Prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp were subjected to horrific conditions, forced labor, and medical experiments. The camp was liberated by American forces on April 29, 1945.
Here, Dachau survivors and US Army veterans share their testimonies.
Shony was born to religious Jewish parents in a small Transylvanian city. He began to learn the violin at age 5. His town was occupied by Hungary in 1940 and by Germany in 1944. In May 1944, he was deported to the Auschwitz camp in Poland. He was transferred to the Natzweiler camp system in France and then to Dachau, where he was liberated by US troops in April 1945. In 1950, he immigrated to the United States, and became a composer and a professional violinist.
Item ViewThe Germans occupied David's town, previously annexed by Hungary, in 1944. David was deported to Auschwitz and, with his father, transported to Plaszow. David was sent to the Gross-Rosen camp and to Reichenbach. He was then among three of 150 in a cattle car who survived transportation to Dachau. He was liberated after a death march from Innsbruck toward the front line of combat between US and German troops.
Item ViewAs a boy, Bill attended school in Burgsteinfurt, a German town near the Dutch border. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, Bill experienced increasing antisemitism and was once attacked on his way to Hebrew school by a boy who threw a knife at him. In 1936, he and his family left Germany for the Netherlands, where they had relatives and thought they would be safe. However, after Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, antisemitic legislation--including the order to wear the Jewish badge--was instituted. Bill, his sister, and his parents were deported to the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands. In August 1943, Bill was deported from Westerbork to the Auschwitz camp in German-occupied Poland. He was transported from Auschwitz to Warsaw in late 1943, following the German suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Bill and other prisoners were forced to demolish the remnants of the ghetto. As Soviet forces advanced, Bill was placed on a death march and then transported by train to the Dachau camp in Germany. He was liberated by US forces at the end of April 1945.
Item ViewAbraham Lewent (1924–2002) was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1924. The Lewent family was living in Warsaw when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. Later, the Lewents were confined to the Warsaw ghetto. In summer 1942, Abraham's mother and three younger sisters were rounded up during the Great Action—the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. They were likely killed upon arrival. Abraham was not caught in the Great Action, because during the round up he hid in a small space in the ceiling. Afterwards, Abraham found a forced labor assignment at a nearby airfield. He returned to the ghetto in December 1942, reuniting with his father. During the Warsaw ghetto uprising in April–May 1943, Abraham and his father saw the ghetto being burned to the ground. They were eventually rounded up and sent to the Lublin concentration camp (called Majdanek). Abraham's father died there. Later, Abraham was sent to the Skarżysko-Kamienna labor camp, then to Buchenwald and several other camps. US troops liberated Abraham from a train in April 1945.
Item ViewRabbi Abraham Klausner was a US Army military chaplain. He arrived in the Dachau concentration camp in May 1945. He was attached to the 116th evacuation hospital unit and worked for about five years in displaced persons camps, assisting Jewish survivors.
Item ViewBen was born in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania in Romania. When he was an infant, his family moved to the United States. Ben attended Harvard University, where he studied criminal law. Ben graduated from Harvard University Law School in 1943. He joined a US anti-aircraft artillery battalion that was training in preparation for an Allied invasion of western Europe. At the end of World War II in Europe, Ben was transferred to the war crimes investigation branch of the US Army. He was charged with gathering evidence against and apprehending alleged Nazi war criminals. He ultimately became chief US prosecutor in The Einsatzgruppen Case of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings.
Item ViewDallas Peyton of Tucson, Arizona, was a member of the 70th Armored Infantry. In 1945, with other liberating troops, he entered the Dachau camp and encountered survivors and evidence of atrocities.
Item ViewGI Edward S. Weiss, a resident of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was at the Dachau concentration camp shortly after its liberation.
Item ViewJames A. Rose, of Toledo, Ohio, was with the 42nd (Rainbow) Division.
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