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5-Gardelegen Camp, Atrocities, and Germans

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After Bastogne—the Battle of Bastogne or Battle of the Bulge—you traveled to meet the Russians?

Yes.

And on the way you came across Gardelegen?

Gardelegen.

Can you tell us about your experience coming across the camp Gardelegen?

Yes. After Bastogne there was some bitter fighting—some of the worst fighting in the war, most people don't realize, as we approached—first, the Roer River, and then, the Ruhr. We did get to the Rhine eventually. We crossed the Rhine—I forget how long it was after Bastogne, but it must have been almost a month I guess.

When we crossed the Rhine, our troops surrounded a major portion of the German Army. While they were surrounded, it was decided that a group of Americans would go to meet the Russians. They took just one regiment from our division and some tanks and the aid group I was with. We were to cross Germany until we met the Russians. That was about 5000 men, and we got in trucks and took off. The war wasn't over, but we passed huge numbers of German soldiers along the way. They didn't know what was going on because they knew things weren't good, so we had very little military opposition along the way. Occasionally somebody would shoot at us but not much. We crossed Germany and crossed the Elbe River and met the Russians, which was really exciting.

There were certain people who thought that maybe the United States would join the Germans and fight the Russians or something foolish like that. But we felt greatly indebted to the Russians because they had tied down a major portion of the German Army. If they hadn't, we never would have been able to survive Normandy. We were grateful to the Russians, and they were, in turn, grateful to see us, so we had a wonderful celebration for twenty-four hours with a lot of drinking and dancing and exchanging bits of uniform. I'd give them a piece of mine; they'd give me a piece of theirs or what not. It was great. Along the route my men had discovered a supply of stolen French alcohol so we had some to spread around for the occasion so it was exciting. We had a good time.

What happened next was interesting as a delegation came from Berlin that wanted surrender Berlin to this little group of Americans—5000 Americans. They came with flags flying and full uniform and all. My commanding officer called SHAEF, and they said, "Get back on the other side of the river!" One of the things that I didn't mention was on the way there, to join the Russians, we'd been told not to stop for anything.

Just before we got to the Russians, one of the scouts noted a fire on the horizon. The general said, "Go check, see what the fire is," to one of his scouts. So the scouts went, and they came back and told him what was going on where the fire was. The general diverted our column—he was an acting general, he was a West Point colonel who had been made a general for the event. He'd devoted the whole column to go where the fire was which surprised us because we knew the orders were to go directly to meet the Germans. He took the column over, and what we saw there was this camp Gardelegen. Now Gardelegen was sort of a concentration camp that had relatively able-bodied prisoners in it—as best we could tell, Jews, Gypsies, whatever they put in concentration camps, but the more sturdy of them. They were made to work, and then stayed in this camp and they were guarded by German SS troops. When they saw us coming down the road, they sprayed the camp with oil or some other flammable material, and set the whole thing on fire with the people in it. Anybody who tried to crawl out they shot.

When we got there, there were some bodies lying around, there were some people who were half in and half out from under one of the buildings. The fires were just simmering down, and there was no one living. Our commanding officer sent someone into the neighboring town to get the mayor of the town which was nearest to us. The mayor, of course, said that he didn't know anything was going on in this camp. The general insisted that every able-bodied person in this town come out with a sheet and they were to wrap each of these prisoners in a sheet and bury them properly. When he saw this was being done with the graves dug and people being put in the sheets, then we left. By that time some other soldiers from some other unit came along to supervise the remainder portion of it. We kept on going to meet the Russians. It was a horrible sight. I had a little camera, which was supposed to be illegal, but then the only film I could get was really old and so the pictures aren't very good. I did have them digitally enhanced, and there's one in my book that sort of shows it.

Can you describe your initial reaction when you saw the camp?

How would you feel? It was awful. We'd seen a lot of severely wounded people and you get a little hardened in a way, but it was a horrible sight. We had heard about how ruthless they were but this was the first proof that we had. Some people say, "Oh well maybe that's exaggerated," or something, you know and so, it was, it was...

How did viewing this affect your overall experience in the war or your thoughts of the war?

You mean having seen this?

Yes.

I think all wars are terrible, and I think it's a terrible way to settle the world's problems, but we sure felt justified in being there. To get rid of that terrible regime seemed to be worth it. We lost an awful lot of people. A lot of times you wonder: is it worth it? Because like my division landed with around 14,000 people and then at the end of the war only fifteen percent of those who landed were left and we'd have 25,000 causalities including replacements. That's just one division. You think how horrible what's going on now is, and you can imagine how we feel. For a while you wonder, is it worth it? But when you see this horror, you think maybe it was, but I think if we had, I would have preferred it had been prevented.

How did seeing that change your views on German civilians?

My feelings about the Germans at that point were pretty bad anyhow so I don't know if it made me feel any worse about them. It just couldn't—it just proved to us what we'd heard but we weren't sure about.

Can you clarify how you knew that they were Jews or Gypsies or whoever? How did you identify who these people were?

We didn't, but there were people in this city who seemed to help the intelligence people that were with us. We saw those bodies; we didn't know who they were. We just knew that they had been in this camp. We didn't know what they were doing or anything until later on we heard from people who were with the headquarters group or whatnot. I was just a worker there. I didn't have anything to do with any of that. I just was an observer. My group wasn't responsible for burying them or anything like that. The first people that got there I think were looking around to see if anyone was alive, but they didn't see anyone alive.

Did your group come in contact with the SS officers of the camp?

I think they disappeared. I never heard that they were caught. I never saw them, but they obviously had to have been there. Later on we got information that that was what happened. All we could see was that the camp had been set on fire, and all these people were lying there dead when we were arrived.

How close were you approximately to the actual camp?

As far away as you are from me. You can see the pictures. At the time in the United States a lot of people weren't sure about the various atrocities. I sent the film home and somehow or another it got through the censors. Some of the pictures were published in some publications, but unfortunately the pictures weren't all that good. I'll show you the originals. It's amazing what they can do now with the digitally enhancing them.

You said earlier that your biggest fear was becoming a prisoner and you had some vision in your mind of how horrible that would be. Having seen one of these camps, was there still that same fear?

Having seen that camp, I was no longer afraid of being captured because there was no one there left to capture me. When we reached that camp, the war was essentially over. It hadn't been declared over. It ended about a month later, but we knew the war was about over so my fear of being captured was long gone. When I was afraid of being captured the most was when I first joined, when I first took over the aid group in Normandy. Because I think I mentioned in my book, I almost got my group captured and that was sort of scary. After seeing the camp my fear of being captured was no longer there and the fear of being wounded or captured was pretty well gone by then.

Did you have a plan to try and hide your identity if you were to captured?

It's pretty hard. You wore a tag around your neck that had your name on it. The name I had was certainly a giveaway. You had always to wear your tag. I guess you could have thrown them away. I didn't have my religion on my tag, some people did, but I had my name. I still have them if you want to see them.

After Gardelegen on your way to meet the Russians you talked about coming into contact with laborers from camps?

The military was disintegrating in Germany just around the time the war ended, so a lot of the laborers who were forced laborers—mostly from Poland—got free. Then they were wandering around the country, and they didn't know quite what to do. All they knew was that they were free, but they needed food and that sort of thing. As I mentioned before, we ran into them, and sometimes gave them some food if possible. If we needed them, sometimes they would help build a bridge or something like that.

Can you tell us any stories, or anything they told you?

That they told us? No, because I didn't speak their language. Most of those prisoners that we ran into who were free were Polish. Because they had made slave laborers out of a lot of the Poles, they were not confined to real camps I don't think; they were assigned to certain places like a farm. They would work on the farm with the knowledge that if they didn't work, they would be punished and if they did, then they would get fed and housed. And so that was something.

Did you ever pick up any foreign languages while you were in Europe?

No I could speak German at the time. I had studied German when I was in school and could speak reasonably well so I talked to the prisoners a bit. I didn't like talking to them. A lot of times if you picked up a wounded German soldier, they were afraid you were going to do something vicious to them—like maybe kill them—because they had been told how terrible we were. They were very often surprised that I would put a bandage on them or give them some plasma or something like that.

You treated German soldiers? Did you have any resentment towards them?

The actual individual soldiers—if they were wounded—I took care of them. That was what I was trained to do. It was harder if you got a guy from the SS or one of the officers. Giving good American plasma to those guys was not the most pleasant thing to do, but we did. We hoped that if they picked up our wounded, they would treat them well too. I think that in some instances they did, and some they didn't.

What did you do with German soldiers after you treated them? Did you detain them or let them go?

Oh, no, they were sent back to prison camps. There were huge prison camps in England and the United States. A lot of prisoners were sent to the United States.

Did you ever see those camps?

No. But a lot of the German prisoners who came to the US were put to work on farms and things like that. They were pretty happy here as a matter of fact. A lot of them wanted to stay because we were short handed of workers. Particularly my division was from Kansas and Nebraska and all the men were farm workers and things like that and so prisoners were often put to work doing farm kind of labor. There were some just in military camps, but I know that a lot were put to work.

Can you talk about when you captured Heinz Jost the Lieutenant General Unrein?

My unit didn't. The people that I was with—the military that I was with —captured a number of high-ranking people. My little medical unit didn't have anything to do with that, but the group that I traveled across to meet the Russians did. We picked up some of those guys just coincidentally. We didn't realize it at the time. I only heard later on who they were from my division publication that we had picked up some really high-ranking people who were trying to disappear as they knew the war was over. Those people who had been in high places were trying to get somewhere where they could get to Switzerland, or somewhere they wouldn't be recognized, knowing that the war would end. So we did pick up a couple of guys who were quite well known.