It is extremely important for Liberators and any other witnesses to the atrocities of the
Holocaust to document their testimonies. We would like to build a Liberators' section in
the Cybrary, and Chuck's story is the beginning. If you'd like to participate in this
important project by sharing your own testimony as a Liberator, just click here
chuckf@rio.com and send an email to Chuck.

In April and May 1945, I was a first lieutenant in the 9th Air Force, attached to the 7th Army
Headquarters, temporary duty, for the purpose of flying officers from Eisenhower's headquarters
into the various camps as they were liberated. Our unit had moved from France into Germany
near Frankfurt. We continued to fly combat missions from that location until the war ended in
May of 1945.

The rumors became reality as three L-5 Observation planes were dispatched to Buchenwald.
Our passengers--medical officers, military police, legal and intelligence officers--were to
assess the situation and report to General Eisenhower.

After we landed on a makeshift airstrip, we were taken into the first Nazi concentration camp
liberated by American troops. As we neared Buchenwald, the odors became nauseating. I
commented to the driver about this, and he said "You ain't seen nothing yet. There's dead bodies
all over the place, and the clean-up hasn't even started." He took me on a tour of Buchenwald. I
can't begin to describe the heinous scene. The officials went about their business, and we flew
back to Frankfurt. I felt more anger against Germans that I thought possible.

About April 29th, we flew to Munich. We reached the area, and were informed by radio not to
attempt landing, as fighting was still in progress. We headed toward the town of Dachau, the site
of the second Nazi camp to be liberated. We circled the area seeking a safe spot to land,
requesting ground troops to clear a nearby road of rocks and other debris. We made tricky and
bumpy landings on the road. Command cars and jeeps took us to Dachau.

I thought Buchenwald had been bad; Dachau was much worse. The camp had been liberated that
morning, and as we drew near the gates we heard sporadic gunfire. Our driver warned us to be
careful. Some inmates had weapons and, only a few hours before, troops had a shoot-out with
SS guards.

We entered the gates, and were met by a Major General who disappeared with our passengers.
The smell burned my nostrils and permeated my pores. Every direction I looked, I saw dead
bodies and former prisoners running around. Soldiers gathered in groups, bayonets fixed on
their rifles. Chaos like I had never seen before. We observed crazed inmates beating and
clubbing their former tormentors to death.

The jeep driver asked me if I wanted to look around. He wore a shoulder patch from the 45th
Infantry Division, an outfit I had trained with in 1940-41. We drove toward a long freight train,
eighty-six cars. Medics were checking the open coal cars and some regular cars with locked
doors. Frost still covered the ground, and the hundreds of skeletal, naked corpses were piled
into every car and overflowing onto the tracks. An unimaginable sight.

Later I learned each car held fifty to eighty prisoners and had been shuttled all over trying to
stay away from our troops. The prisoners starved, or froze, or perished from disease.

We drove toward the main camp. Dead and dying prisoners were piled in heaps near the
crematorium. Soldiers sorted through the bodies, trying to locate the living. It didn't matter, they
all died anyway. We turned a corner just as machine-gun fire erupted nearby. The driver
stopped and we could see Nazi guards lined up against a building being cut down by the guns. I
have no idea how many Nazis died, but the firing went on for thirty or more minutes.

Before the end of May, I had flown to five Nazi camps, Bergen-Belsen twice. Twenty-six
thousand people had died between trips. Anne Frank and her sister were among the dead.

Most of us have some idea of the horrors the Nazis perpetrated on the European Jews. No one
knows how many humans suffered and died at the hands of these "ordinary men." We do know
millions were murdered by the Nazis in ways too cruel to imagine.

After Dachau, I burned my uniform in a vain attempt to rid myself of the death smell. It's still
with me, fifty years later. Only recently have I begun talking about the Holocaust. One reason is
because I read that as many as seventeen percent of Americans recently polled expressed some
doubts that it happened at all. The greatest tragedy in modern times. And some doubt it
happened. Others compare the Holocaust with special interests, to fight this or that cause.
Political groups even compare each other to Nazis, which I find ridiculous.

My wife and I have returned to Europe several times. We visit friends in Austria and Germany. I
have revisited some of the Nazi death camps. It's an emotional experience for me. Some
European friends apologize for their country's role in WW-II, others argue that the Jews brought
it all on. There must be a lesson here someplace. I wish I could find it.
 

"Why'd they shoot that guy, Major?"

I'd seen this dead man crumpled up in sort of a fetal position in a field near the road from our
airstrip to the village where we were billeted in German homes. A lone young soldier with
bayonet fixed to his M-1 rifle stood guard near the body. The dead man wore white clothing,
like so many other recently liberated inmates from Nazi concentration camps.

"I'm not sure." the major replied, "But those people in the D.P. camp have been bothering the
villagers, stealing food and animals. Guess they cook them in the camp. They cleaned out the
factory of all the cloth the Krauts used to make pockets for uniforms. Orders went out to stop the
raiding, so I heard he was shot carrying off a lamb or something."

Germany had surrendered a month before. Our squadron had been assigned to fly as targets for
an anti-aircraft outfit so they could track us with their new radar guns. It was very boring; we
just flew a pattern, changing altitude to see if the new guns could stay on us. Two hours each
time, then some other pilot took over, and we had the rest of the day off.

On take off, we flew over the Displaced Persons Camp at about 500 feet. We could see
thousands of people milling around inside the barbed wire. Their toilet facilities were out in the
open, slit trenches, with canvas providing a little privacy. But from the air, we saw everything,
except what went on inside the huge fortress-like buildings and hundreds of tents and barracks.
Orders were to stay away from the camp itself. It could be dangerous. The D.P.s had been
collected from many Nazi camps and brought to this point for processing and sent back to their
native countries. Americans working to sort the people out told us stories of how difficult their
job was. Many displaced persons didn't want to return to their homes. Jews didn't want to return
to Poland, Gypsies had no safe place to go, Russians were afraid to return for fear of being put
to death as traitors. Most expressed a desire to go to the States or Palestine.

Some of us attended an indoctrination session where we were informed of the vast numbers of
displaced persons all over Europe, an estimated thirty million in all, with eight or nine million
in the Western zones of occupied Germany.

The fighting was over for me and my buddies and we would head home soon. In the meantime
we saw Europe. It wasn't my job to see that these victims of Hitler made it home to their
families and loved ones. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to visit historical
European cities which only months before we had tried to destroy.

I put out of my mind the trips I had made to Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen
and other sub-camps. I tried to forget the gruesome sights of thousands of dead victims, the
indescribable odors of so much death and suffering. Trying to cope with so many humans totally
broken in body, mind and spirit had been just too much. We just could not comprehend the
enormity of it all. Some of the men who had not seen these hellish places doubted the reports
anyway, so why try to convince skeptics.

I remember telling a buddy about the dead man beside the road. "Let's go take a look." He said.

"Jimmy, a dead man is just a corpse. I don't want to go back there, maybe he's gone by now
anyway. They wouldn't leave him out there in the sun all day."

"Come up, I'll drive." Jimmy said.

So we hopped in a jeep and headed for the airstrip. I felt squeamish. "Let's just forget it, pal.
Okay?" I hoped Jim would turn the jeep around. But he spotted the body and skidded to a halt.
The guard was gone and it was late afternoon. The sun beat down on us as we walked over to
the former Nazi prisoner. He had been shot in the back by a high powered American rifle. The
blast had blown his belly open. It was messy. Jimmy gasped and vomited.

"Jesus! He's a D.P. why did they have to shoot him because he was hungry and stole some
Kraut's sheep?"

"Yeah, that's what I asked the major this morning. The guy was running with food for the hungry
**##@@** in the camp. It ain't right."

We drove back to the village in total silence, each deep into our own thoughts. We went to the
command house and requested that the body be removed. "Why'd they shoot the poor guy,
Major?"

"He and the others bothered the villagers. Bet they don't steal any more sheep."