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Section below transcribed Lucy K (2008), edited by Joseph Werhan (intern). Please report errors to: info@tellingstories.org.

Reaction of Inmates

By the time you reached the camps, were there any guards still there?

They had all left—thank you very much—except the camp commander, whom the prisoners had captured.

And what happened to...

What happened to him? We had to rescue him from their wrath because they were going to kill him.

Can you explain that—How were they trying to kill him?

Tear him piece by piece, they didn't care. He used to walk through camp with his kids and his dogs. Those dogs were vicious animals and if he didn't like somebody he'd send the dogs after them. Is it comprehensible? Is it human? No, but there it was. Is it believable? Not if you're normal. I don't know what happened to him, all I know is we kept him from being killed.

How did you do that?

We had guns, we kept the other people from attacking.

What was the prisoners' reactions to you taking him away?

This prisoners reaction basically was, “We're free.” What they wanted to do was almost secondary, they knew he wouldn't get away. Where is your thinking when you've been in that kind of situation, and all of a sudden the doors are open? In fact, for many people it became a disaster because they had been capture peopled, and they had been imprisoned for so long under conditions that were so inconceivable. They didn't know where to go, what to do. I think somewhere in the photo album I have is a couple pictures of prisoners and they have just been released. One of the problems we had—we didn't know what to do with them—so we quite often just let them go, which is the worst thing that could happen. Many of them were sick, many of them were starving. They had no place to go. They were certainly not Germans from that neighborhood. And we just opened it up, go. We didn't know what the hell to do with them. We were not prepared to feed them. We were not prepared to have medical care. We were not prepared to have housing. The abysmal failure of our system to prepare for this—which is very understandable—but also inexcusable.

End of the War and Mauthausen

After Landsberg, where did you go from there? Are there any other camps that you saw?

No, no more camps. At that point we were chasing a bunch of Germans down the road from Landsberg. We went down along the Danube past Munich, turned South to Tegernsee, and then to Kitzbühel. We stopped, finished up the war in Kitzbühel—which ended up being one of the Olympic ski resorts many years later—it's a wonderful place. I remember getting into Kitzbühel, and by that time it was like coming to a different world.

When was this?

End of March, early April. The valley down below was nice and green, and the snow was twenty-feet deep. Ski lifts were running up and I took a ski lift up there. Let me step back. When we heard the armistice was on all hell broke loose. Everybody was shooting off guns in the air and it was a big party. It had been a long time and everybody was pretty relieved. I think that day or the day after, we had heard that there was some people up in one of the mountain lodges, up in the cable car. Not a cable car, it's the one that hangs down from the wires.

Gondola?

Gondola, yes. We went up and low and behold, out sunning herself up on the deck of the resort hotel—up on the top of the mountain—was Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl was the one who did the movies on the Nazi Party days in Nuremberg and also the famous film—a wonderful movie—of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. She was a German movie star, skier, and all she was doing was movies. “I know nothing, I was in Switzerland during the war.” That sort of thing, “I was just doing movies.” She was arrested in 1945. Somehow or other, she got out and she eventually ended up in Africa making movies about African wildlife. She was a major movie producer, movie director, and a skier and a sports person—Hitler's favorite movie actress.

What happened after the war, leading into when you went into Mauthausen, right?

That was really quite a bit, a month or so after the war. That was strange. We ended up in Austria—stayed there for probably about a week—then our division was pulled back to the Danube River line. We held that for quite a long time. Somehow my mother was able to get in touch with me and she had heard—don't ask me how, I have no idea—that two of her sisters had been seen at a camp in Mauthausen, shortly before the end of the war. Both older sisters of hers. Aunt Ellie had lived in Breslau and Hanna had lived in Ratibor—which is at the southern tip of Silesia—sort of a stretch. I hopped into my Jeep and went down to Mauthausen to see if I could find out anything about them, and I did talk to some people who had known them. Some survivors there, but I certainly got the impression that—and I hate to say this—it was probably the best thing that happened that they were no longer alive—because both of them had gone crazy—quite understandably. Both of them had grown up—as my mother did—in a very, very clean bourgeois home. I mean, dirt was anathema, God forbid. Constant cleaning—constantly taking care of things—and then living in that kind of hellhole was simply too much for them. It drove them both out of their minds. Ellie had two sons, both of them ended up in America. Hanna had a daughter who ended up in Palestine—ended up in the British Army—and eventually some years ago died in one of the keeper's areas near the Jordan border. I visited her there once.

I much later found out that two sisters of my fathers—two older sisters, one who had been married and the other had not been married—ended up in Bülach—or as the Poles say—Woj, in a transport from Hamburg where they had been living. When I did some work a few years ago in Woodge, I was walking around the central area. I ran into a park, in the middle of which was a boulder that was bigger than this table—a large granite boulder with a plaque on it—which says that in this area, several thousand Jews from Hamburg had been shipped in—and had then died in that neighborhood— including my two aunts.

Can we go back now to Mauthausen and can you describe it for us—what you saw and who was there?

This is when I went after my mother told me.

Yes, but who was there?

Who was there?

Walk through slowly—imagine you are walking into the camp—what did you see?

I drove down and I'm a soldier—no problem on my own—could go anywhere I wanted to. Ended up in Vienna overnight, and then drove down to Linz I believe, the town nearest Mauthausen. Mauthausen is very close to the Hungarian-Czech end of Austria. When I drove in I think I was absolutely overwhelmed by—I can only say—the incredible noise of silence. It was dead still. There were people there—hundreds of them—but it was dead still. There were still people there who had been there in camp. They hadn't been shipped out, or transported out, or transferred out or given opportunities. There were obviously occupation troops there—American troops or British troops. They had established a registry of people—the thing I have to say about the Germans—they were incredibly orderly. Every person that went through any of these camps were well-registered and documented. The paperwork was impeccable. So if you wanted to find out anything about anybody all you did is go to the office, and you could find out. Obviously the occupation folks had taken over all this paperwork and were trying to help people who were asking questions.

There were still hundreds of people who were at Mauthausen, they just hadn't gotten themselves to leave. Psychologically, this break from total capture to total freedom was in many ways totally overwhelming to many people. Some of them ran immediately and got away and got lost. Some of them ended up in real problems because they had no place to go. Fairly quickly the occupation forces tried to keep people there so they could figure out a way to process them and feed them and take care of them medically, or whatever was necessary. The thing that was overwhelming—this smell and the silence. We went to see the gas office at the crematoria and they were still smelly, and this is a month later.

What did it smell like?

Burnt flesh, burnt bodies, I can't explain it any better.

How did people react to that from your group?

I only could tell you how I reacted. I don't know how people reacted. There were so many people who went there. The average GI went into this and was totally overwhelmed with something he had no knowledge about, no idea about, no comprehension of, no sense of what he was getting into. Some of them simply tried to shut their minds to it, which was probably the sanest thing they could do. This was shortly after the end of the war. They were so happy to be finished with all that stuff that they were trying to just relax and enjoy, and then dealing with that really didn't fit into the scheme of things, perfectly understandably. I think to me the most depressing and overwhelming thing about Mauthausen was the rock quarry. At the edge of the camp was a major quarry for rocks. I don't know whether you know anything about rock quarries. They usually just dig down these crevices, they have these big boulders they do something with, either small ones or big ones. This was probably one of the largest rock quarries I've ever seen. From the surface level of the ground to the bottom of the quarry was a good—if I remember correctly—200-300 feet. It's a pit. The way people got down to it was that along the edge of this steep pit was a walking path two feet wide, some places maybe three feet wide. Down this path and then up again trapes the prisoners to go down—pick up boulders on their shoulders—and go back up. Along the path were—every hundred feet or so—were indentations in the wall, which were places for the guards to watch. If some of the prisoners had a hard time carrying the boulders up—or they stopped too long for the pleasure of the guards—the guards pushed them over and they went down, carrying the boulders into the pit. I don't mean to be overwhelmingly scary or negative but I can't help it. That's just the way it was. You couldn't work anymore? Too bad.

Tell us more what you saw. Were there still bodies down there?

No, this was two, three, four weeks after the finish of the war and the actual bodies had already been removed. I must say there were still some bodies in the ovens. They were no longer burning but they just hadn't got around to cleaning them out. Mauthausen had tens of thousands of prisoners. It was a big operation with factories around the edges and all sorts of major installations. To me the overwhelming impression was this quarry pit. To imagine that these emaciated prisoners—who could barely stand up—would go down this path, pick up boulders and come back up again. How any of them managed at all is a miracle, or that any of them managed at all is a miracle. The place was still full of prisoners—of people who were given the opportunity to leave—and many of them simply psychologically couldn't get themselves to leave.

Did you talk to any of the people?

Oh Yes, as many as we could. I was looking for my aunts. I was trying to find people who had seen them—who had known them—who might have some idea of where they were.

What did you see in the faces of the prisoners who had survived?

Probably the most memorable thing that I can remember is nothing actually, blank stares. People who have given up looking—had given up living.

In some ways maybe its harder, but I would like to have you describe more visually what you're seeing. What did they physically really look like? What else can you describe in terms of what you saw and can describe as if you're looking at a photo?

Among the people who were there I saw a whole range of human character. There were those who were at the edge of death—hardly moving, hardly crawling—trying to be taken care of by occupation forces who had gotten a whole bunch of Austrians—nurses and doctors—to come in and try to do something. Many of the troops just went into towns and rounded up anybody they could find to get in there and help. On the other hand there were those that had been the kapos. I forget what the word kapo stands for—what the actual German word is—but those were the ones working for the camp administration. There were some prisoners who ended up working for the camp administration. They got fed, and so they were in relatively—relatively—good shape. Some of them had been beating up on the prisoners like the Nazi guards had.

You get this whole range of people who are prisoners as decrepit and as worn-out as you can humanly be on one hand, and the guards who were strutting in full uniform and beautifully fed—a little scared of us with all good reason. Then all degrees of social strata within this camp—there were the privileged prisoners who were working with the guards and who got fed as long as they did what they were told. Then—some of the prisoners who were working in the gas chambers or at the ovens—bringing the bodies in and out. The Nazis didn't want to bother with that—that was dirty work—so they got prisoners to do it. And then you ended up eventually with the ones that ended up in the gas ovens. You get this whole social strata of the whole range, all ages. I don't remember kids and I don't know whether they had been killed before or whether they had just never shipped there or whether they went to a different camp or whatever—I don't know—but I don't remember any kids. There were not too many very old people either because they didn't live very long in circumstances like that.

How did you find out that your aunts were dead?

My mother had somehow heard and I have no idea how she found out. I had been in southern Germany and got a telegram from her. Again, how she managed to get me a telelgram under the circumstances—she was a very resourceful woman. She said that she had heard that her two sisters had been seen at Mauthausen, could I check? I hopped into my Jeep and went down there.

Interogations

When you talk about driving around in your Jeep, it seems very free for an army situation.

Well, that's right. I was in this weird CIC operation. Yes we were in the army, but we were really not. At that time I think I was a corporal, maybe I had gotten to be a sergeant. I was wearing no rank or insignia of any kind. I was wearing officer's clothes—which is a little different color than the GI—and I was, "Mr. Monasch—Special Agent Counter Intelligence". Mr. Monasch was buck-ass private or a corporal, but we played the game. The advantage we had in CIC is that we could walk into any American Army facility—into any offices whether it was run by the commanding general of the division, or of the army, or a lieutenant or anything in between—and ask to search it, to go through it, to check it out, interrogate anybody who was there.

Did you ever have to interrogate anybody?

Oh Yes. One of the things we had to do—for instance, right after the war—is that as we were in occupation everybody was setting up in a nice villa—in a nice place with an office and so on—and they wanted staff. I ended up near Mönchbruch near Frankfurt. Eisenhower's home was in Mönchbruch. When he wanted a cook—or a secretary or cleaning lady or whatever it is—I had to check out whether they were Nazis or not. I had to go in there and interrogate them and sometimes, "Hey baby, you're out," and Eisenhower couldn't do a thing about it. This weird situation—we were in the army but we were not in the army. We were "Mr. Monasch." They didn't have any idea what I was. The guy who was my detachment commander was Captain Carl Schroder. Captain Carl Schroder was a really nice guy from someplace in Ohio—didn't speak German—he spoke English—and really didn't know too much about what was going on. He ended up being my chauffer, because I was running around interrogating people from office, to office, to office, to office—in different villages and different towns—and running my ass off—if you'll pardon the expression—trying to document what I was finding out. He drove me around because I was too tired to drive. It didn't make any difference. Al Berry was another head of our detachment—cocky little guy from Los Angeles—very proud of being a captain. He was the one person in our whole detachment that would not take off his insignia. He wore his Captain's bars because he had earned them—he was going to be Captain. We're down in southern Bavaria and somebody comes into the office and says, "We just had a telephone call from Hermann Göring."

What time was this?

This was a day or two after the end of the war. We'd been looking for the son of a bitch. "We just had a telephone call from him. He wants to surrender." “Okay,” I hop into my Jeep and Allen Berry is with me. We drive down and we pull up to where we were told he was and there he is—full uniform—the whole schtik.

What was he like?

I'll come to that. We get out of our Jeep. We walk up and Al Berry says, “hauf veer vaunshon or "Sie sind verhaftet", "You're under arrest.” Göring straightens himself out—fat as he was—and says, "I'm not going to surrender to a Captain, I want somebody of my own rank." Al Berry pulls out his .45 and says, "Is this rank enough?" and we picked him up and brought him in. If you see that in Hogan's Heroes, nobody would believe it—it's totally unlikely—but it happened just like that. Full dress uniform, red Marshall stripes, the whole business, with his Marshall baton. Fat as can be. Although he had been dieting—he was not quite as fat as he started out—because he'd also been a little bit off his medicine. I am using the term "medicine" very carefully—his drugs—he was a dope fiend. He had run out of them and that wasn't very good for him physically. He was pretty shaky.

Did you get any other sense of his personality, or did he not talk much?

No, we picked him up, put him in the Jeep, drove him to headquarters, and turned him over.