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The Legacy of Heart Mountain-Dachau Liberation
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Japanese-American GIs Are Focus of Dachau Memories : World War II: Nisei veterans are reunited with some people they rescued from horror of Nazi death camp.
December 01, 1991|SONNI EFRON | TIMES STAFF WRITER
As Allied bombs were dropping in the snow of Dachau in April, 1945, 16-year-old Janina Cywinska was lined up against a wall and left to wait for a bullet that never came.
"A Nazi was putting a blindfold on me," said Cywinska, a Polish Catholic who had survived six years in the Nazi death camps. "I thought, how ridiculous. I have seen so much killing by now, why be so considerate to put the blindfold on my face?"
But when the soldier stepped back, there was no sound of boots on gravel, no sound of a gun cocking. She does not remember how long she stood there before someone pushed her to her knees and tugged off her blindfold.
"When I looked at him, he was a little Japanese man," Cywinska said last week. "I said, 'Oh, no, now you guys won and now you are going to shoot us. Why don't you just shoot us and get it over with?' He went down on his knees . . . looked up in my face and said, 'We are liberators. We are American soldiers. We are American Japanese."'
In disbelief, Cywinska begged again to be shot. With tears streaming down his face, the soldier pointed to his American uniform, and then the American flag.
Cywinska's savior was a Nisei soldier in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a unit of the segregated Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team that shot the locks off the gates and liberated Dachau in a little-known episode of World War II.
Veterans say they were told not to talk about what they saw on the day they liberated Dachau, and many kept quiet for years. But now, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, they see no reason not to tell the world what happened on April 29, 1945.
The 442nd, the most highly decorated unit in American military history, included Japanese-Americans from Hawaii and volunteers from mainland internment camps who wanted to prove their loyalty to the United States. During the last days of the European war, its 522nd Field Artillery Battalion was assigned to help other Army units chase retreating Nazis toward Munich.
Scouts from the 522nd were 10 miles ahead of the main force when they ran into the Dachau concentration camp, shortly after the Germans fled.
"We were not ordered to take Dachau, we just kind of stumbled onto it," said George Oiye, now 69 and living in Los Altos. "I didn't even know it existed."
"It had snowed quite a bit, a foot and a half or so," he said. "My first awareness was seeing these lumps that turned out to be dead bodies in the snow. They were extremely emaciated and they had striped suits on."
Radio communications officer Clarence Matsumura recalled his first horrible glimpse of the camp.
"All we saw was dead people all over the place," said Matsumura, now 70 and living in San Gabriel. "There was some smoke coming out of the stack of the crematorium. The smell . . . . You can't describe what scorched human flesh smells like."
Although some military historians and others are aware of the Dachau incident, and it is mentioned in at least one account of the 442nd's exploits, official Army records do not reflect that the Japanese-American 522nd unit was ever there.
"As far as I can tell from sources, the 522nd was not involved in the liberation of Dachau," said Stephen Gammons of the U. S. Army Center of Military History, who said the records show the camp was liberated by the 42nd Infantry Division. No written history of the 522nd exists, he said.
However, Gammons' colleague, Walter Bradford, said he is aware that Japanese-Americans were involved in the liberation, although he has not personally researched the records.
"People have sort of overlooked the fact that the Japanese-Americans did make contact with the people at Dachau," Bradford said. "It was pretty ironic that their relatives were in camps in the U. S. while these people were freeing (a Nazi camp.)"
Bradford added: "I don't think anybody tried to hide it, I just don't think it was made a big deal of, that's all."
Both Gammons and Bradford said the day-to-day journals of the 522nd are in the National Archives. San Francisco military historian Eric Saul, who has been interviewing veterans and Holocaust survivors and collecting photographs taken by Japanese-American soldiers at Dachau, said he plans to visit the National Archives in two weeks to document and then publicize the incident.
"They were told when they liberated Dachau not to tell anyone," said Saul, a former director of the Presidio Army Museum. That, combined with a reluctance among the veterans to brag and a reticence about the horrors they witnessed, has kept the incident relatively unknown, Saul said.
Matsumura said he was told not to discuss what he had seen at Dachau, while Oiye said he never received such an order. But both men recall being told not to give food to civilians and to leave the care of any prisoners to special hospital units that were supposed to be arriving behind them.
"We were told not to feed prisoners, or any of the public, because we were not supposed to fraternize," Oiye said. "But that was a hard thing not to do, so we did it anyway. . . . But we were disobeying orders, so we never talked about it."
Matsumura said the only live prisoners he saw at Dachau were running from the Japanese-looking men in uniform. Their orders were to find the Nazi officers who had taken most of the Dachau prisoners on a 60-mile death march that ended near the town of Waakirchen. About 6,000 to 8,000 survivors, starving and barefoot in the snow, were spread out over about a 10-mile area, he said.
Matsumura said he and his sergeant eventually found the survivors by following the trail of striped-suited bodies by the side of the road. He spent three days in Waakirchen trying to feed and shelter the living.
"These people were so weak they couldn't chew the rations. It was too hard, they couldn't swallow it and they choked," he said. "We used our helmets to heat hot water, and put the stuff in the hot water and made soup."
Cywinska's family was rounded up for helping Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, and they were all herded into a gas chamber at Auschwitz when she was 10. Her parents perished, but Cywinska regained consciousness amid the bodies and said she was rescued by a Jewish woman who gave her prisoners' clothes.
By the time the Allies arrived at Dachau six years later, Cywinska said, she weighed 40 pounds and could not remember her own name. She does remember, however, that the American soldier who pulled off her blindfold did not give her anything to eat. She is grateful. Another soldier gave the woman next to her a Hershey's chocolate almond bar.
"She died on the spot," Cywinska said, a victim of shock and dehydration.
Although remembering is painful, Cywinska said she feels compelled to speak publicly about her experiences at Auschwitz and Dachau after being confronted by neo-Nazis who told her none of it ever happened. But others who saw Dachau say they only want to forget.
"I don't want to talk about it," said Yoshiaki Kobataki, a 522nd veteran who lives in Pearl City, Hawaii. Kobataki said he went into Dachau with two white officers, and began to cry when asked what he had seen there.
"I don't even talk to my children about it . . .," he said. "It affected my thinking about what human beings could do."
Nevertheless, Kobataki attended the first breakfast reunion of the liberators and the Dachau survivors held in San Francisco in October. Survivors and veterans plan to meet again at Centenary Methodist Church in Los Angeles on Dec. 4 to exhibit photographs taken by the Japanese-American soldiers.
Cywinska, who now runs a ballet studio in San Francisco, also came to the October reunion.
Although she had told the story of the Japanese-American liberators, Cywinska said she had begun to wonder over the years whether she had fantasized the incident. But when she saw the veterans at the reunion she realized her memories were true.
"So there I was at this sushi-and-bagel breakfast, just hugging them," she said. "I couldn't get enough of touching them, because I was so grateful that they came."
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-01/news/mn-872_1_nazi-death-camp/2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)#522nd_Field_Artillery_Battalion
December 01, 1991|SONNI EFRON | TIMES STAFF WRITER
As Allied bombs were dropping in the snow of Dachau in April, 1945, 16-year-old Janina Cywinska was lined up against a wall and left to wait for a bullet that never came.
"A Nazi was putting a blindfold on me," said Cywinska, a Polish Catholic who had survived six years in the Nazi death camps. "I thought, how ridiculous. I have seen so much killing by now, why be so considerate to put the blindfold on my face?"
But when the soldier stepped back, there was no sound of boots on gravel, no sound of a gun cocking. She does not remember how long she stood there before someone pushed her to her knees and tugged off her blindfold.
"When I looked at him, he was a little Japanese man," Cywinska said last week. "I said, 'Oh, no, now you guys won and now you are going to shoot us. Why don't you just shoot us and get it over with?' He went down on his knees . . . looked up in my face and said, 'We are liberators. We are American soldiers. We are American Japanese."'
In disbelief, Cywinska begged again to be shot. With tears streaming down his face, the soldier pointed to his American uniform, and then the American flag.
Cywinska's savior was a Nisei soldier in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a unit of the segregated Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team that shot the locks off the gates and liberated Dachau in a little-known episode of World War II.
Veterans say they were told not to talk about what they saw on the day they liberated Dachau, and many kept quiet for years. But now, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, they see no reason not to tell the world what happened on April 29, 1945.
The 442nd, the most highly decorated unit in American military history, included Japanese-Americans from Hawaii and volunteers from mainland internment camps who wanted to prove their loyalty to the United States. During the last days of the European war, its 522nd Field Artillery Battalion was assigned to help other Army units chase retreating Nazis toward Munich.
Scouts from the 522nd were 10 miles ahead of the main force when they ran into the Dachau concentration camp, shortly after the Germans fled.
"We were not ordered to take Dachau, we just kind of stumbled onto it," said George Oiye, now 69 and living in Los Altos. "I didn't even know it existed."
"It had snowed quite a bit, a foot and a half or so," he said. "My first awareness was seeing these lumps that turned out to be dead bodies in the snow. They were extremely emaciated and they had striped suits on."
Radio communications officer Clarence Matsumura recalled his first horrible glimpse of the camp.
"All we saw was dead people all over the place," said Matsumura, now 70 and living in San Gabriel. "There was some smoke coming out of the stack of the crematorium. The smell . . . . You can't describe what scorched human flesh smells like."
Although some military historians and others are aware of the Dachau incident, and it is mentioned in at least one account of the 442nd's exploits, official Army records do not reflect that the Japanese-American 522nd unit was ever there.
"As far as I can tell from sources, the 522nd was not involved in the liberation of Dachau," said Stephen Gammons of the U. S. Army Center of Military History, who said the records show the camp was liberated by the 42nd Infantry Division. No written history of the 522nd exists, he said.
However, Gammons' colleague, Walter Bradford, said he is aware that Japanese-Americans were involved in the liberation, although he has not personally researched the records.
"People have sort of overlooked the fact that the Japanese-Americans did make contact with the people at Dachau," Bradford said. "It was pretty ironic that their relatives were in camps in the U. S. while these people were freeing (a Nazi camp.)"
Bradford added: "I don't think anybody tried to hide it, I just don't think it was made a big deal of, that's all."
Both Gammons and Bradford said the day-to-day journals of the 522nd are in the National Archives. San Francisco military historian Eric Saul, who has been interviewing veterans and Holocaust survivors and collecting photographs taken by Japanese-American soldiers at Dachau, said he plans to visit the National Archives in two weeks to document and then publicize the incident.
"They were told when they liberated Dachau not to tell anyone," said Saul, a former director of the Presidio Army Museum. That, combined with a reluctance among the veterans to brag and a reticence about the horrors they witnessed, has kept the incident relatively unknown, Saul said.
Matsumura said he was told not to discuss what he had seen at Dachau, while Oiye said he never received such an order. But both men recall being told not to give food to civilians and to leave the care of any prisoners to special hospital units that were supposed to be arriving behind them.
"We were told not to feed prisoners, or any of the public, because we were not supposed to fraternize," Oiye said. "But that was a hard thing not to do, so we did it anyway. . . . But we were disobeying orders, so we never talked about it."
Matsumura said the only live prisoners he saw at Dachau were running from the Japanese-looking men in uniform. Their orders were to find the Nazi officers who had taken most of the Dachau prisoners on a 60-mile death march that ended near the town of Waakirchen. About 6,000 to 8,000 survivors, starving and barefoot in the snow, were spread out over about a 10-mile area, he said.
Matsumura said he and his sergeant eventually found the survivors by following the trail of striped-suited bodies by the side of the road. He spent three days in Waakirchen trying to feed and shelter the living.
"These people were so weak they couldn't chew the rations. It was too hard, they couldn't swallow it and they choked," he said. "We used our helmets to heat hot water, and put the stuff in the hot water and made soup."
Cywinska's family was rounded up for helping Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, and they were all herded into a gas chamber at Auschwitz when she was 10. Her parents perished, but Cywinska regained consciousness amid the bodies and said she was rescued by a Jewish woman who gave her prisoners' clothes.
By the time the Allies arrived at Dachau six years later, Cywinska said, she weighed 40 pounds and could not remember her own name. She does remember, however, that the American soldier who pulled off her blindfold did not give her anything to eat. She is grateful. Another soldier gave the woman next to her a Hershey's chocolate almond bar.
"She died on the spot," Cywinska said, a victim of shock and dehydration.
Although remembering is painful, Cywinska said she feels compelled to speak publicly about her experiences at Auschwitz and Dachau after being confronted by neo-Nazis who told her none of it ever happened. But others who saw Dachau say they only want to forget.
"I don't want to talk about it," said Yoshiaki Kobataki, a 522nd veteran who lives in Pearl City, Hawaii. Kobataki said he went into Dachau with two white officers, and began to cry when asked what he had seen there.
"I don't even talk to my children about it . . .," he said. "It affected my thinking about what human beings could do."
Nevertheless, Kobataki attended the first breakfast reunion of the liberators and the Dachau survivors held in San Francisco in October. Survivors and veterans plan to meet again at Centenary Methodist Church in Los Angeles on Dec. 4 to exhibit photographs taken by the Japanese-American soldiers.
Cywinska, who now runs a ballet studio in San Francisco, also came to the October reunion.
Although she had told the story of the Japanese-American liberators, Cywinska said she had begun to wonder over the years whether she had fantasized the incident. But when she saw the veterans at the reunion she realized her memories were true.
"So there I was at this sushi-and-bagel breakfast, just hugging them," she said. "I couldn't get enough of touching them, because I was so grateful that they came."
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-01/news/mn-872_1_nazi-death-camp/2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)#522nd_Field_Artillery_Battalion
WWII World War Two
Military History
World History
Racism
Discrimination
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 4
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Good morning my friend SGT John " Mac " McConnell and thank you for reminding us about the liberation of Dachau Concentration camp which lies in the suburbs of Munich.
In 1982, while I was an Infantry company XO, I drove to Dachau with two platoon leaders of radically different backgrounds.
The younger was a hard-charging 2nd lieutenant who had spent a year in Finland on a Mormon mission and was fluent in a couple languages.
The older was one of the oldest 2LTs in the infantry. He was a secular Jew who had done various things before joining the Army at age 33.
As we drove to Dachau the clear weather changed to overcast with rolling gray clouds. It seemed strangely fitting as we walked through that somber camp.
The most striking thing to me was the execution area. This was by a large rock which had been worn down several feet by single bullets fired countless times as prisoners were executed by firing squad.
As an infantryman I knew how much damage a 7.62 mm round could do.
There was a depressed area near the rock which I imagine functioned as a blood gutter.
Image: View of barracks and the ammunition factory in one of the first photos of Dachau concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, March or April 1933
In 1933, the internees were primarily German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned at Dachau, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, as well as "asocials" and repeat criminal offenders.
Relatively few Jews were interned at Dachau until it became a "work" camp.
The number of Jewish prisoners at Dachau rose with the increased persecution of Jews. On November 10–11, 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, more than 10,000 Jewish men were interned there
DACHAU
The Dachau concentration camp was established in March 1933. It was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) government. Heinrich Himmler, as police president of Munich, officially described the camp as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners."
It was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the northeastern part of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich in southern Germany.
Prisoners in the Camp
During the first year, the camp held about 4,800 prisoners. Initially the internees were primarily German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned at Dachau, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, as well as "asocials" and repeat criminal offenders. During the early years relatively few Jews were interned in Dachau and then usually because they belonged to one of the above groups or had completed prison sentences after being convicted for violating the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
Expansion of the Camp Complex
In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, began construction of a large complex of buildings on the grounds of the original camp. Prisoners were forced to do this work, starting with the destruction of the old munitions factory, under terrible conditions. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938 and the camp remained essentially unchanged until 1945. Dachau thus remained in operation for the entire period of the Third Reich.
The Dachau camp was a training center for SS concentration camp guards. The camp's organization and routine became the model for all Nazi concentration camps.
Jewish Prisoners in the Dachau Camp
The number of Jewish prisoners at Dachau rose with the increased persecution of Jews. On November 10–11, 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, more than 10,000 Jewish men were interned there. (Most of men in this group were released after incarceration of a few weeks to a few months, many after proving they had made arrangements to emigrate from Germany.)
Camp Sections
The camp was divided into two sections—the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments.
The camp administration was located in the gatehouse at the main entrance. The camp area had a group of support buildings, containing the kitchen, laundry, showers, and workshops, as well as a prison block (Bunker). The courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen was used for the summary execution of prisoners. An electrified barbed-wire fence, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers surrounded the camp.
In 1942, the crematorium area was constructed next to the main camp. It included the old crematorium and the new crematorium (Barrack X) with a gas chamber. There is no credible evidence that the gas chamber in Barrack X was used to murder human beings. Instead, prisoners underwent "selection"; those who were judged too sick or weak to continue working were sent to the Hartheim "euthanasia" killing center near Linz, Austria. Several thousand Dachau prisoners were murdered at Hartheim. Further, the SS used the firing range and the gallows in the crematoria area as killing sites for prisoners.
Medical Experiments
In Dachau, as in other Nazi camps, German physicians performed medical experiments on prisoners, including high-altitude experiments using a decompression chamber, malaria and tuberculosis experiments, hypothermia experiments, and experiments testing new medications. Prisoners were also forced to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding.
Hundreds of prisoners died or were permanently disabled as a result of these experiments.
Forced Labor
Dachau prisoners were used as forced laborers. At first, they were employed in the operation of the camp, in various construction projects, and in small handicraft industries established in the camp. Prisoners built roads, worked in gravel pits, and drained marshes.
During the war, forced labor utilizing concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important to German armaments production.
Subcamps of Dachau
In the summer and fall of 1944, to increase war production, satellite camps under the administration of Dachau were established near armaments factories throughout southern Germany. Dachau alone had more than 30 large subcamps in which over 30,000 prisoners worked almost exclusively on armaments. Thousands of prisoners were worked to death.
Liberation
As Allied forces advanced toward Germany, the Germans began to move prisoners from concentration camps near the front to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Transports from the evacuated camps arrived continuously at Dachau, resulting in a dramatic deterioration of conditions.
After days of travel, with little or no food or water, the prisoners arrived weak and exhausted, often near death. Typhus epidemics became a serious problem due to overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, insufficient provisions, and the weakened state of the prisoners.
On April 26, 1945, as American forces approached, there were 67,665 registered prisoners in Dachau and its subcamps. More than half of this number were in the main camp. Of these, 43,350 were categorized as political prisoners, while 22,100 were Jews, with the remainder falling into various other categories. Starting that day, the Germans forced more than 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, on a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee far to the south. During the death march, the Germans shot anyone who could no longer continue; many also died of hunger, cold, or exhaustion.
On April 29, 1945, American forces liberated Dachau. As they neared the camp, they found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies brought to Dachau, all in an advanced state of decomposition. In early May 1945, American forces liberated the prisoners who had been sent on the death march.
Number of Prisoners
The number of prisoners incarcerated in Dachau between 1933 and 1945 exceeded 188,000. The number of prisoners who died in the camp and the subcamps between January 1940 and May 1945 was at least 28,000, to which must be added those who perished there between 1933 and the end of 1939, as well as an uncounted number of unregistered prisoners. It is unlikely that the total number of victims who died in Dachau will ever be known."
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005214
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Orlando Illi LTC (Join to see) LTC Ivan Raiklin, Esq. Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Jeff S. CPT Jack Durish MSgt Robert C Aldi SFC Stephen King MSgt Danny Hope SGT Gregory Lawritson Cpl Craig Marton SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT (Join to see) Maj Marty Hogan
In 1982, while I was an Infantry company XO, I drove to Dachau with two platoon leaders of radically different backgrounds.
The younger was a hard-charging 2nd lieutenant who had spent a year in Finland on a Mormon mission and was fluent in a couple languages.
The older was one of the oldest 2LTs in the infantry. He was a secular Jew who had done various things before joining the Army at age 33.
As we drove to Dachau the clear weather changed to overcast with rolling gray clouds. It seemed strangely fitting as we walked through that somber camp.
The most striking thing to me was the execution area. This was by a large rock which had been worn down several feet by single bullets fired countless times as prisoners were executed by firing squad.
As an infantryman I knew how much damage a 7.62 mm round could do.
There was a depressed area near the rock which I imagine functioned as a blood gutter.
Image: View of barracks and the ammunition factory in one of the first photos of Dachau concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, March or April 1933
In 1933, the internees were primarily German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned at Dachau, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, as well as "asocials" and repeat criminal offenders.
Relatively few Jews were interned at Dachau until it became a "work" camp.
The number of Jewish prisoners at Dachau rose with the increased persecution of Jews. On November 10–11, 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, more than 10,000 Jewish men were interned there
DACHAU
The Dachau concentration camp was established in March 1933. It was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) government. Heinrich Himmler, as police president of Munich, officially described the camp as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners."
It was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the northeastern part of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich in southern Germany.
Prisoners in the Camp
During the first year, the camp held about 4,800 prisoners. Initially the internees were primarily German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned at Dachau, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, as well as "asocials" and repeat criminal offenders. During the early years relatively few Jews were interned in Dachau and then usually because they belonged to one of the above groups or had completed prison sentences after being convicted for violating the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
Expansion of the Camp Complex
In early 1937, the SS, using prisoner labor, began construction of a large complex of buildings on the grounds of the original camp. Prisoners were forced to do this work, starting with the destruction of the old munitions factory, under terrible conditions. The construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938 and the camp remained essentially unchanged until 1945. Dachau thus remained in operation for the entire period of the Third Reich.
The Dachau camp was a training center for SS concentration camp guards. The camp's organization and routine became the model for all Nazi concentration camps.
Jewish Prisoners in the Dachau Camp
The number of Jewish prisoners at Dachau rose with the increased persecution of Jews. On November 10–11, 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, more than 10,000 Jewish men were interned there. (Most of men in this group were released after incarceration of a few weeks to a few months, many after proving they had made arrangements to emigrate from Germany.)
Camp Sections
The camp was divided into two sections—the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments.
The camp administration was located in the gatehouse at the main entrance. The camp area had a group of support buildings, containing the kitchen, laundry, showers, and workshops, as well as a prison block (Bunker). The courtyard between the prison and the central kitchen was used for the summary execution of prisoners. An electrified barbed-wire fence, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers surrounded the camp.
In 1942, the crematorium area was constructed next to the main camp. It included the old crematorium and the new crematorium (Barrack X) with a gas chamber. There is no credible evidence that the gas chamber in Barrack X was used to murder human beings. Instead, prisoners underwent "selection"; those who were judged too sick or weak to continue working were sent to the Hartheim "euthanasia" killing center near Linz, Austria. Several thousand Dachau prisoners were murdered at Hartheim. Further, the SS used the firing range and the gallows in the crematoria area as killing sites for prisoners.
Medical Experiments
In Dachau, as in other Nazi camps, German physicians performed medical experiments on prisoners, including high-altitude experiments using a decompression chamber, malaria and tuberculosis experiments, hypothermia experiments, and experiments testing new medications. Prisoners were also forced to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding.
Hundreds of prisoners died or were permanently disabled as a result of these experiments.
Forced Labor
Dachau prisoners were used as forced laborers. At first, they were employed in the operation of the camp, in various construction projects, and in small handicraft industries established in the camp. Prisoners built roads, worked in gravel pits, and drained marshes.
During the war, forced labor utilizing concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important to German armaments production.
Subcamps of Dachau
In the summer and fall of 1944, to increase war production, satellite camps under the administration of Dachau were established near armaments factories throughout southern Germany. Dachau alone had more than 30 large subcamps in which over 30,000 prisoners worked almost exclusively on armaments. Thousands of prisoners were worked to death.
Liberation
As Allied forces advanced toward Germany, the Germans began to move prisoners from concentration camps near the front to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Transports from the evacuated camps arrived continuously at Dachau, resulting in a dramatic deterioration of conditions.
After days of travel, with little or no food or water, the prisoners arrived weak and exhausted, often near death. Typhus epidemics became a serious problem due to overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, insufficient provisions, and the weakened state of the prisoners.
On April 26, 1945, as American forces approached, there were 67,665 registered prisoners in Dachau and its subcamps. More than half of this number were in the main camp. Of these, 43,350 were categorized as political prisoners, while 22,100 were Jews, with the remainder falling into various other categories. Starting that day, the Germans forced more than 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, on a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee far to the south. During the death march, the Germans shot anyone who could no longer continue; many also died of hunger, cold, or exhaustion.
On April 29, 1945, American forces liberated Dachau. As they neared the camp, they found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies brought to Dachau, all in an advanced state of decomposition. In early May 1945, American forces liberated the prisoners who had been sent on the death march.
Number of Prisoners
The number of prisoners incarcerated in Dachau between 1933 and 1945 exceeded 188,000. The number of prisoners who died in the camp and the subcamps between January 1940 and May 1945 was at least 28,000, to which must be added those who perished there between 1933 and the end of 1939, as well as an uncounted number of unregistered prisoners. It is unlikely that the total number of victims who died in Dachau will ever be known."
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005214
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC Orlando Illi LTC (Join to see) LTC Ivan Raiklin, Esq. Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Jeff S. CPT Jack Durish MSgt Robert C Aldi SFC Stephen King MSgt Danny Hope SGT Gregory Lawritson Cpl Craig Marton SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT (Join to see) Maj Marty Hogan
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SGT John " Mac " McConnell don't know if you can read this and stay dry eyed, awesome read brother, good morning John.
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