George Wise, who as a youthful soldier helped liberate the Nazi death camp at Dachau and as a mature man devoted his life to preventing the Holocausts recurrence, passed away Nov. 26, 2008 at his home.
Funeral services took place Dec. 1 at Rockland Community Church in Golden and burial was held Dec. 3 at Ft. Logan National Cemetery.
Wise, a native of Hinton, Okla., was born March 27, 1924 and was young when his family moved to Colorado. He spent most of his youth in Edgewater.
He was drafted into the US Army in 1943, at the age of 18, and soon thereafter participated in the landings at Normandy on D-Day in 1944.
A medic who served with the 581st Ambulance Co., 3rd Army, Wise spent much of the next year in fighting through Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge. He described his service in an interview with the Intermountain Jewish News as solid combat except for two days to Paris.
None of this experience, however, prepared Wise for what he encountered at the end of the war when, on April 29, 1945, his unit followed the American infantry that had liberated Dachau about an hour before. He would spend several days at the death camp.
Using a German camera he had looted days before, Wise took dozens of photographs of the atrocities he witnessed at Dachau, including boxcars and wagons filled with the corpses of victims, the crematoria and the piles of human ashes which had been removed from them.
After all the combat, after seeing all kinds of wounds and taking care of them, I could not imagine that any human could do this to another human being, Wise recalled in 1992.
Although Wise survived the war, going on to marry his wife Faye in 1948 and embarking on a long career as a bricklayer in Denver, the emotional trauma of what he witnessed at Dachau remained with him for the rest of his life. Haunted by nightmares and serious bouts of depression, he eventually sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
His true relief, however, began in the early 1990s, when Dr. Hal Crane, a Jewish doctor from Denver, saw some of Wises Dachau photographs. Crane contacted the IJN, which in May, 1992, published Terrifying Images of the Holocaust, consisting of an interview with Wise and three pages of his photographs.
That exposure led Wise on what he would later claim to be a path of vindication. He was soon invited to speak to dozens of elementary, middle and high schools, church and synagogue groups and assorted other organizations.
He never turned down an invitation to speak, except when ill health forced him to curtail his activities, and he never made an effort to hide his emotions. Almost always, when relating what he experienced at Dachau and communicating the lessons of tolerance and diversity he learned from it, Wise would break into tears an honest display of emotion that only intensified the message he was seeking to convey.
In 1993, Wise spoke at the Days of Remembrance ceremony in Washington once again moving an audience, in this case one of nearly 1,000 people, to tears. His fellow speaker was Nesse Godin, a Lithuanian Jewish Holocaust survivor, who revealed during her speech that her own brother was one of the prisoners liberated at Dachau by Wise and his comrades.
During the same trip, Wise was invited to attend the opening of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum at which President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel were the keynote speakers.
In 1997, after word of his presentations to school and community groups had spread, Wise was honored by KUSA-TV with its 9 Who Care award.
Although pleased with these prestigious honors, Wise was even prouder of the vast collection of letters he had received from students and teachers grateful that he had come to speak to them.
Close friends of Wises relate that the fact that he was able to speak about his wartime experiences, and to spread his message of love and tolerance, allowed him to put his traumatic past into perspective. His efforts on behalf of Holocaust education eased his own depression while giving him hope that such horrors might not be repeated.
Wise, a longtime member of the Rockland Community Church and a lifelong fan of the Denver Broncos and Oklahoma Sooners, was active with El Jebel Shrine, the Masons and the American Legion.
He is survived by his wife Faye; children Dr. Randy Wise (Clare), Linda Velotta (Dominic) and Megi Ball (Terry); eight grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
The family suggests that memorial contributions be made to Veterans Hospital.
Read the related IJN editorial on the life of George Wise.
