Read Online The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust by Michael Hirsh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Hirsh
Tags: History, Psychology, 20th Century, Holocaust, Modern, Psychopathology, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Ads: Link
bendable, depending on circumstances. After a German unit machine-gunned more than eighty American POWs at Malmédy, during the Bulge, many GIs say they received orders to take no prisoners. If, as Brockman relates, those orders were rescinded, the soldiers obeyed—to a point. Often that point was the discovery of a death camp, which in his case wouldn’t happen for a few more weeks.
Brockman and his buddies knew nothing about the Holocaust as the terrible winter gave way to springtime, but he was about to learn. The lessons began slowly, as his unit, the 317th Infantry Regiment, began to run across small forced-labor camps. “We saw the camps; usually the guys ahead of us would take the camp and just clean ‘em up, getting the prisoners that was in there and trying to doctor them up. And you couldn’t feed ‘em anything, ‘cause it’d kill them. Rich food, too much rich food, was bad for ‘em.”
Somewhere ahead of Brockman and the 80th Infantry Division in the line of march to the east was Sergeant Harry Gerenstein with the 6th Armored Division. The New Yorker, now of Las Vegas, was an old man of twenty-five when he was drafted in 1942. He crossed the English Channel a month after D-Day, landed in France, and suddenly the war was real. “I saw all those ships that they sunk there, and it was a disaster. It was scary. Up until then, it didn’t mean a thing to me.”
Harry drove a truck in the division’s supply outfit. “We had no top, no doors, no windshield, and my partner had a position with .50-caliber machine gun. What they call a ring mount; it was on the truck and it goes all around, and he just stood there. I drove all through France, Luxembourg, rain or shine, we never had a top on the truck.” Like most of the other GIs, Harry knew nothing about the slave-labor camps until they discovered one.
“We liberated one place where there was a hundred twenty Hungarian Jewish women that they kept, not in a camp, but they lived in the barnyard. The Germans took off.” Harry was able to speak to the women in Yiddish. Mostly young and dressed in regular clothes, they told how they were marched into the woods every morning to a camouflaged hand grenade factory. “The women said every day they put a handful of sand in their pockets, and when they got to the factory, each one filled a hand grenade with sand instead of gunpowder. One of the women didn’t have any shoes; she wore house slippers. I had two pair of shoes, I can only wear one, so I gave her a pair of my shoes. She wanted to repay me some way. I said, ‘Forget it.’ I took a picture of them, and that was it. Then we left.”
On April 11, Gerenstein heard from his unit’s radio man that the outfit had liberated a prison camp. It was actually the first time he heard the term “concentration camp.” “We took the jeep, and that’s when I went to the camp. It was off the main roads, and we got into the camp, there were some medics there, and they called for other help. We were told, ‘Don’t feed them, don’t give them any food. The food we’re eating will kill them.’ I saw the ovens there; there was about two hundred bodies in there that the Germans never had a chance to cover them up. I went into the barracks. I don’t know if you’d call them barracks, the living quarters. I went in there, and it stunk like hell. And we stayed there not even five minutes. I couldn’t stand the odor, and we took off and went back to our outfit. I only spent about a half hour in the camp. We had to get out. We got into the jeep, and not one word was said between us. We were dumbfounded.”
Somewhere before the city of Kassel, following behind the 6th Armored, Clarence Brockman and three of his buddies from the 80th Infantry Division tired of walking, so they stole a three-quarter-ton truck from a headquarters outfit back of the line. “Changed the number and everything; wiped it off, painted it over with white camouflage paint. And then we got to
Brockman and his buddies knew nothing about the Holocaust as the terrible winter gave way to springtime, but he was about to learn. The lessons began slowly, as his unit, the 317th Infantry Regiment, began to run across small forced-labor camps. “We saw the camps; usually the guys ahead of us would take the camp and just clean ‘em up, getting the prisoners that was in there and trying to doctor them up. And you couldn’t feed ‘em anything, ‘cause it’d kill them. Rich food, too much rich food, was bad for ‘em.”
Somewhere ahead of Brockman and the 80th Infantry Division in the line of march to the east was Sergeant Harry Gerenstein with the 6th Armored Division. The New Yorker, now of Las Vegas, was an old man of twenty-five when he was drafted in 1942. He crossed the English Channel a month after D-Day, landed in France, and suddenly the war was real. “I saw all those ships that they sunk there, and it was a disaster. It was scary. Up until then, it didn’t mean a thing to me.”
Harry drove a truck in the division’s supply outfit. “We had no top, no doors, no windshield, and my partner had a position with .50-caliber machine gun. What they call a ring mount; it was on the truck and it goes all around, and he just stood there. I drove all through France, Luxembourg, rain or shine, we never had a top on the truck.” Like most of the other GIs, Harry knew nothing about the slave-labor camps until they discovered one.
“We liberated one place where there was a hundred twenty Hungarian Jewish women that they kept, not in a camp, but they lived in the barnyard. The Germans took off.” Harry was able to speak to the women in Yiddish. Mostly young and dressed in regular clothes, they told how they were marched into the woods every morning to a camouflaged hand grenade factory. “The women said every day they put a handful of sand in their pockets, and when they got to the factory, each one filled a hand grenade with sand instead of gunpowder. One of the women didn’t have any shoes; she wore house slippers. I had two pair of shoes, I can only wear one, so I gave her a pair of my shoes. She wanted to repay me some way. I said, ‘Forget it.’ I took a picture of them, and that was it. Then we left.”
On April 11, Gerenstein heard from his unit’s radio man that the outfit had liberated a prison camp. It was actually the first time he heard the term “concentration camp.” “We took the jeep, and that’s when I went to the camp. It was off the main roads, and we got into the camp, there were some medics there, and they called for other help. We were told, ‘Don’t feed them, don’t give them any food. The food we’re eating will kill them.’ I saw the ovens there; there was about two hundred bodies in there that the Germans never had a chance to cover them up. I went into the barracks. I don’t know if you’d call them barracks, the living quarters. I went in there, and it stunk like hell. And we stayed there not even five minutes. I couldn’t stand the odor, and we took off and went back to our outfit. I only spent about a half hour in the camp. We had to get out. We got into the jeep, and not one word was said between us. We were dumbfounded.”
Somewhere before the city of Kassel, following behind the 6th Armored, Clarence Brockman and three of his buddies from the 80th Infantry Division tired of walking, so they stole a three-quarter-ton truck from a headquarters outfit back of the line. “Changed the number and everything; wiped it off, painted it over with white camouflage paint. And then we got to
Similar Books
