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Play Movie5-More Camp Experiences
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Where any women in the camps?
Yes, they had separate camps for women. Separate camps for men. One of these camps—women—this doctor that I was very close to in our outfit told me one day "Come on, we got to go over and see a woman in labor." so I go with him and he says "Where's your bag with your little instruments and things?" I said, “I didn't bring it.” he said "No training, huh?" A lot of the women became pregnant from the German guards, you can imagine that they not only became pregnant, but they were killed, raped. Not very nice.
Can you think of a specific success story of someone in these camps?
The only one that I became close to was this fellow, Niso. And he was standing there, and they came in—I was close to him and wrote a bio of what had happened to him. I tried to give him things—clothing and stuff. One day they came in and said "we have to go we are going to another camp, get on the truck" I looked at him and I was in the middle of a conversation with him and he said "Kenneth you can't leave me!" and I just turned around and I walked out and cried.
Which camp was he from?
Ebensee. Years later I don't know if I told this before, but years later when my wife and I went to Greece. He was related to a family in Vallejo and...
How were they getting the open wounds?
There was a lot of cancer of the skin, on the body going on. I don't know how they got there. One day a Russian lieutenant came in and he had a cut through his hand. Did I tell this? There was an example where the doctor said to me "Colvin suture this up," so I did; first time.
Did any of the soldiers smuggle anything to any of the people they were liberating?
I don't think so. Not many did because it was so massive, how could you pick out one man and say here take my sweater? I mean it just, it didn't work like that, you were too busy, you were overwhelmed with the masses of these prisoners.
How many do you estimate were alive in say, Hemer?
Well in each of these camps we went into there were, we estimated 10-15 thousand. But nobody really had a count on them. There were over 200 of these camps throughout Europe, but people only knew about the popular names: Auschwitz, Belsen-Bergen, Mauthausen.
During the times that you were at the camps did you ever do anything to try and distract your mind from the horrible things that were happening?
Yes, I tried to distract my mind every night. I would get some grapefruit juice from our mess sergeant and get some alcohol from our supplies, and we would sit there and try to get drunk, at 19. Because it's the only way you can get away from it. There's no place to go.
You said that you had connections with Niso. Do you think that other soldiers that you were with also found other people that they could relate to?
I doubt it. I doubt it. It's only that I was in this one barracks with 250 men and he was then only one that could speak English. There was another man lying there that had typhus, who had told me that the Germans had a quick cure for typhus.
Did you have any bonds with other Jewish soldiers?
Just with one man, one man who was our mess sergeant. And I met him a few years ago. But he said to me one day, he says—he was busy dishing out the food—and he said "Kenny you gotta work your ass off, these are our people." When I met him a few years ago in New York he was divorced, and he had been a gambling addict, and I started talking to him about Israel and the work that I was involved. And he said "I never got into any of that stuff" I looked at him and I said "Where've you been, where've you been? How come you don't feel like I feel? Am I the exception?" And I wondered that about other liberators that you've talked to. John Kerner is a good friend. John Kerner is a fine man and he was hero in the war and they went into one camp, which was completely burned down, there was nobody living in it. He didn't have, probably didn't have, or was exposed to the lasting feelings that I had. Maybe I'm just different. Then again I think some of the feelings and lasting emotions came from my childhood, but that's a long story, and I've talked to psychiatrists about it.
Did the military ever offer any physiological help? Started talking about post traumatic stress disorder?
No, we didn't have post traumatic stress syndrome in WWII. Oh, if I wanted to I could have gone to the veterans hospitals and camped on their steps, but I never chose to.
Did you ever feel alienated when you came back from the camps and where around other soldiers that hadn't seen what you had?
Well thought question. We didn't talk about it. I never talked about my wartime experiences until I was about in my early thirties and that's when it hit hard. Dreams—all of that.
Do you think that the US could have done anything differently? Did they do all that they could do?
The US could have really helped. They knew about it in the White House and they didn't do anything about it. They asked them to go over and bomb the rails going in Auschwitz because the planes where going right over Auschwitz into Germany and bombing. And if they had bombed those rails, even if they were repaired in two weeks, it would have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives because it would have kept the trains from going. Some people thought that they should have bombed the concentrations camps, but I don't think I would have been in favor of that. But they never let us know about it, this was very secret stuff.
Were you in correspondence with your family about your experiences?
I guess I did. When I came back we never talked about it the only person that I had written to about it was the Rabbi in our congregation. I think I've mentioned that before. Did I give it on the prior interview? When we were staying in Ebensee we took over this little summer hotel—commandeered it—and I found a typewriter. I knew how to type and I wrote to Rabbi Elliot Berstein at our congregation Beth Israel. l in San Francisco. And told him about the what I had seen, how bad it was, and that I had always fought him on creating a state of Israel, but now I've seen all about things I'm going to dedicate my life to working for the Jews. Because if there had been a state of Israel before the war, maybe these people would have had someplace to go.
