Pronounce it as though you were clearing something nasty from your throat...DACHAU. My
    first inkling that this pleasant Bavarian village would become a word to chill the blood,
    came from the terrible odor as my passenger and I disembarked from our little two-seater
    Stinson L-5.

    We were at least a mile away maybe more, but we could still smell something very
    disagreeable. The SHAEF officer climbed into a Command car with another General, and
    off they went. I hopped into a jeep with a S/Sgt. who wore the shoulder patch of the 45th.
    Infantry Division...the Thunderbird Division, which had been in constant combat for almost
    three years.

    We followed the command car. It was cold in the jeep, even though the sun shone brightly,
    and I wore my fleece-lined flight jacket. It had snowed the night before. The date was
    April 29th. 1945. The Sgt. began telling me what to expect when we reached our
    destination, which was Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp liberated only that morning. I
    asked about the bad odor, he said, "just wait, it gets a lot worse."

    Dachau had its typical Bavarian attractive homes and neat gardens. This gave me no hint of
    what lay beyond the landscaped entrance to the death camp.

    The first place the Sgt. drove me to was the awful proof of the rumors---boxcars and
    bodies.The stories we had heard gave no indication of the grotesque forms of the victims
    and their emaciated condition. These miserable creatures had kept an unusual rendezvous
    with death. The train loaded with prisoners had been shipped away as the American
    Liberators approached. The camp at their destination refused to accept them. Without food
    or water they had been shuttled around from camp to camp and ended up back at Dachau.
    Most had died on the return trip. The few who had managed to climb from the box cars
    were shot down by the SS. The bony frames stuck out like skeletons, no meat on those
    bones. Many of the cars were open gondolas. The dusting of snow gave the cadavers a
    ghostly aspect.

    We passed along a row of imposing homes of camp directors and entered a gate decorated
    with a large German Imperial eagle. The barracks inside bore lighting-decorated SS
    insignia. We passed a large kennel, it's occupants lay victims of the wrath of the recently
    liberated prisoners. Large and once beautiful German Shepherds, throats slashed, heads
    crushed. We then saw a building appropriately marked "Braus Bad," to lure victims into
    the gas chamber. Warnings were painted on the building and the door; the international
    signal for danger...a skull with crossed bones.

    Leaving the gas chamber we found further proof of the Nazi claim to everlasting
    infamy---human bodies heaped hodge-podge filling two rooms and sprawling out the
    doors. It was here that the cold weather worked to the advantage of the witnesses. The
    stench of the bodies and the accompanying filth would have been unbearable under other
    conditions. The order permeated right through my heavy leather jacket.

    Between these crowded morgues was the creamatorium where four yawning doors stood
    open and eagerly consumed more victims. Outside there was much evidence of bones and
    ash where the furnaces had been emptied many times of their gruesome contents. Beyond
    this scene was a stall which had been used as an execution chamber where many had met
    death by the firing squad.

    This death farm was separated from the main stockades by a high wire fence and a moat.
    Swarming along the fence were hundreds of the more fortunate prisoners who were now
    liberated and expressing their gratitude.

    Beneath the murky waters of the moat were the features of several SS guards and on the
    opposite bank was a fitting monument to the depth of the Nazi culture. Frozen on the ground
    were the bodies of several SS troopers who had been slain by their liberated captives
    before they could surrender to the Americans. At the bottom of each of the many high watch
    towers, more bodies lay. SS guards who had tried to put up a fight and were killed by the
    Infantrymen of the 45th. Division. After seeing many more horrors of Dachau it was small
    wonder that the only superman who still held his head up high was the
    larger-than-life-sized statue of the SS trooper on the wall.

    After 3-4 days touring Dachau, the SHAEF officer and the others in our group flew back to
    Frankfurt. My passenger commented to me as we settled into our seats: "I wonder how             many more of these #@##*@#* places we're going to find."