One of the most infamous concentration camps of World War II was Dachau. This is the story of two Philadelphians who were there the day that Dachau was liberated: one a soldier, the other a prisoner.
Originally published in the April 26, 2015 Philadelphia Inquirer.
“All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes – all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worse of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.” (Rod Serling’s ending narration for Twilight Zone episode “Deaths Head Revisited”)
On the day the Americans came, it was a Sunday, and unseasonably cold for late April. So cold, in fact, that just a few days later a light snow would fall. Current Philadelphia resident, Ernie Gross, was only 15 years old and had just been imprisoned at Dachau that morning. Weak and resigned to his fate, Gross told me that he was simply “standing in line outside of the crematory waiting to die.”
As detailed in Dachau Liberated: The Official Report of the U.S. 7th Army, a few of the inmates from the east side of the compound suddenly noticed a lone American soldier at the edge of a field outside the camp, and he was running towards the gate. Then, more U.S. 42nd Division soldiers appeared behind him. Unaware of what was happening outside the gate, Gross was puzzled when “all of a sudden, the Nazi guard next to us threw down his weapon and started to run.”
Excited shouts in disbelieving tones echoed within the walls of the compound in multiple languages: “Americans! Americans!” A prisoner rushed toward the gate, but was shot by the Nazi tower-guard. Undeterred, more prisoners ran towards the gate. The American soldiers opened fire on the guard tower, and the SS guards surrendered. One of the guards still held a pistol behind his back, and was shot by an American soldier.
“The Americans were not simply advancing; they were running, flying, breaking all the rules of military conduct”, wrote Dachau prisoner and Turkish journalist Nerin E. Gun. The 7th Army soldiers, primarily from the 45th “Thunderbird” Division and 42nd “Rainbow” Division, had been told by newspaper reporters about the camp, and rushed to liberate it. But nothing could have prepared them for what they would find at Dachau.
Philadelphian Don Greenbaum of the 283rd Field Artillery Battalion attached to the 45th Division remembers that as his unit approached the camp they were stunned to find numerous abandoned train rail-cars which contained thousands of decaying corpses. He told me that as the soldiers entered the compound, they were “sickened by the sight of thousands of emaciated prisoners who looked like walking skeletons.” As chronicled in The Liberator by Alex Kershaw, soldiers from the 45th Division moved through the camp and found metal poles where naked prisoners had been tied while guard dogs tore into them, a building where prisoners were subjected to sadistic medical experiments, and stacks of decomposing bodies left to rot because the SS had run out of coal for the crematory.
Lt. Col. Felix Sparks of the 45th wrote in a personal account that “a number of Company I men, all battle hardened veterans, became extremely distraught. Some cried, while others raged.” Kershaw’s book described SS guards and prison “informers” being torn apart by the vengeful prisoners with their bare hands. Enraged U.S. troops started to execute the Nazi guards until Sparks forcefully stopped them. Private John Lee of the 45th said, “I don’t think there was a guy who didn’t cry openly that night.”
Those interred at Dachau between 1933 and 1945 were considered “enemies of the Reich” for one reason or another. Ernie Gross said that he was there simply because he was a Jew. Prisoners were from over 20 different countries and numerous religious denominations: Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, and Muslims among others. Thousands died there, but the exact number will probably never be known. General Dwight Eisenhower was concerned that someday there would be those who doubted what happened at the concentration camps. He ordered detailed films and photos taken of the camps and requested that representatives from the major newspapers visit the camps so that there would be “no room for cynical doubt.” American soldiers ordered the German citizens from the towns surrounding the labor camps to view the bodies. After visiting the Ohrdruf labor camp, the town’s mayor and his wife returned home and then killed themselves.
Unfortunately, as we approach the 80th anniversary of the liberation of many of WW II’s death camps, Eisenhower’s fears have come to fruition. Despite the film records, soldiers’ accounts, survivors’ recollections, testimony of former SS guards, and physical evidence gathered, there are millions around the world who believe the Holocaust never happened, or has been greatly exaggerated. In 2005, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that it was a fabricated legend, and the Palestinian terror group, Hamas, has referred to it as “an invented story.” Here in the U.S., a 2010 Harvard study found that 31 Facebook groups had “Holocaust Denial” as their central purpose. Recent polls in 2018 and 2019 reveal that 10% of Britons, and 4% of Americans believe the Holocaust never happened. “I cannot understand them,” Gross said of the deniers, and Greenbaum added: “I was there. I saw it for myself.”
Amazingly, after all that he’s been through, Ernie Gross still has faith in humanity. He and Greenbaum will often speak together at various organizations as arranged by the Philadelphia Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, and in 2015, they traveled together to Germany for the 70th anniversary liberation ceremonies at Dachau. Gross told me that he hoped that his presence there might “change the way people think. Every time you hate somebody, it’s not good. It’s better to help somebody than hate.”
If you ever happen to hear the doubters spewing their Holocaust-denial drivel, remember the stories of the Allied soldiers who witnessed it, the testimony of the survivors and the Nazi guards who experienced it, but more importantly, remember the dead who cannot speak. Then hand the deniers a shovel. And if you fail to challenge them, or if you ever begin to doubt the truth of the Holocaust, grab a shovel for yourself as well. Then, after you’ve buried your conscience, pray to whatever God you worship that you’re never confronted by the souls of Dachau.
Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. He can be reached at gibbonscg@aol.com
More stories of World War I, World War II, and Korean War veterans can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below: