Nazis put Moses Tobias in Dachau for trying to flee Germany.

I learn something new every day.  In today’s news, I read about a talk that  College professor Sigmund Tobias  gave at the 27th annual Holocaust Commemoration in Holyoke, MA. The article was written by Mike Plaisance of The Republican and posted on the MassLive.com web site.  Sigmund Tobias told a group of Peck Middle School students that he “was 5 when the Nazis put his father Moses Tobias in Dachau for trying to flee Germany.”  I was always under the impression that the Nazis wanted the Jews to leave Germany, but apparently I was wrong.

Who entered Dachau first on April 29, 1945?

Several American soldiers claim to have been the first person to enter the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945. Private First Class John Degro, the lead scout of I Company, 3rd BN, 157th Infantry, 45th Division, says that he was the first American soldier to enter the camp. Col. Howard Buechner, a 45th Division Medical Corps officer, quoted Degro in his book “Dachau, the Hour of the Avenger”:

“As lead scout, I shot the lock off the gate and entered the compound. There were 32,000 inmates, screaming, between hugging and kissing us. The stench was unbearable. We backed out the gate, let a few inmates out and gave them weapons. We cleaned out the guard towers, took knapsacks off of the dead SS and threw them over the barbed wire into the compound.”

American veterans remember the liberation of Dachau 65 years ago today

Today is the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945 and  nothing makes me angrier than reading the exaggerated stories of  the US Army veterans who claim that they were there that day.  I just sat down at my computer to check the news while I eat my lunch.  The very first story that I read about the liberation of Dachau was an article in The Bay City Times, which you can read here.

Gas chamber at Ravensbrück women’s camp?

I am writing today in response to a comment made by a person in Germany who wrote: “My entire class was put in a bus and made visit the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp in 1986, when we were 12. We were disappointed to learn that there had been no gas chamber at Ravensbrück.”

Women prisoners liberated at Dachau

There were a few women at the Dachau concentration camp when it was liberated by American soldiers on April 29, 1945.  A short time before the liberators arrived, these women had been brought from various labor camps in Germany to the main Dachau camp so that they could be surrendered to the Allies.  One of the women, who was liberated from Dachau, was Ann Rosenheck, who told her story to students at Troy University in Dothan, Alabama a week ago. You can read all about it here on the web site of the Dothan Eagle newspaper.

George F. Will’s article about Japanese Americans liberating Dachau

On April 25, 2010, the Washington Post published an article by George F. Will with the headline, “Japanese American heroes, bereft of bitterness.”  The gist of the article is that the Japanese-American soldiers, who fought in Germany during World War II, were liberating Dachau while their families were in internment camps in America, but they’re not bitter.

It’s a miracle! Seven babies “slipped through the Nazi killing machine” at Dachau

On February 12th, I posted about the “New born babies at Dachau.”  Yesterday, I was very happy when I read in a news article that all seven of the Dachau babies are alive and well and even some of the mothers are still alive. Six of the Dachau babies will be attending a Reunion at Dachau as part of the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau on April 29th.

The question that won’t go away — Does Elie Wiesel have a tattoo or not?

According to my blog statistics, the subject that most people are interested in is Elie Wiesel’s tattoo or lack thereof. Why is this so important?  Well, if he has a number tattooed on his arm, that might mean that he was  a prisoner at Auschwitz.  Of course, anyone can get a fake Auschwitz tattoo after the fact, so a number tattooed on one’s arm proves nothing.  On the other hand, if Elie Wiesel does not have a tattoo on his arm, that might mean that he was not at Auschwitz.  But what if he was in Auschwitz and had his identification tattoo removed?  So the lack of a tattoo proves nothing.

Newspaper accounts of the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945

Mon., April 30, 1945***** Chicago Herald-American

BY HOWARD COWAN

DACHAU, Germany, April 30. –(AP)–

The U.S. 42nd and 45th divisions captured the infamous Dachau prison camp today and freed its 32,000 captives.

Two columns of infantry, riding tanks, bulldozers and Long Tom rifles – anything with wheels – rolled down from the northwest and surprised the S S (Elite Corps) guards in the extermination camp shortly after the lunch hour.

Letter from American soldier describes Gardelegen massacre on April 13, 1945

I received an e-mail from a lady who sent me a pdf of a letter that her uncle, John Lobb, wrote to his Mom and Dad from Camp Washington in France, probably on July 13, 1945.  He included five pictures of the massacre in the town of Gardelegen, where concentration camp prisoners were burned in a barn by the Germans during World War II.  The photos have since been lost, but I have added photos taken by other soldiers which will illustrate what John Lobb saw on April 14th or 15th in 1945.