liberator.
    Today this is Bernard Mellman, who
    was a corporal in the United States Army.
    Mr. Mellman, where were you born, when did you
    go into the service, and then you'll
    tell us how you got to the point of being
    in Europe at that time.
    I was born in Columbus, Ohio.
    And at the age of--
    I had a normal childhood.
    At the age of 18, I enrolled at Ohio State University.
    At that time I joined the ROTC program.
    And that was in the artillery.
    Also at that time, in September of 1942,
    I joined the enlisted reserves because,
    at that time, that was an automatic deferment
    to finish your college education.
    I went to classes for two quarters.
    And it seemed like that every day
    another seat would become empty because the students,
    the male students, were enlisting in the--
    or being drafted into the armed forces.
    Finally, it got to me, and one day I went and applied
    for active duty.
    And on March the 18th of 1943, I went on active duty
    with the armed forces.
    I was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma
    to take basic training in the artillery.
    This had a strong point of my life of what happened
    and why I feel I'm still here today.
    I didn't know that being in the ROTC program
    was an automatic application, and also being in the reserves
    was an automatic application to go to Officer Candidate School.
    So when I finished basic training,
    I went before a group of colonels
    after I was called in and asked why I
    felt I would be a good officer.
    I was 18 years old and still wet behind the ears.
    And I said, well, I thought that, with proper training,
    I felt that I would, with a little more confidence,
    I could become a good officer.
    They told me about the ASTP program, Army Specialized
    Training Program, and they were in desperate need of engineers.
    So I thought, well, I think I've got
    the mental capacity for that.
    So I accepted it.
    And I attended, in 1943, Syracuse University
    and University of Illinois until they finally
    closed down their program.
    They decided they had enough engineers.
    Then I made an application to become an army pilot.
    I ate my carrots.
    I passed the physical.
    And then they told me they closed down that program
    because they had enough pilots, bombardiers.
    So they shipped me to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma,
    which, in 1943, was activated--
    which, in 1943, the 42nd Infantry Division
    was reactivated.
    This was MacArthur's, General MacArthur's division
    in World War Two--
    Right.
    --which he became famous for.
    At that time it was a soldier--
    the division consisted of soldiers
    from all states of the Union.
    That's why they call it the "Rainbow."
    And General Collins was the general
    that reactivated the 43rd--
    42nd Infantry Division in Camp Gruber, Oklahoma.
    So in 1940-- the latter part of 1943 and 1944,
    I spent in training.
    I was assigned to an infantry division.
    And I went through full combat training with the--
    and that I don't remember.
    Was a 222nd or 232nd Infantry Regiment.
    I went through village fighting, everything there
    had to become a combat soldier.
    They had, at sometime in 1944, they sent overseas soldiers
    from the artillery.
    And they needed replacements.
    So I was transferred from the regiment into the artillery.
    And as it turns out later in combat,
    our infantry battalions took a tremendous beating.
    And one of the fellows that I became very friendly with,
    Bernie Comiskey from Chicago, he stayed in the infantry.
    And when I went to see him when we were in-- in somewhat
    of a reserve in combat, I went to see him,
    and he was lost in action.
    And it could have happened to me.
    We--
    You received your uniform about this--
    I received my uniform at that time.
    And that's the uniform of the 42nd Infantry Division.
    And that's the one that I went overseas with,
    and I was able to retain it when I was
    discharged from the service.
    There is a patch on the left, and I'll bring that up now.
    Well, it's on my left shoulder.
    It's the 4th Infantry Division because, after the war ended in
    May 1945, for some reason, which I still don't know today,
    I was--
    about 30 of us from our division was transferred
    into a group that was sent back to the United States
    for special training to join the 4th Infantry Division and to--
    Pacific theater of operation.
    As it turns out, I was on a ship when the two atomic bombs
    were dropped.
    And I got home, and my parents got
    to see their son right on V-J Day.
    And I never did go back overseas.
    So you were in Europe.
    And--
    I was in Europe.
    With?
    We landed in January, in January 1945.
    The division, the Infantry Division, infantry regiments
    landed a couple of weeks before the artillery.
    They were sent right into the Battle of the Bulge,
    at the tail end of the Bulge, where they
    suffered tremendous casualties.
    Right.
    We landed on January the 4th in Marseilles, France.
    And I was in the 542nd Field Artillery Battalion, Battery B.
    And I was the scout.
    Well, because I was a corporal, they
    gave me the ranking of scout corporal.
    And I would go with the forward observer, who
    was the executive officer with our battery,
    into positions so we could lead and direct fire from--
    I was in-- the group was a 155 howitzer,
    which was a new weapon that came out.
    It was-- today I don't even think they use howitzers
    anymore because they have all these more
    technical, mechanized weapons that
    are really assigned to tanks.
    But we were in the 155 Howitzer Group,
    and we did a lot of firing at the enemy when we pursued them.
    So you saw death as you were going along.
    We saw death.
    Right.
    I had been indoctrinated, and I had became very embittered.
    And it was either our life or their life,
    the German soldier's life.
    So we, as a division, had received a lot of commendations
    for our infantry participation and for our--
    especially our artillery because of our direct--
    and we were a very fine unit in firing at the enemy.
    We must have killed thousands of soldiers.
    As you crossed Europe and got closer to where Dachau was,
    had you heard anything about concentration camps?
    Not really.
    Not really.
    I heard words of death camp, but I don't believe
    I heard the word concentration camp until we landed at--
    we arrived at Dachau.
    Tell us how you came to that.
    Well, we were pursuing the 4th-- the 42nd Infantry
    Division made a loop.
    We started at France, at the southern part of France,
    went across the Rhine, and headed directly East, right
    into Germany.
    And we were at--
    [PAUSES] do you mind if I look at a map--
    No.
    Sure.
    --because there's a map here that would--
    these names I haven't talked about in many years.
    We went to Würzburg, which was--
    at that time, I thought it was--
    well, I can't even think of the city that--
    Frankfurt.
    But it was Würzburg which we--
    the Air Force had destroyed that town.
    Only the steeples on the churches were still standing.
    And we went to Schweinfurt, which was west in Germany.
    And then we made the move South.
    Our goal was Munich.
    And heading South, we hit the Autobahn.
    And at that time, the United States
    didn't have any superhighways, with the exception
    of probably the toll roads, the new tollways at that time.
    But Hitler had created tremendous highways there,
    which he was going to-- he promised the people that he
    would build cars so they could use these highways.
    But we were pulled by semi--
    by halftracks, they called them, these big howitzers.
    And we just rolled so beautifully.
    And we were on a real roll, going down through--
    from Schweinfurt to go into Munich.
    Along the way, we were diverted into a side road.
    And we were following-- there are
    four batteries in a battalion.
    And we were in the second battery,
    so we were following the group in front of us.
    And of course, they were--
    an hour or two or three hours before us were the infantry
    regiments.
    And they were, at that time, pulled-- they were on jeeps,
    they were on tanks, they were on everything, anything that
    could move because we were really gaining
    speed and finishing up the war.
    Right.
    Suddenly we came across this compound.
    And that was Dachau.
    At that time, we saw--
    our group as we approached it, saw
    hundreds of soldiers-- and these were German soldiers-- laying
    all over the field in front of the entire-- of course,
    the entire complex was either with barbed wire
    or with building.
    And we saw all these German soldiers.
    They were already slaughtered by our infantry,
    who got there before us.
    We pulled around to where the entrance was.
    And we kept on going because we saw the cattle cars.
    And there we saw a sight that, once you
    see that, you may forget other things, which I do at my age
    now, but I don't forget the sight.
    To see the 12 to 24 cattle cars stuffed with human bodies,
    it was a sight that, as hardened as I was as a soldier, we--
    it was just hard to--
    well, I'm not able to describe it.
    But the stench, because we came right up to the cattle cars--
    we got out of our vehicles.
    I was driving my jeep, and we had all the battalions,
    all the rest of the battery with their trucks
    and with the halftracks.
    We went up to those cattle cars and just stood and looked
    at that, and it didn't look real,
    to see these emaciated bodies stacked up high, some laying
    off the ground because the doors of the cattle cars
    were all open.
    And to see those bodies just laying on the ground
    or laying in there in all directions--
    I know we've already recorded in history some of those pictures,
    and I think the previous person--
    Had pictures.
    --had pictures.
    Well, we stayed-- we stopped-- we stopped.
    We were there probably for 20 minutes.
    And then the battery commander said, let's go.
    We're going to go inside.
    And we went to the main entrance,
    which had already been opened by the infantry
    personnel, infantry soldiers.
    And we walked inside.
    You see the bodies of a lot of the victims just sprawled
    all over.
    They were evidently shot by the Germans
    because they knew the Americans were coming.
    There were a few Germans still inside.
    I understand that some of the Holocaust victims
    got weapons and grabbed a few from the Germans
    and turned around and shot them.
    But you didn't see.
    That already happened prior to when you came?
    That was prior, about three hours prior to our arriving.
    That's how we-- I must have-- we must have gotten there about 1
    o'clock in the afternoon.
    And I would imagine about 9, 10 o'clock
    that the building, the--
    Dachau was actually liberated by one--
    I think it was a 222nd Infantry Division.
    Did you see any live people?
    I mean, any live inmates?
    Well, I can answer that this way.
    We decided-- we went inside the building.
    And the first building we came to, where the fire--
    where the--
    the building where they were destroyed the-- they--
    Crematorium.
    --cremated the bodies.
    At that time, somebody said everybody
    from Battery B, all the battalions, 542 Field Artillery
    Battalion, we have to leave.
    We have to leave.
    The American military government,
    the group-- the group is here.
    They're going to take over.
    So we had to leave.
    And as we left the inside of the compound to the outside,
    we were put on guard duty for the rest of that day,
    till about late at night.
    And then we started up again toward--
    because we were still in combat.
    We were heading toward Munich.
    But during that period from about,
    I would say, from about 2 o'clock
    till about dark, we were at the--
    assigned to one area around the compound, which had the wire.
    Well, the whole compound was with wire.
    What type of wire would you call that that had the--
    You're talking about the fencing.
    I know.
    The fencing that you don't escape from.
    Right.
    Right.
    The electric fence or--
    No, they weren't electric.
    They were--
    Barbed wire, probably.
    Barbed wire, that's the word.
    Thank you.
    That's why I retired.
    [LAUGHS]
    Yeah, whatever.
    So we were assigned to one section of the barbed wire.
    And there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
    of victims that were just milling around.
    And a group came up because we were
    able to go right up to the barbed wire,
    and a whole group, 50, 75, couldn't get any closer.
    They were all reaching out.
    They wanted the touch you.
    And that's where it really got to me.
    You've freed us.
    We're here.
    We're saved.
    And I could speak a little Yiddish
    because my parents spoke Yiddish.
    And I could understand a little German.
    And there were some Jews in there.
    There were some of non-Jews.
    And there was one--
    but they spoke Polish.
    They spoke different languages.
    But they all seem to understand German.
    So one man said to me, he said, he had one arm.
    He says, my turn tomorrow to go to the-- to go to the cremator,
    to be cremated.
    Another one said, I'm scheduled to go in a few days.
    They still had the car, the loads of cattle cars
    with bodies that they had priority.
    At least they had these people.
    But they-- the--
    you felt like a hero.
    You felt like you had did something,
    but it was a group-- it was a group participation of the 42nd
    Infantry Division that liberated that.
    I was only one person.
    It was a great thing to remember.
    But eventually they were all pulled back
    by the new soldiers that came in and told them to get back
    because they didn't want us to come in contact with them
    because we could get all the diseases that could be passing.
    And we were still fighting.
    So we bed down for the night.
    The next morning we went on to Munich.
    And Munich-- until we wound up in the war,
    in Salzburg, Austria.
    We wanted to talk about the flag that you liberated,
    the Nazi flag.
    Well, when I got to Munich, we went-- there
    we spent about four days because we were on guard duty.
    And we were assigned guard duty at
    different busy intersections.
    And during our visit there, I got into one military--
    it was a military building.
    And I got there at the right time at the right place.
    I found this flag there.
    And this flag is one of the worst memories
    that I ever had-- that I'll ever have
    as I look at that because it turns out
    that it's got primarily red.
    And I see red every time I look at that
    because of that swastika right in the middle, for what it
    stood for.
    And I pray to God that it'll never happen
    anyplace else in this world.
    You have your--
    This helmet is what they permitted me to take home.
    It's a helmet liner.
    The helmet actually goes over that.
    But they let me take my uniform when I left the service,
    and they let me take this liner.
    Then I have this memento.
    This is a-- [PAUSES]
    Bayonet.
    Bayonet.
    Yes.
    This is a bayonet that I took off
    a dead soldier laying on the field right
    outside the building in Dachau.
    I took it.
    He had it out, and it was loose, and I picked it up.
    This actually fits on his rifle.
    But I don't know how many people, how many Americans that
    might have killed before that.
    This whole experience, as a young soldier
    and seeing it and living through it, has it influenced your--
    I know that for a long time you didn't think about it too much.
    But now that you think about it, what
    are your feelings in regard to that period?
    Well, my feelings are basically--
    is that, after reading what the--
    Hitler's style and how he took the youth of that country,
    and he, over a period of years, he took their minds
    and he created a monster, I feel that this could happen again.
    And I have the concernment.
    I know that there's the neo-Nazis,
    and I know there are.
    But as long as they're in a tremendous minority,
    and as long as the people of this country
    can appreciate the American flag like I
    appreciate the American flag--
    I used to get a chill every time I was in a parade
    and then an American flag would go by.
    It's something that we have, and we should cherish.
    And I would hope that we could get back
    in line with our country to get that feeling again.
    And by telling these stories and recalling
    what you saw as a liberator--
    Well, again, I was one part of a group of a million men, who
    really gave of themselves, and many of them
    gave their lives in combat.
    I feel very fortunate that somebody up there
    looked down at me, just alone, took me from the infantry
    into the artillery, that I'm here today.
    But I would just pray that it would just not
    happen again in this world.
    And as long as we keep militarily strong,
    I think we're OK.
    Well, thank you very much for your testimony
    and as an American soldier.
    The people of this country appreciate what
    you did during that period.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Bernard Mellman

    Physical Details

    Extent
    1 videocassette (U-Matic) : 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

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    Renate Frydman conducted the interview with Bernard Mellman in cooperation with Wright State University Television Center with support from the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the Faces of the Holocaust collection in 1992 and 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:08:09
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn84134

    Additional Resources

    Transcript (English)

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us

    Also in Faces of the Holocaust oral history collection

    Contains oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors, concentration camp liberators, rescuers, a child of Holocaust survivors and a German exchange student from the Dayton, Ohio, area

    Date: 1986-1995

    Oral history interview with Charles Froug

    Oral history interview with Charles Froug

    Oral History

    Charles Froug, a medical officer in the United States Army during World War II, discusses his memories of the liberation of Dachau concentration camp; being the general surgeon with an evacuation hospital; being stationed in Rosenheim during the last week of April 1945; coming upon the open gates of Dachau and seeing the conditions of the camp and inmates; the Jewish and political prisoners (including Lutheran and Catholic clergy members); the crematoria; how he and the other Jewish members of the unit, about 18 doctors, went to the camp to say the Kaddish prayer for the dead; how 8,000 people were marched from the city to dig a large, single grave (200 by 50 by 10 feet); his commanding officer having the mayor of Rosenheim arrested and interrogated; being transferred to Lake Kimze (Chiemsee); treating American and German soldiers with equal priority; going to Hof, Germany; how much angrier they were after finding Dachau, since they had no knowledge of any of the camps beforehand; speaking to the B'nai B'rith about his experiences during his first week home; the fate of the 800 people saved at Dachau; speaking with inmates in Dachau during the first day there; prisoners dying from starvation and typhus; and Barbi's trial and his attorney's reference to French cruelty to the Algerians.

    Oral history interview with Rachael Frydman

    Oral history interview with Rachael Frydman

    Oral History

    Rachael Frydman (née Alperowicz), born May 8, 1926, discusses her life in a Kurzeniec, Poland (now Kurenets, Belarus) before World War II; the lack of a Jewish ghetto in her town because it was so small; how the Germans arrived abruptly in June 1941; her sister leaving with a neighbor; how there was no full government established yet, only the army; how once the Gestapo came, gold and silver was demanded from everyone via the Jewish Committee; the selection process, during which individuals age 16 and up were taken away; being made to work; how just before the high holidays approximately 50 men and a few women, including her neighbors across the street and two cousins, were slaughtered in the streets and how one man escaped; the specific men who committed atrocities; working as a cleaning lady; the liquidation three days before the high holiday; hiding with her family in a false attic her brother had built; a neighbor reporting on them to the Germans; a family down the street committing suicide by starting a fire; sneaking out of the attic and hiding in the woods and losing track of her brother; living in a hole in the ground with 18 people; her mother being caught; how the forest was divided by numbers and each village had a part of the forest; the Germans surrounding their area of the forest on April 29, 1943; escaping the Germans; not joining partisan groups but making them food; the rainy summer of 1943; hearing that her brother was alive in the Vilna ghetto; going to several villages before returning to the woods; hearing that her brother was sent to Estonia; searching for her brother in villages, partisan groups, and the forest; finding him in the forest; and being shot at by German soldiers, but avoiding being hit by running in a zig-zag.

    Oral history interview with Judith Koch

    Oral history interview with Judith Koch

    Oral History

    Judith Koch, a German exchange student, discusses the absence of Jews from her village in Germany and the impact of the Holocaust on her life; the remnants of Jewish history and culture in her village, including a cemetery; how there was once a synagogue in the village, which the Nazis tore it down in 1939; learning about the Holocaust as a child; the impact of the Holocaust on her father; American patriotism versus German patriotism; Germans discriminating against the Turkish; the role the United States played in helping to rebuild Germany after the war; prejudices in the US; and how being German affects her interviews with Holocaust survivors.

    Oral history interview with Helga Levy

    Oral history interview with Helga Levy

    Oral History

    Helga Levy discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; her memories as a young adult living under the Nazi regime; her memories of discriminatory laws against Jews; and her survival in hiding in Berlin

    Oral history interview with Ben Muler and Bernice Muler

    Oral history interview with Ben Muler and Bernice Muler

    Oral History

    Bernice Muler (née Braha “Bronia” Fogul), born in 1925, describes living in Tomashov (Tomaszów Lubelski), Poland; her brother and sister; hoping to become a teacher; the Russian occupation; being advised to leave and having little time to pack their belongings; 2000 people including her immediate family and some of the neighbors leaving in army trucks bound for Russia; her family staying in a small hut with a dirt floor for six months; not being allowed to stay there and deciding to go to Odessa, Ukraine; travelling in cattle cars in January 1940 for 20 days and arriving in some wood cabins by the Ural mountains, close to Siberia; her family moving to a city where she attended eighth and ninth grades in a Russian school; having to work at age 16 in a factory for twelve hours a day; and going with her mother to Sumz, Russia, where she met her future husband Ben. Ben Muler, born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1922, describes his family; keeping up with the news as the Nazis rose to power; antisemitism in the 1930s; German Jewish refugees arriving in Poland; the Lithuanians being abusive towards the Jewish population; the Russians arriving; the German bombardments in 1941; trying unsuccessfully to convince his family to leave; the journey with his friends to the Russian border; arriving in Osmiany (Ashmiany, Belarus) and separating from his friends; reuniting with his friends in Minsk, Belarus; working on a collective farm in Ukraine with other refugees; going to the Ural Mountains; being drafted into the labor army and sent to work cutting timber for a copper mine; meeting Bernice; and corresponding with his aunt in Mississippi. Ben and Bernice describe returning to Poland in 1946; the fates of their family members; the Jewish underground helping them cross the border illegally into Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Germany; going to the Deggendorf displaced persons camp; arriving in Boston, MA on October 14, 1949; going to a small town in Mississippi; and moving to Dayton, Ohio.

    Oral history interview with Richard R. Seibel

    Oral history interview with Richard R. Seibel

    Oral History

    Retired Colonel Richard R. Seibel discusses his experiences as commanding United States Army officer at Mauthausen concentration camp after liberation in 1945.

    Oral history interview with Marlene Stine

    Oral history interview with Marlene Stine

    Oral History

    Marlene Stine discusses life as the daughter of Holocaust survivors

    Oral history interview with Johanna van Schagen

    Oral history interview with Johanna van Schagen

    Oral History

    Johanna van Schagen discusses her experiences of hiding Jews in her home in the Netherlands during World War II and her recognition as a "Righteous Among the Nations" by the State of Israel.

    Oral history interview with Murray Weisman

    Oral history interview with Murray Weisman

    Oral History

    Murray Weisman, born in Poland in 1930, discusses living in Łódź, Poland; the German occupation of Poland; ghettoization; forced labor; his memories of being deported; arriving in the camp, being stripped, searched for gold, given a number on his arm, put into a shower, and given clothes; lying about his age during the selection process; his job building roads; witnessing a mass murder of inmates; the suicide of some inmates; being taken to Auschwitz; the burning of the dead and weak during the journey; his work; the selections on Fridays; the torture from 1941 to 1942 in Auschwitz; the Kapos; being sent to Buna (Monowitz) concentration camp, where life was somewhat easier; starvation; having to sing while they marched; being in Buna for a year and a half; a bombing at the camp and trying to hide in a bunker; evacuating the camp and being forced to march to Gleiwitz (Gliwice), Poland; being taken on a train to Dora; the Americans bombing the train rails; being stabbed by a Nazi at one point; being sent to Buchenwald; seeing prisoners being taken out of the camps and shot or drowned; hiding in a pile of corpses for two days before being liberated by American soldiers; going to Paris, France; going to the United States for his studies; and his life in the US. Mr. Weisman also shows pictures and sings a song from the camps.

    Oral history interview with Sam Heider

    Oral history interview with Sam Heider

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Charles Froug

    Oral history interview with Charles Froug

    Oral History

    Charles Froug, a medical officer in the United States Army during World War II, discusses his memories of the liberation of Dachau concentration camp

    Oral history interview with Rachael Frydman

    Oral history interview with Rachael Frydman

    Oral History

    Rachael Frydman discusses her life in Poland before World War II; her time in hiding in a forest; and her life as a partisan resistance fighter during the Holocaust

    Oral history interview with Judith Koch

    Oral history interview with Judith Koch

    Oral History

    Judith Koch, a German exchange student, discusses the absence of Jews from her village in Germany and the impact of the Holocaust on her life

    Oral history interview with Helga Levy

    Oral history interview with Helga Levy

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ben Muler and Bernice Muler

    Oral history interview with Ben Muler and Bernice Muler

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Richard Seibel

    Oral history interview with Richard Seibel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marlene Stine

    Oral history interview with Marlene Stine

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Johanna Van Schagen

    Oral history interview with Johanna Van Schagen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Murray Weisman

    Oral history interview with Murray Weisman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Delbert Cooper

    Oral history interview with Delbert Cooper

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Donald Key

    Oral history interview with Donald Key

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gabe Vacca

    Oral history interview with Gabe Vacca

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fred Long

    Oral history interview with Fred Long

    Oral History

    View All 24 Items in the Collection