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Anyway, so it had to be just a day or maybe—it's confusing, that two three or four days that we got to Buchenwald. The 4th Armored went up the road on one side of Buchenwald and the 6th Armored went up on a road on the other side. We were in the back of the column again. We were stopped a lot by the side of the road. It was nighttime by the time we actually got up the hill. We saw fires, fires over here and we didn't know what it was. We kept going with the column and then had a load of casualties we had to take back by that place. There was firing, shots being fired. We went back and got rid of our casualties, got them into the EVAC hospital. The next day—we stayed there that night in the ambulance—the next day that's when we drove in and saw all the people. Saw all the huts that they were in. There was a lot of people there but they were just wandering around. EVAC hospital that had just come over from the States set up there. As I've said before, and I mentioned this in other places—someone asked us—my friend Lockhart can't remember either—asked us to pick up people that were laying in the fields. It has to be people that were coming from the work camps. They were trying to get them back to Buchenwald. It's got to be that way. They couldn't go any further so they were laying in the fields. We took our ambulance and those stretchers, litters, and we could put two on a litter. Just a little stripe of pajama—we didn't know what these little deals sewn on them meant—we didn't know what they were.

What was sewn on them?

They designated what they were. One was for Jewish.

What did it look like to you? If you were there right now what did that patch look like?

Just like a patch. We didn't know what they stood for. I remember loading them into the ambulance and we were all worried about lice we carried DDT in packages—DDT which has been banned, but now they're using it in Africa again. We dusted ourselves, we dusted them and we dusted the ambulance with DDT and that still sticks in my mind. But that's what they did with all the prisoners, they had like, you know, to kill flies. They'd come by with DDT and try to put it down inside their clothes and everywhere to kill lice because of typhus and the rest of it.

Were these people that you were picking up dead already?

You know, I've wondered about that. Because we couldn't talk to them and they couldn't talk. There again, I'm wondering, I've wondered in the last few years, why didn't I do more for those people? What could we have done? You know, why—those were human beings, just like we were. They were—they might have been dead, I don't know. They were so light we could just pick them up one under the shoulders and the other on their feet. They would put one with his head on this end and the other's down at this end so that we could actually carry eight. Normally you would only carry four wounded. I've talked to Lockhart about it several times and we don't remember but we think we took it to Buchenwald where they'd set up this station this medical unit there to start processing people. They were actually there for a long time, at least a month, maybe two months trying to evacuate that place and get people assigned out to where they could be taken care of. Tuberculosis they'd try to get them into Switzerland. So it took quite a long while. As I think I've told you I went back for the 50th commemoration there and I met with survivors, in fact, he calls me every once in a while from Sweden. He lost his wife last year but he was sixteen when we got there. So when I was there on the 50th commemoration I met him, and I knew who it was because the picture—where's my briefcase. Any questions?

When you arrived at Buchenwald were there any SS officers or any guards?

No. I didn't see any.

They had left already?

They'd left or dead. If they didn't leave, the prisoners took care of them.

What does that mean, the prisoners took care of them?

That means they eliminated them. We're getting close but as we go on I'll tell you about how they did this because I saw some of it. Okay, when I got there I bought this magazine at the airport when we left the States. When I got there, here was this man right here I could identify him even from that picture. Nicholas Grüner I'm looking right at him I said, “You're the” “Yes,” he says, and he spoke English because they sent him to Australia and he learned English in Australia. And he's the one in Malmo, Sweden that still calls me. And he's written this book, Jorgen's got the book, trying to expose Elie Weisel because he says Elie Weisel is not in the picture. Ant they claim that he is, but, anyway. That's the story there. Buchenwald was—I've been back there since, a couple times, and it's very sobering. This is Nicholas' book. He's done a lot of work here but I said, Nicholas, you're trying to kill a dead horse. You're not ever going to knock him down. But he was with him when Elie got the Nobel award, Nicholas was with him. I don't know what happened but he said it wasn't the man he knew. The man that wrote the book was someone else, too, according to Nicholas. He's got it all documented there but I don't think he'll ever go anywhere with it. Okay, where were we? Any more questions on Buchenwald because we're getting near the end of the...

Any more descriptions of what you saw in Buchenwald? Can you give me a description of when you first entered Buchenwald what did you see?

People wandering around with their little uniforms and in various degrees of health, I guess. You know, it was a pitiful sight, I just wanted to get out of there. I know Lockhart, he did too. Our job wasn't there. Our job was with the 4th Armored Division—at that particular time we were with the 4th—and our job was to move on and to get to the end of the war. Sure, in later year I wondered why didn't I stay there and do more? You know? Why didn't I? But, what was I then but twenty years old, and what could I have done? What could I have done there? That's, you know, the SHOAH people, I said, “Well what would you have done, you know?” What could we do? We weren't trained to handle any of that kind of situation. I've looked back on it and wondered why didn't I do more but what could I have done? You know, our outfit was ready to move on, to finish the war. That's what we did. 

I think we all know how hard it is for you to try to be in Buchenwald right now and give us more detail, but it's vitally important. As much detail as you can will really help others that are seeing this understand what it is that you saw.

I don't know…I don't know how you could understand what was going on. How could you understand what one group of people were doing to another. Most of these guards around this camp were Lutherans, you know. Who could understand? How could those people work there? How could they do their job there? Probably because they were afraid not to. But it was just beyond our imagination. It was too much for us to absorb, I guess is a way to look at it. That's probably why when I came home, I absolutely wiped it out. I never understood why I wiped it out, why we never thought about it or talked about it when we got home, because it had just happened. Wouldn't that have been the time to talk about it?  Seems like it would be. But it didn't. I don't have—what do they call it, the stress syndrome thing—I don't have that. But I still think about it when I wake up at night, I still remember that, those situations. And as we got—as we left Buchenwald, we…

What else did you see?

I saw, we saw the crematorium.

What did that look like?

They hadn't burned them all. They couldn't. They didn't have the charcoal. They didn't, they were just emaciated bodies, that's all there were. And I remember there was one wagon right near the crematorium that was just full of dead. They hadn't—and look, Buchenwald, as I learned later, was not a killing camp such as Auschwitz and Birkenau and those. It was a work camp, and people died. And they died from overwork or malnutrition or beating or whatever they died from. They couldn't bury them all so they had to build the crematorium to burn the bodies. In Auschwitz, they were there to kill them. They were there to gas the people and then to kill them. I didn't get—I visited Auschwitz later, in later years, and it was a killing camp. Buchenwald itself and Ordruff itself were not killing camps. Lots of people died, and they died from various things. And I can see now, later, that we didn't understand the crematoriums either. But they had to have them. To try to get rid of the—you go there now, and there's huge areas where there's mounds of ashes. You know, they're covered, but they're ashes.

When you see pictures today, you see pictures today, black and white pictures of stacked up dead bodies and the world has seen these pictures dozens and dozens of times. What's missing when we see those pictures?

Okay, what's missing? Is the smell. You can't smell it. You can see it but you can't smell it. And you'll never forget the smell. If you would smell it again you would know exactly what it was. But that's one thing that when you look at these pictures or you look at these—I didn't see this particular thing. But there were—Nicholas down here told me that an American Signal Corps sergeant got them to get in their bunks so he could take this picture. But the stench—and the stench of the people in the ambulances that we took back. You know, you can't convey that. I can't sit here and tell you what that smelled like. Or burnt bodies, what burnt bodies smelled like. I can't, you know, it's a horrible thing. It really is. Anyway, what else do you want to know about Buchenwald? It's there today, and it's a museum. You can go there in the theater and see movies of it and you can go to the museum where all the artifacts are and as I've told you before the German children from schools go there by bus loads.

Guys, anything, any questions? We're right where we want to be right now.

Yes, come-on, anything. Feed me something.

Do you think that seeing all this while you were at Buchenwald changed your outlook on war or at life in general?

It changed my outlook on religion.

How did it change your view of religion?

I knew there wasn't any. I knew there wasn't any higher power. That we're the power. I'm a humanist, now. I believe in you. Because I can see you and you're doing something good. I can believe in you and I can believe in you and you and I can believe in Howard. But I don't believe that there's something up here in the ether that's formed this planet that we're on or that's going to come down and cleanse the earth of all the bad people. You know, I've never really said that public but it's what I feel. And my friend who wrote this book, he was a devout Jew. He was a Hungarian Jew. And he had given up on it. But when we were back there together at the camp, he had to go to the crematorium by himself and do the ritual stuff. I don't think he's still strayed, but he's probably—you can see how he'd be tested. I'm not using that as a crutch by any means, I just, I believe in people. I believe in Jergen over there, I believe in him. He's German. We were told to hate him. But I believe in him. And we've met all kinds of Germans. So until we're gone, my age group—which are going rapidly, 1200 a day—there will still be that stigma out there. But that's pretty much when I quit believing, quit going to church. Our children, they can believe what they want. We told them that, “This is your choice.” One son, our oldest son, married a devout Catholic. The girls, five daughters, all brought up as devout Catholics. But they know how I feel. They still respect me, even though I'm not a believer. I don't need that crutch. I'm ready to go, you know? I'm eighty-three years old. I'm ready, I'm not worried about it. I mean, look, I saw graves registrations collecting hundreds and hundreds of guys my age and putting them in the ground, digging another trench and filling it up. And one cemetery in San Mee HIll in France, they just took down the fence from World War I and extended the trench out. When they die in the military like that in the war – there's two dog tags we had. They'd take one and put it in their mouth between their teeth so they are identified. And then they'd go into a mattress cover, and their buried. And that's it. That's all there is. They are laying over there, right now. If there was a higher power, why did they have to lay there and I'm not?

We were lucky enough to take seven of our eleven grandchildren back to Normandy. I took them to the cemetery in Normandy. Not one of them could be there and not have a tear in their eye. I get choked up. I've been there twice. How come? How come I'm home and how come they're there? How come I got to come home and have four great kids and eleven grandchildren that all have been fairly successful? One's a doctor now and three of them are school teachers. I'm bringing up things would I would never bring up, Howard. You probably want to edit it out.

You got to remember it was only two or three days that I was even in that area. Those are just a few things that stick out about the people we picked up at Ordruff. This man that you interviewed said he saw live people there. But Jack in here, who was there on the same day with the Jeep, he and the Jeep driver, they didn't see anybody alive either. So, where were the live ones who were there? I never saw them. There were a lot of live ones in Buchenwald, though. I learned later that there was probably 20,000. But there had been as high as 50,000 in there before the end. But they were basically there to work.

What else to you want to know about those two to three days that I was in that area?

What absolutely specifically triggered you to not believe in a religion?

Just that.

Just seeing all that?

Yes. These guards were good Lutherans. Who was Martin Luther? He broke off from the Catholic Church, didn't he? I hate to get this all down on tape. I don't care, I'm eighty-three, what does it matter? I believe in human beings. You. My grand-kids. If they're religious and believe in a higher power? Fine. You probably all do. But after the things I saw, I have a difficult time believing there's any power. What's going on down in Israel now? Is there a higher power down there? You probably believe there is, don't you?

You looking at me?

Yes.

I'm not being interviewed right now, but I'll tell you later!