Category Archives: Liberation

The Last Crime by the Wehrmacht in Amsterdam

I appreciate that the speed of communication in 1945 was not as fast as it is now—but the Wehrmacht soldiers in Amsterdam on May 7, 1945, would definitely have heard that on May 4, 1945, Field Marshal Montgomery accepted the official surrender of the German army in Northwest Europe at his headquarters on Lüneburger Heath in Germany. Then, on May 5, 1945, while Germany had already officially surrendered, General Blaskowitz in Hotel de Wereld in Wageningen signed the capitulation.

However, as thousands of people gathered to celebrate the end of the war and the arrival of Allied forces, German soldiers suddenly began firing into the crowd from nearby buildings. The exact reasons for the shooting remain somewhat unclear—but it’s believed that the German troops, who had not yet formally surrendered, fired in response to the jubilant atmosphere and possibly out of frustration or defiance.

While the local citizens celebrated on Dam Square, German soldiers of the Kriegsmarine were trapped inside the Groote Club (Grand Club) building, a large building at the corner of the Dam and Kalverstraat. In the nearby Paleisstraat, local forces arrested two German soldiers. One of them refused to surrender his weapon and fired a shot. German soldiers then appeared in the windows, on the balcony and on the roof of the Groote Club and started firing into the crowd with machine guns.[4]

Large-scale panic broke out in Dam Square and most of the crowd dispersed via the Nieuwendijk, Rokin and Damrak. Some people sought cover behind street lights and other objects, including a small truck and a barrel organ known as ‘t Snotneusje.[2][3]

After the initial shots, the Germans and resistance forces began to exchange fire. In total, the shooting lasted about two hours, until about 5pm. Members of the Scouts, Red Cross and nurses attempted to aid the victims.

The shooting lasted for two hours and ended around 5pm that day. The shooting resulted in numerous casualties, including deaths and injuries among civilians who had come to Dam Square to rejoice in the liberation of their city. The incident marred what should have been a moment of joy and marked the last violent act of the German occupiers in Amsterdam before their complete surrender.

It still remains unclear exactly how the shooting stopped.

According to some sources, Major Overhoff, commander of the local forces, convinced German Captain Bergmann to accompany him to the Groote Club and order the Germans to cease fire. Other sources say that the incident had ended earlier, once local forces fired bazookas at the building (or at least threatened to fire them).

The shooting was never fully investigated. After the event, local newspapers reported between 19 and 22 fatalities, but no official list of casualties was ever released. Stichting Memorial voor Damslachtoffers 7 mei 1945, an organisation founded to commemorate the event, has since identified a total of 32 people who died as a result of the event, not including German casualties. Twenty-six died immediately while five more died later of gunshot wounds. The last known victim died on June 22. The actual number of fatalities may be higher; in some cases, it had not yet been determined whether the death was related to the Dam Square shootout. The full number of wounded is also unknown; newspaper reports gave between 100 and 120 wounded.

In the photograph above you see a little girl walking away from some people that were trying to take cover. That little girl is Tiny van der Hoek. This is her recollection of that dreadful day.

‘My name is Tiny van der Hoek. I was 2 and a half years old and I was standing at the ice cream cart on the corner of Nieuwendijk Street and Dam Square, where I had just got an ice cream.

Immediately the ice cream fell on the ground to my great disappointment… People ran or stood behind something. I saw that from the ‘Groote Club’ (Grand Club). At the time this was the place where German flags were hanging and German soldiers were sitting. They were to blame for not having ice cream anymore so I went there. My mother was left with the ice cream cart.

Walking on Dam Square, towards the Groote Club, between running people, but exactly against the direction that they went, I was already on my way when I was suddenly picked up by a gentleman. He took me in his arms, put his jacket around me, and ran towards Nieuwendijk where I lived, at the time.

My mother came back—but nowhere inside was there shelter, everything was full, and we were refused entry. That gentleman saw that there was still room under the billiards in that shop. He kicked in a window, my mother crawled inside and took me in and we had shelter under the billiards. That gentleman disappeared towards Dam Square. Was he going to provide more help or find shelter himself? I do not know.

In my memory, there were always “slashes”. Later, in an amateur video recording made by Bert Haanstra, I understood that those “slash people” behind the lampposts were looking for cover behind each other. During my “mission”—complaining about having no more ice cream—I was focused on the corner window of the “Groote Club.”

It’s the window I still look at when I am in Amsterdam, where in my memory people on the street were resting. I didn’t realize then that I was walking past injured or dead people, so mesmerized I was to tell those evil people how mean I found them. Fortunately, I was picked up and brought to safety. This event on May 7th 1945 is still on my mind and of course, it was only later that I understood what was really going on.”




Sources

Amsterdam liberated: the infamous shooting at Dam Square on May 7, 1945
Tiny van der Hoek
May 7th 1945 Amsterdam – The Shooting

https://www.liberationroute.com/pois/499/the-german-capitulation

https://www.annefrank.org/en/timeline/171/shooting-on-dam-square

[2] Stichting Memorial voor Damslachtoffers 7 mei 1945“The events of May 1945 in chronological order”,

[3} Stichting Memorial voor Damslachtoffers 7 mei 1945

{4} “Amsterdam, ‘7 mei 1945” National Comité 4 en 5 mei (Dutch)

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Dachau in Words

Dachau Concentration Camp was the first of the Nazi concentration camps established in Germany. It opened in 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, and it operated until its liberation by American troops in 1945. Situated just north of Munich, Dachau served as a model for other concentration camps that followed.

Initially, Dachau held political prisoners, particularly those deemed enemies of the Nazi regime, including communists, socialists, trade unionists, and others opposed to Hitler’s ideology. Over time, it became a site for the imprisonment and extermination of various groups, including Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Roma people, among others.

Conditions in Dachau were brutal, with prisoners enduring forced labor, starvation, disease, and systematic abuse. Medical experiments were also conducted on inmates, often resulting in severe suffering and death. The camp’s liberation in April 1945 revealed the extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis, leading to its designation as a memorial site and a stark reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust. Today, Dachau serves as a memorial and museum, honoring the memory of the victims and educating visitors about the crimes of the Nazi regime.

The liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp happened on April 29, 1945. om the same day as Hitler married Eva Braun.

The marriage certificate of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun

Below are some testimonies of survivors and liberators.

Henk van de Water, survivor, on the 75th anniversary of the liberation

“I was liberated by the Americans from Dachau concentration camp. I had typhus and was about to die. The liberation should not have happened a day later, because then I would not have survived.
Through all this, I have always experienced freedom very intensely in my further life and tried to get the most out of it.
I was very happy and prepared for the commemorations of 75 years of liberation in Dachau this year. Unfortunately, it is not possible now, but I am now 96 years old and I still hope to experience this at a later date.”


Pierre Rolinet, survivor

“Dear friends,

We former prisoners did not leave the Concentration Camps the same as we entered them. We are marked for life by this event.
All this was planned and organized – to make us disappear. I think that, if the Nazis had won the war, no prisoner would have returned.
Under these extreme living conditions, constantly changing depending on events, each prisoner took a different course more or less depending on chance, at the disposition of other men: SS or Kapos. Life was hanging by a thread, death was always present.
Considered as animals, we were nevertheless able to organize ourselves and resist. Our fraternity and our solidarity permitted some among us to survive this atrocious regime.
In order to prevent that this were to happen again, some survivors decided to give testimony, so that the world would know our living conditions, and to explain, how people in a civilized country could let themselves be conditioned by Nazism and commit unimaginable crimes.
I have long placed the luck of returning home, of being available again, in the service of problems of memory.
On the other hand, the survivors will soon pass on, but luckily their commitment will continue, as there are people to be found in all nations, who are dedicated to carrying on. In this environment, I have re-found this spirit of fraternity and mutual aid which permitted us to endure our suffering and I thank you for it.”


Gerald O. Eaton, liberator

“We had been pushing towards Munich when Dachau was liberated. General Collins sent word that any man who wanted to see why we were fighting should go over. The next morning, we were loaded into trucks for the trip. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Bodies were stacked in rail cars. We were warned not to feed any survivors, doctors would do that.

At the dedication of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, a man grabbed my arm when he saw my Rainbow tie. He said, I want to thank you. He was a Dachau survivor.”


A letter by Glenn Edward Belcher, a liberator written in 1985. written to his daughter

April 20, 1985

Dear Susan,

You have asked me to set down in writing some of the things I remember about Dachau. It’s difficult. It was just about 40 years ago today that I was there and as a consequence of the time interval, I can’t be absolutely certain as to the accuracy of that which I believe I saw and did.

Our division (the 42nd Infantry – about 15,000 men) was heading for the city of Munich, and as I recall we were going across a wide expanse of level land, and over to the left I saw what appeared to be a large factory which was enclosed by a wall — to the best of my recollection this was my first view of Dachau although I didn’t know it at the time and we did not stop.

While crossing this level land we were overtaken by (what seemed to me like) hundreds of American tanks. I read somewhere later that this was the 20th Tank Corps and that they had been ordered to overtake us and enter Munich first. The dust, noise, and confusion was one thing I recall – for some reason or another, I have a recollection of Munich being exactly 17 kilometers from Dachau. Whether this is the correct distance – or why I remember it as such is beyond my comprehension.

I don’t recall where I spent the night but I do remember being in Munich early the next day – strange – I found a book there about the 1936 Olympics and remember looking at Jesse Owen’s picture. For some unknown reason—me and several other guys in our company were loaded into the back of a truck and driven out of the city. We were taken to Dachau.

I don’t know how long we stayed there or what we were supposed to do there – but I do recall that we went back to Munich later that same night.

Now for Dachau – we saw nothing unusual from a distance – some smoke coming out of smokestacks – you couldn’t see inside the walls or whatever the enclosure was. We got out of the truck and walked toward a gate (wide enough for a vehicle).

Before we got to the gate we found a railroad siding with a bunch of box cars on it. Some of the doors to the box cars were open and as we got closer to them I saw that they were piled up with emaciated bodies – it seemed to me that they were lying on top of each other and piled up to a depth of 4 or 5 feet. As I walked toward the end of the train toward the gate I saw a dead German soldier and beside him a rifle that was broken in half. I recall supposing that someone had hit him so hard with the rifle that it had killed him and broken the rifle.

We went in the gate and there was some people inside – as the day went on more and more people came. I didn’t know who they were at the time but found out later that some of them were war correspondents – as you probably know from your journalism studies many of them traveled with front-line troops.

Just inside the gate and to the right was a high wire enclosure—it was filled with big, mean-looking dogs who were barking like hell – this went on all the time I was there. I recall hoping that nobody turned them loose – this was before I saw all the other unthinkable things. I never ever saw any mention of those dogs in anything I ever read.

Immediately in front of me after entering the gate – and about 20 yards away was a moat with water in it about 4 or 5 feet wide – a dead soldier was laying face down in it. Just beyond the moat was a high fence – I’d guess it to be 8 or 10 feet high – I understood it was electrified. On the other side of the fence was a valley which was about 20 feet wide and 8 or 10 feet deep – on the other side of the valley were barracks and those locked up.

We did not talk to the prisoners and they did not talk to us – between us, there was a moat, an electrified fence, and a steep up-and-down valley. We stared at them and they stared at us. It was as if they didn’t know what to do and neither did we.

On our side of the fence and to the right of where the dogs were – were the gas chambers and ovens where people were killed and then burned. There were stacks of bodies (all looked like skeletons) apparently prepared for burning.

There was a long walk (cement) and roadway (black-top) to the right of the ovens which ran alongside the moat and fence that I mentioned before – it ran the entire length of the compound and I would guess it to be between 1/4 and 1/2 mile in length. Down toward the end of this, I saw a big cart – the kind you used to see around railroad depots. It was filled with bread and was being taken into the prisoners.

Why I should remember this I don’t know—but near this wagon of bread was a woman and a man who were dressed in civilian clothes rather than the striped uniforms that other prisoners wore. They seemed to be in much better health than all the others. Somebody told me that this couple was Kurt Von Schussnig and his wife – and that prior to becoming a prisoner he was the Chancellor of Austria. Whether this is true or not I would have no way of knowing – but this is what comes out of my not-so-good memory.

In retrospect, I suppose we should have done something immediately to ease the prisoners’ pain or to free them from their confinement—but on the other hand, perhaps we were all too shocked by the gruesome discovery to be anything other than immobilized. The only people at that time who were not immobilized were a few prisoners who threw themselves into the fences I told you about earlier. I understand that shortly after I was there guards were established to prevent them from doing this – but neither myself nor others with me did anything.

I’ve already told you about picking up the orange-colored thermos bottle at Dachau—and discarding it a few days later—I wasn’t the only one who did this. I think all of us who were sent out to Dachau that day wanted to get it out of sight – and out of mind as quickly as we could. I don’t think any of us were successful despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, not a single person who was there with me ever discussed it with me – nor I with them. I even went so far as to not even mention it in my letters to your mother.

As I sit here and write this I am reminded of a monumental inconsistency. During the war, as we traveled through German-occupied territory it was common for us to encounter slave laborers in both cities and the countryside. We did the natural thing and released them—there was joy and celebration on both sides. I guess as I said before—Dachau was too much—all we were capable of doing was staring and being immobilized.

The Jewish people and all the rest of us should continue to try to encourage all of us to remember places like Dachau – despite my own constant push to repress that which is so horrible, I too would like to forget but I can’t quite cut it. Perhaps I should be more upbeat like Mr. Reagan.

Your asking me to do this has been helpful – it makes me feel more thankful for what is as opposed to what used to be and what was.

Warmest regards to you and Frank, and the kids.

Love, Mom & Dad

P.S. You suggested taking a half-hour for this. It took about 4…





Sources

Glenn Edward Belcher: Dachau Liberator
Messages by survivors and liberators
Glenn Edward Belcher: Dachau Liberator

Donation

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April 15, 1945—Bergen-Belsen Liberated

On April 15, 1945, British forces, including units of the British Second Army and the 11th Armoured Division, entered Bergen-Belsen and liberated the remaining prisoners. The sight that greeted the liberators was horrifying. They found tens of thousands of emaciated and diseased prisoners, along with thousands of unburied corpses strewn throughout the camp.

The liberation of Bergen-Belsen brought the horrors of the Holocaust to the attention of the world in a particularly stark and poignant manner. Images and reports from the camp shocked the world, revealing the true extent of Nazi atrocities and the human suffering inflicted upon millions of innocent people.

Following the liberation, efforts were made to provide medical care, food, and sanitation to the survivors. However, despite these efforts, many prisoners succumbed to disease and malnutrition even after their liberation.

I was going to include photos of what the liberators found that day, but although a picture tells a thousand words—it never tells the full story, Therefore following are testimonies of some of the liberators.

Dick Williams: “But we went further on into the camp, and seen these corpses lying everywhere. You didn’t know whether they were living or dead. Most of them were dead. Some were trying to walk, some were stumbling, some on hands and knees, but in the lagers, the barbed wire around the huts, you could see that the doors were open. The stench coming out of them was fearsome. They were lying in the doorways – tried to get down the stairs and fallen and just died on the spot. And it was just everywhere.

Going into, more deeper, into the camp the stench got worse and the numbers of dead – they were just impossible to know how many there were…Inside the camp itself, it was just unbelievable. You just couldn’t believe the numbers involved… This was one of the things which struck me when I first went in, that the whole camp was so quiet and yet there were so many people there. You couldn’t hear anything, there was just no sound at all and yet there was some movement – those people who could walk or move – but just so quiet.

You just couldn’t understand that all those people could be there and yet everything was so quiet…It was just this oppressive haze over the camp, the smell, the starkness of the barbed wire fences, the dullness of the bare earth, the scattered bodies and these very dull, too, striped grey uniforms – those who had it – it was just so dull. The sun, yes the sun was shining, but they were just didn’t seem to make any life at all in that camp. Everything seemed to be dead. The slowness of the movement of the people who could walk. Everything was just ghost-like and it was just unbelievable that there were literally people living still there. There’s so much death apparent that the living, certainly, were in the minority.”

Harry Oakes: “About that time the chaps attached to 11th Armoured Division had seen a staff car come up to headquarters one day with a German officer, or two German officers I believe, blindfolded. And when they made enquiries they were told that they were from a Political Prison Camp at Belsen.

The Germans, anticipating us capturing the camp or over-running it, wanted the British to send in an advanced party to prevent these prisoners who were supposed to be infected with typhus from escaping. But the force we wanted to send in was too much. The Germans felt it wouldn’t have been fair so they agreed on a compromise that they would leave 1,000 Wehrmacht behind if we returned them within ten days. So we were standing by at Lüneburg, Lawrie and myself, to go into Belsen.”

Bill Lawrie: “We had this business of the staff car with the white flags telling us that there was a typhus hospital on the way ahead of us, and would we be willing to call a halt to any actual battle until this area was taken over in case of escapees into Europe and the ravage that would take place.

And as far as I know, the Brigadier believed this story, and we set sail that evening to have a look at this typhus hospital under a white flag. And there was no typhus hospital. There was barbed wire, sentry boxes, a huge garrison building for SS troopers, and Belsen concentration camp. And, as I say, we drove up in two, three jeeps, four jeeps maybe, in the evening, and we saw this concentration camp that we believed was a
typhus hospital. But we knew immediately that it wasn’t a typhus hospital.”

Gilbert King: “I can remember going down this road with these Hungarian guards, soldiers, all got their bullets and grenades on their chest. We went in then to a very large military hospital and parked our vehicles for the time being and we was told that we would be going up to relieve the camp in the morning. And our Troop, which was C Troop, were the first up there to enter the gates. A medical team had gone through the gates, but we were the first military, and we had to round up the German military. One thing that I remember vividly was after entering the camp, you’d see the inmates which weren’t too bad – they got worse as they went down the camp – and as I stood there this, I don’t know if it was a man or a woman you couldn’t tell really, came up to me and kissed my boots. And it nearly brought tears to me eyes. It was very emotional.”

William Arthur Wood: “And then on the left hand side there were the huts and of course outside the huts were piles and piles of dead bodies, and living ones, we didn’t know which were which. In the huts themselves, equally, you didn’t know who was dead and who was alive unless they made, there was some movement you could see, because the dead and the living were all together – they hadn’t the energy to take the dead out and there were so many piled outside as I say that it was hard to see, to pick out the dead from the living…”

BBC recording from April 20, 1945 of Jewish survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp singing Hatikvah, today the national anthem of Israel, only five days after their liberation by Allied forces. (The words sung are from the original poem by Naftali Herz Imber.)

Ending with a quote from Margot Frank, one of the victims who was not liberated, but perished a few weeks earlier together with her younger sister, Anne Frank. I used this quote a few years ago in a speech for my eldest son‘s high school graduation, as a representative as the parents council.

“Times change, people change, thoughts about good and evil change, about true and false. But what always remains fast and steady is the affection that your friends feel for you, those who always have your best interest at heart.”






Sources

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-liberation-of-bergen-belsen

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/733167

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen_concentration_camp

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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The Battle of Tange Alterveer

At the beginning of April 1945, the Allies rapidly approached the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. The province’s liberation was in three regions: the border region between Musselkanaal and the Dollard, the city of Groningen, and the “bridgehead Delfzijl.” Local resistance members succeeded in preserving “The Iron Blow.” This was the only bridge over the Stadskanaal in the area that had not yet been destroyed. A reconnaissance unit of the First Polish Armored Division, led by General S.W. Maczek gratefully took advantage of this opportunity and crossed the provincial border at Musselkanaal on April 11. The same day, the Poles advanced further and reached Stadskanaal and Mussel.

The next day, Onstwedde was liberated. At Tange-Alteveer (west of Onstwedde) a Reconnaissance Unit of the German ‘Marinefestungsbataillon 359’, when Polish armored vehicles reached the village on April 13, the Nazis opened fire. The Polish scouts withdrew, after which their artillery shelled Alteveer. Two villagers were killed in this battle, and after the shelling of Alteveer with artillery, the Poles attacked in the afternoon.

Polish tanks set fire to a barn where German naval soldiers were holed up. Polish soldier Bernard Grabowski was shot dead in that shed. When the Germans ran out of the burning barn a little later, they walked straight into a hail of Polish machine guns. The fight was quickly decided. Nine Germans were killed and the remaining soldiers of the “Marinefestingsbataillon” surrendered. Tange-Alteveer was thus liberated.

St. Strz. Bernard Grabowski T. U was born on 15-12-1918 in Krzywka p. Grudziadz in Poland. His army number was 60466 and it belonged to the 1 Pol. Dyv. Panc. (1st Polish Panzer Division). He died on 13-4-1945 in Tange. The exact cause of death is not entirely known. It is said that he was killed by a hand grenade by a German soldier.




Sources

https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/24026/Pools-Oorlogsgraf-Gemeentelijke-Begraafplaats.htm

https://www.4en5mei.nl/oorlogsmonumenten/zoeken/1847/alteveer-bevrijdingsmonument

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=%20Alteveer&rows=1&page=1

Donation

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Bastille Day 1944

I am open to correction for this, but I am pretty sure that Bastille Day is foremost the public holiday in France. The French National Day is the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which was a central event of the French Revolution.

For obvious reasons, it wasn’t celebrated during World War II, at least not until 1944. The photograph above shows a crowd gathering to celebrate Bastille Day in Cherbourg. Following are just some impressions of Bastille Day, 14 July 1944. The first time the day was celebrated again since the start of the war.

Singing The Marseillaise, Frenchmen crowd the square before the Municipal Theater in Cherbourg Bastille Day, 14 July 1944. Formerly called Petain Square, an official ceremony was held on the national holiday to rename the square after General de Gaulle.

A French Commando, who had landed with British troops of the Allied Expeditionary Force on D-Day in Normandy carries the flag of liberated France on his bayonet at Bastille Day ceremonies in Bayeux 14 July 1944.

Frenchmen raised the American, British and French Flags over the City Hall in Valognes to mark the 155th anniversary of French independence on Bastille Day on 14 July 1944. It marks the first observation of the holiday in four years. The above photograph was of a grammar school building, which the Germans had used as a naval hospital during the occupation.

Altar boys lead the funeral procession through Barfleur on Bastille Day, 14 July 1944, for Abbe Jules Gaslonde, a French priest killed by a mine left by the Nazis in their retreat before Allied forces. Note the Allied officers saluting at the lower right. A former vicar, Abbe Gaslonde, was from a village near St. Lo. The Nazis transferred him when he defied Nazi orders by hanging the Tricolor in his church. The Abbe was put to death when he returned on his bicycle from administering last rites to three French civilians fatally wounded by another Nazi mine.

source

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=july%2014&rows=1&page=1

Liberation At Last

On 4 May 1945, the German Admiral Von Friedeburg at Lüneburg surrendered to British Field Marshal Montgomery on behalf of the German troops in Northwest Germany, the Netherlands, Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark. On 5 May, Canadian General Charles Foulkes summoned the German Supreme Commander Johannes Blaskowitz to Hotel De Wereld in Wageningen to discuss the effect of the capitulation of the German troops in the Netherlands in the presence of Prince Bernhard (Commander of the Interior Forces).

The photo, most likely taken on 5 May 1945, below was the book burning of an NSB shop in The Hague in 1945. The public looted and set fire to a shop of the NSB (Dutch Nazis). Much like 12 years before the Nazis did in Germany.

During the negotiations on 5 May 1945, the street along Hotel De Wereld in Wageningen, during the capitulation negotiations.

A photo of Canadian soldiers entering Leiden, Tuesday, 8 May 1945. A Canadian soldier with a wife in traditional Zeeland costume and six children. In the background of the photo: (…)dsreportage (…)NK en Beeld’ (… gel 5. tel 395 Leiden, and text on the back, “I took this photo on the sound car and the Zeeuwin with her blouse (?) children, who lived in Leiden as long as she was evacuated and whom I knew because she came to the dental institute as a patient of SS.”

After five years of oppression, the day of the complete liberation of the Netherlands came on 5 May 1945. Germany accepts the unconditional capitulation.

The Netherlands is free: While the Germans still armed along the roads to the assembly points, the Canadian Army N-W Netherlands advances into the Netherlands, enthusiastically received by the population. Before leaving for N.W. Netherlands, Gen. Maj. Kruls, Chief of Staff M.G., had a meeting with military authorities at the temporary staff quarters, Hotel Bloeminck. ‘t Loo. Gene. Maj. Curl in the middle of the section heads.

source

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?q=5%20mei%201945&mode=gallery&view=horizontal

Liberation of Wöbbelin Concentration Camp

The hate of the Nazis for all who were not Aryan was so great that even in the last months of the war, they still set up a new concentration camp.

The camp, near the city of Ludwigslust, was a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. The SS had established Wöbbelin in early February 1945 to house concentration camp prisoners whom the SS had evacuated from other camps to prevent their liberation by the Allies. At its height, Wöbbelin held some 5,000 inmates, many of whom were suffering from starvation and disease.

On 2 May 1945, the camp was liberated by US troops, These are some of the testimonies.

Living conditions in the camp, when the U.S. 8th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne arrived were deplorable. There was little food or water and some prisoners had resorted to cannibalism. When the units arrived, they found about 1,000 inmates dead in the camp. In the aftermath, the U.S. Army ordered the townspeople in Ludwigslust to visit the camp and bury the dead

James Megellas, was among the first soldiers to enter the Wöbbelin camp. He was 28 at the time and wrote about his experiences in his book ‘All the Way to Berlin: A Paratrooper at War in Europe.’

“I was not prepared mentally to deal with the horror of the camp,” Inside, he said he found “two hundred twisted, nude bodies of skin and bone piled four to five feet high.” In the corner of the room was a pile of clothes taken off the bodies for reuse. Individual forms were almost indistinguishable. There could not have been a body more than sixty pounds,”

In another building, Megellas found living prisoners.

“Most were lying on the dirt floor or propped against the sides of the building too weak to get up. With sunken eyes and skin taut, they looked like skeletons.”

On May 7, 1945, the 82nd Airborne Division conducted a funeral service in Ludwigslust for 200 inmates. Engineers dug the graves, and citizens of Ludwigslust buried each one in parachute silk, Megellas said.

A chaplain from the 82nd delivered the following eulogy:

“The crimes here committed in the name of the German people and by their acquiescence were minor compared to those to be found in concentration camps elsewhere in Germany. Here there were no gas chambers, no crematoria; these men of Holland, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and France were simply allowed to starve to death. Within four miles of your comfortable homes, 4,000 men were forced to live like animals, deprived even of the food you would give to your dogs.”

Megellas said he will never forget what he saw at Wöbbelin. The incident reinforced why he and his men fought the war.

“We stood there and we realized that it was to destroy the monstrosity that the Nazis had created.”

In accordance with a policy mandated by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, the U.S. Army in Ludwigslust ordered “all atrocity victims to be buried in a public place” with crosses placed at the graves of Christians and Stars of David on the Jewish graves, along with a stone monument to commemorate the dead.

sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/woebbelin

https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/en/history/satellite-camps/satellite-camps/woebbelin/

https://history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/wwii/special-features/VE-day/remembering-the-liberation-of-wobbelin.html

https://eu.fayobserver.com/story/news/2013/02/28/the-little-known-story-w/22143513007/

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Dachau Liberated

In a few weeks, I will be going to Munich for a few days. When I am there, I will also go to Dachau. In a way, I am looking forward to it, but I am also dreading it.

Dachau was the first concentration camp built by the Nazis. It opened on 22 March 1933. Twelve years, one month and one week later, the US Forces liberated the camp.

The troops were horrified by what they saw. Below are just some testimonies.

A letter by Sgt. Horace Evers

Dearest Mom and Lou,

Just received your 19th April letter and was glad to hear you all are well and the tractor business is still intact.

So you went to N. Y. and had a big time. I’d give most everything to be able to see Lou with his pants rolled up and a baby cap on. Gawdamighty. Did Mom get a jog on and smoke weeds? Have you even learned to smoke, Mom?

A year ago today I was sweating out shells on Anzio Beachhead, today I am sitting in Hitler’s luxuriously furnished apartment in Munich writing a few lines home. What a contrast. A still greater contrast is that
between his quarters here and the living hell of Dachau concentration camp only 10 miles from here.

I had the misfortune of seeing the camp yesterday and I still find it hard to believe what my eyes told me.

A railroad runs alongside the camp and as we walked toward the box cars on the track I thought of some of the stories I previously had read about Dachau and was glad of the chance to see for myself just to prove once and
for all that what I had heard was propaganda. But no it wasn’t propaganda at all. If anything some of the truth had been held back. In two years of combat, you can imagine I have seen a lot of death, furious death mostly. But nothing has ever stirred me as much as this. I can’t shrug off the feeling of utter hate I now hold for these people. I’ve shot at Germans with intent to kill before but only because I had to or else it was me, now I hold no hesitancy whatsoever.

The first box car I came to had about 30 of what were once humans in it.

All were just bones with a layer of skin over them. Most of the eyes were open and had an indescribable look about them. They had that beaten “What did I do to deserve this?” look. They had that beaten, “what did I do to deserve this?” look. Twenty or thirty other box cars were the same. Bodies on top of each other no telling how many.

No identification as far as I could see. And then into the camp itself. Filthy barracks were suitable for about 200 persons and held 1500. 160,000 persons were originally in the camp and 32,000 were alive (or almost alive) when we arrived.

There is a gas chamber and furnace room in one barracks. Two rooms were full of bodies waiting to be cremated. In one room they were all nude, in the other they had prison clothes on, as filthy as dirt itself.

How can people do things like that? I never believed they could until now.
The only good thing I noticed about the whole camp was the scores of SS guards freshly killed.

Some of the prisoners newly freed could not control themselves and went from German to German and bashed their heads in with sticks and rocks. No one tried to stop them for we all realized how long they had suffered.
I guess the papers have told you about the 7th Army taking Nuremberg and Munich by now. Our division took the greater part of each place and captured many thousands of prisoners. We also liberated Russian, Polish and British and American prisoners by the thousands, what a happy day for the people.

Well enough for now
Miss you all very much
Your Son,
Horace”

Hilbert Margol
Early the morning of 29 April 1945, two months after our 21st birthday, my twin brother, Howard, & I, after seeing a trainload of boxcars, containing many dead bodies, entered the nearby Dachau Concentration Camp. We witnessed some unforgettable sights while not understanding what caused the same.

A personal account by Felix L. Sparks Brigadier General
At 0730 on the morning of April 29th, the task force resumed the attack with Companies L and K and the tank battalion as the assault force. The attack zone assigned to Company L was through the city of Dachau but did not include the concentration camp, a short distance outside of the city.

Company L was designated as the reserve unit, with the mission of mopping up any resistance bypassed by the assault forces.

Shortly after the attack began, I received a radio message from the Regimental Commander ordering me to proceed immediately to take the Dachau concentration camp. The order also stated: “Upon capture, post an airtight guard and allow no one to enter or leave.”

As the main gate to the camp was closed and locked, we scaled the brick wall surrounding the camp. As I climbed over the wall following the advancing soldiers, I heard rifle fire to my right front.

The lead elements of the Company had reached the confinement area and were disposing of the SS troops manning the guard towers, along with a number of vicious guard dogs. By the time I neared the confinement area, the brief battle was almost over.

After I entered the camp over the wall, I was not able to see the confinement area and had no idea where it was. My vision was obscured by the many buildings and barracks which were outside the confinement area.

The confinement area itself occupied only a small portion of the total camp area. As I went further into the camp, I saw some men from Company L collecting German prisoners. Next to the camp hospital, there was a L-shaped masonry wall, about eight feet high, which had been used as a coal bin.

The ground was covered with coal dust, and a narrow gauge railroad track, laid on top of the ground, lead into the area. The prisoners were being collected in the semi-enclosed area.

As I watched, about fifty German troops were brought in from various directions. A machine gun squad from Company L was guarding the prisoners. After watching for a few minutes, I started for the confinement area.

After I had walked away for a short distance, I hear the machine gun guarding the prisoners open fire. I immediately ran back to the gun and kicked the gunner off the gun with my boot.

I then grabbed him by the collar and said, “What the hell are you doing?” He was a young private about 19 years old and was crying hysterically. His reply to me was, “Colonel, they were trying to get away.”

I doubt that they were, but in any event, he killed about twelve of the prisoners and wounded several more. I placed a non-com on the gun and headed toward the confinement area.

It was the forgoing incident which has given rise to wild claims in various publications that most or all of the German prisoners captured at Dachau were executed. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The total number of German guards killed at Dachau during that day most certainly did not exceed fifty, with thirty probably being a more accurate figure.

The regimental records for that date indicate that over a thousand German prisoners were brought to the regimental collecting point. Since my task force was leading the regimental attack, almost all the prisoners were taken by the task force, including several hundred from Dachau.

During the early period of our entry into the camp, a number of Company men all battle-hardened veterans, became extremely distraught.

Some cried while others raged. Some thirty minutes passed before I could restore order and discipline. During that time, the over thirty thousand camp prisoners still alive began to grasp the significance of the events taking place.

They streamed from their crowded barracks by the hundreds and were soon pressing at the confining barbed wire fence. They began to shout in unison, which soon became a chilling roar.

At the same time, several bodies were being tossed about and torn apart by hundreds of hands. I was told later that those being killed at the time were ‘informers.’

After about ten minutes of screaming and shouting, the prisoners quieted down. At that point, a man came forward at the gate and identified himself as an American soldier.

We immediately let him out. He turned out to be Major Rene Guiraud of our OSS. He informed me that he had been captured earlier while on an intelligence mission and sentenced to death, but the sentence was never carried out.

Within about an hour of our entry, events were under control. Guard posts were set up, and communications were established with the inmates.

We informed them that we could not release them immediately but that food and medical assistance would arrive soon.

The dead, numbering about nine thousand, were later buried with the forced assistance of the good citizens of the city of Dachau.

On the morning of April 30, our first battalion resumed the attack towards Munich.

At this point, I should point out that Seventh Army Headquarters took over the actual camp administration on the day following the liberation.

The camp occupation by combat troops after that time was solely for security purposes. On the morning of April 30, several trucks arrived from Seventh Army carrying food and medical supplies.

The following day, the 116th and 127th Evacuation Hospitals arrived and took over the care and feeding of the prisoners.

sources

Click to access 08_MakingConnections-02_StudentHandout_ALiberatorsLetterHome.pdf

Virtual commemoration for the 75th anniversary
Dachau and Liberation – Personal account by Felix L. Sparks Brigadier General, US (Retired)
Dachau and Liberation – Personal account by Felix L. Sparks Brigadier General, US (Retired)


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Edward R. Murrow—Reporting the Horrors

Edward R. Murrow was born on 25 April 1908. Although he is in uniform in the picture above, he was a journalist and broadcaster. I am not going to do a piece on his life as such. I will only go into one report.

He was one of the first reporters to go into Buchenwald as it was liberated in April 1945, Before I post the manuscript of his report I want to pick out one line because it is so relevant today.

“I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it, I have no words…. If I’ve offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I’m not in the least sorry.”

Some people nowadays get so easily offended by the truth.

The manuscript of the report:

“Permit me to tell you what you would have seen and heard had you been with me on Thursday. It will not be pleasant listening. If you are at lunch, or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now is a good time to switch off the radio for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald. It is on a small hill about four miles outside Weimar, and it was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany, and it was built to last.

As we approached it, we saw about a hundred men in civilian clothes with rifles advancing in open order across the field. There were a few shots. We stopped to inquire. We’re told that some of the prisoners have a couple of SS men cornered in there. We drove on, reached the main gate. The prisoners crowd up behind the wire. We entered. And now, let me tell this in the first person, for I was the least important person there, as you can hear.

There surged around me an evil-smelling stink. Men and boys reached out to touch me. They were in rags and the remnants of uniforms. Death had already marked many of them, but they were smiling with their eyes. I looked out over that mass of men to the green fields beyond, where well-fed Germans were ploughing. A German, Fritz Kersheimer, came up and said, ‘May I show you around the camp? I’ve been here for ten years.’

An Englishman stood to attention saying, ‘May I introduce myself? Delighted to see you. And can you tell me when some of our folks will be along?’

I told him, ‘Soon,’ and asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovakians. When I entered, men crowded around tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description. When I reached the centre of the barracks, a man came up and said, ‘You remember me, I am Petr Zenkl, one-time mayor of Prague.’ I remembered him but did not recognize him. He asked about Benes and Jan Masaryk. I asked how many men had died in that building during the last month. They called the doctor; we inspected his records. There were only names in the little black book, nothing more—nothing of who had been where what they had done or hoped. Behind the names of those who had died, there was a cross. I counted them. They totaled 242, two hundred and forty-two out of 1200 in one month.

As I walked down to the end of the barracks, there was applause from the men too weak to get out of bed. It sounded like the hand-clapping of babies, they were so weak. The doctor’s name was Paul Heller. He had been there since ’38. As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others–they must have been over 60–were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it.

In another part of the camp, they showed me the children, hundreds of them. Some were only six. One rolled up his sleeve, showed me his number. It was tattooed on his arm. B-6030, it was. The others showed me their numbers. They will carry them till they die. An elderly man standing beside me said, ‘The children–enemies of the state!’ I could see their ribs through their thin shirts. The old man said, ‘I am Professor Charles Richer of the Sorbonne.’ The children clung to my hands and stared. We crossed to the courtyard. Men kept coming up to me to speak to me and touch me, professors from Poland, doctors from Vienna, men from all of Europe. Men from the countries that made America.

We went to the hospital; it was full. The doctor told me that two hundred had died the day before. I asked the cause of death. He shrugged and said: ‘Tuberculosis, starvation, fatigue, and there are many who have no desire to live. It is very difficult.’ Dr Heller pulled back the blanket from a man’s feet to show me how swollen they were. The man was dead. Most of the patients could not move.

As we left the hospital, I drew out a leather billfold, hoping that I had some money which would help those who lived to get home. Professor Richer from the Sorbonne said, ‘I should be careful of my wallet if I were you. You know there are criminals in this camp, too.’ A small man tottered up, saying, ‘May I feel the leather, please? You see, I used to make good things of leather in Vienna.’

Another man said, ‘My name is Walter Roeder. For many years I lived in Joliet. Came back to Germany for a visit and Hitler grabbed me.’

I asked to see the kitchen; it was clean. The German in charge had been a Communist, had been at Buchenwald for nine years, had a picture of his daughter in Hamburg. He hadn’t seen her in twelve years, and if I got to Hamburg, would I look her up? He showed me the daily ration: one piece of brown bread about as thick as your thumb, on top of it a piece of margarine as big as three sticks of chewing gum. That, and a little stew, was what they received every twenty-four hours. He had a chart on the wall; very complicated it was. There were little red tabs scattered through it. He said that was to indicate each ten men who died. He had to account for the rations, and he added, ‘We’re very efficient here.’

We went again into the courtyard, and as we walked, we talked. The two doctors, the Frenchman and the Czech agreed that about six thousand had died during March. Kershenheimer, the German, added that back in the winter of 1939 when the Poles began to arrive without winter clothing, they died at the rate of approximately 900 a day. Five different men asserted that Buchenwald was the best concentration camp in Germany; they had had some experience of the others.

Dr Heller, the Czech, asked if I would care to see the crematorium. He said it wouldn’t be very interesting because the Germans had run out of coke some days ago, and had taken to dumping the bodies into a great hole nearby. Professor Richer said perhaps I would care to see the small courtyard. I said yes. He turned and told the children to stay behind. As we walked across the square, I noticed that the professor had a hole in his left shoe and a toe sticking out of the right one. He followed my eyes and said, ‘I regret that I am so little presentable, but what can one do?’ At that point, another Frenchman came up to announce that three of his fellow countrymen outside had killed three SS men and taken one prisoner.

We proceeded to the small courtyard. The wall was about eight feet high. It adjoined what had been a stable or garage. We entered. It was floored with concrete. There were two rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood. They were thin and very white. Some of the bodies were terribly bruised, though there seemed to be little flesh to bruise. Some had been shot through the head, but they bled but little. All except two were naked. I tried to count them as best I could, and arrived at the conclusion that all that was mortal of more than five hundred men and boys lay there in two neat piles.

There was a German trailer, which must have contained another fifty, but it wasn’t possible to count them. The clothing was piled in a heap against the wall. It appeared that most of the men and boys had died of starvation; they had not been executed. But the manner of death seemed unimportant. Murder had been done at Buchenwald. God alone knows how many men and boys have died there during the last twelve years. Thursday, I was told that there were more than twenty thousand in the camp. There had been as many as sixty thousand. Where are they now? As I left the camp, a Frenchman who used to work for Havas in Paris came up to me and said, ‘You will write something about this, perhaps?’ And he added, ‘To write about this, you must have been here at least two years, and after that–you don’t want to write any more.”

sources

https://cssh.northeastern.edu/jewishstudies/edward-r-murrow-and-the-holocaust/

https://perspectives.ushmm.org/item/edward-r-murrow-broadcast-from-buchenwald-april-15-1945

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/edward-r-murrow

The Hell that was Bergen-Belsen

Liberation for Bergen-Belsen arrived on 15 April 1945. Major Dick Williams, one of the first British soldiers to enter and liberate the camp said, “It was an evil, filthy place; a hell on Earth.”

The British comedian Michael Bentine, who took part in the liberation of the camp, wrote this on his encounter with Bergen-Belsen:
“Millions of words have been written about these horror camps, many of them by inmates of those unbelievable places. I’ve tried, without success, to describe it from my own point of view, but the words won’t come. To me, Belsen was the ultimate blasphemy.”

The camp was rife with deadly diseases, such as typhus, dysentery, and tuberculosis, caused by poor hygiene and malnutrition. As the thousands of dead bodies were contagious, they had to be buried in a hurry. At first, the British forced the arrested SS officers and other guards to dig the graves; later, they also used bulldozers. The mayors of the towns near the camp were forced to stand at the edge of the graves and watch.

It surprises me that they look shocked, they were mayors. So they would have been part of the Nazi regime that was responsible for the genocide on their doorsteps.

What the British troops encountered was described by the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby, who accompanied them:

“…Here over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was which… The living lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people, with nothing to do and with no hope of life, unable to move out of your way, unable to look at the terrible sights around them … Babies had been born here, tiny wizened things that could not live … A mother, driven mad, screamed at a British sentry to give her milk for her child, and thrust the tiny mite into his arms, then ran off, crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.”

Military photographers and cameramen of the No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit documented the conditions of the camp and the measures of the British Army to ameliorate them. Many of the photos they took and the films they made from 15 April–9 June 1945, were published and/or shown abroad. Today, the originals are in the Imperial War Museum.

Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp was then burned to the ground by flame-throwing Bren Gun Carriers and Churchill Crocodile Tanks because of the typhus epidemic and louse infestation. As the concentration camp ceased to exist at this point, the name Belsen after this time refers to events at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp.

Finishing with a quote from the camp’s most famous victim, Anne Frank, “What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again.”

sources

https://www.annefrank.org/en/timeline/166/the-liberation-of-bergen-belsen/

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/liberation-belsen

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-liberation-of-bergen-belsen