And the heavens wept: German chancellor, liberators and survivors gather at Dachau on the 70th anniversary of its liberation.
MUNICH — Hundreds gathered on a grey, rainy day to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in 1945.
The overcast weather suited the somber occasion, marking an event that was paradoxically a collective nadir and zenith in human history.
Among the speakers were a liberator, three Dachau survivors and Germany’s head of government, Chancellor Angela Merkel. It was the first time a sitting chancellor attended the official commemoration ceremony there.
Located just 10 miles from Munich, Dachau was one of the first concentration camps built by the Nazis and the only one that existed throughout the 12 years of Nazi rule. It became synonymous with the Nazi regime “because it was the first, and located in Bavaria, where Nazism started,” commented Col. Timothy Conklin of the Colorado National Guard.
Dachau served as the prototype for the hundreds of SS-run camps that were subsequently built for the Nazis to manifest their horrifying vision.
The Intermountain Jewish News was in Germany for the ceremony with a delegation of Colorado communal leaders hosted by the Mizel Museum that was accompanied by active members of the Colorado and Oklahoma National Guards. The community delegation was sponsored by MDC Richmond American Homes Foundation.
Dachau was constructed in 1933 and first used for political prisoners, including communists and others who resisted Nazi rule. Following Kristallnacht, on Nov. 9, 1938, many Jews were also sent there. Later in the war, in the throes of the Holocaust, many were sent from Auschwitz to Dachau or one of its close to 200 sub-camps.
Former Ambassador Alan Lukens, who as part of the 20th Armored Division liberated Dachau, said that Dachau was a symbol of infamy but also hope for the future. Recalling that momentous day 70 years ago, he said to the survivors, “I’ll never forget your excitement and ours . . . They couldn’t crush your spirit.”
Scores of wreaths were laid representing German government, German Jewish communities, the countries of the victims of Dachau and German political parties.
Two American generals laid the wreath for the United States, which was preceded by a stirring rendition of the Last Post bugle call.
The generals, H. Michael Edwards and Robbie L. Asher, are with the Colorado and Oklahoma National Guards, respectively, whose states units helped liberate Dachau 70 years ago.
On April 29, 1945, the day of liberation, the Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division, which incorporated the Colorado and Oklahoma National Guards, was led by the legendary Gen. Felix Sparks.
Known as the Thunderbirds, the 45th fought tirelessly for over 500 days, from Sicily up through Italy and then France before entering Germany and ultimately freeing the Dachau inmates.
The unit suffered high losses in decisive battles, such as Anzio in 1944, and was replaced fully several times throughout the war. By the time the 45th reached Dachau, Sparks was the only original member division.
AT THE infamous German camp, the division first encountered a death train, filled with corpses. Sparks had received orders to divert to the concentration camp en route to Munich, but neither he nor any of his soldiers knew what to expect. Most had no idea what a concentration camp was, and certainly not of the horror residing within its barbed wire fences.
Lone Tree, Colorado resident and Holocaust survivor Jack Adler was on such a train when he was liberated by the Americans.
Three US Army divisions took part in the liberation, the 20th, the 42nd Rainbow Division and the 45th Thunderbird.
Denverite Sid Shafner, whom the IJN interviewed earlier this year on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, was with the Rainbow Division when it took part in the liberation.
To this day, there is a collegial rivalry between the two units as to which liberated the camp. The 45th was the first to arrive, but it was the 42nd that later the same day formally accepted the surrender.
Having come upon the death trains, members of the 45th were so shocked they instinctively sought immediate retribution against the SS guards still present in the camp. Several SS men were executed on the spot.
Sparks was soon after court-martialed; Gen. George Patton, then military governor of Bavaria, dismissed the charges immediately, according to Alex Kershaw’s The Liberator, a page-turning historical account of Sparks grueling and unheard of 511 days in battle.
ON THE evening prior to the ceremony, a group of liberators representing all three Army divisions gathered at the home of the American Consul General in Munich.
Hermann Cohn, a Jewish liberator with the 42nd whose son, Dr. Robert Cohn, lives in Denver and accompanied his father on this momentous journey, told the IJN that his division wasn’t the first to enter Dachau. He recalled coming down the road in a tank and seeing a US Army jeep coming in the other direction. “We liberated the camp,” Cohn was informed by the approaching troops.
“What I remember from Dachau is coming in the gates and the bodies stacked up,” says Cohn, now 93 and based in Chicago. “The sight I saw that day, I’ll never forget it.
“They had burnt hundreds of bodies that they didn’t have time . . . dead bodies were stacked outside.”
His morbid recollection was echoed by other liberators and survivors; at the commemoration on Sunday, May 3 at the concentration camp, Jean Samuel, a French survivor, said that in Dachau there were piles of corpses and people who looked like corpses.
Hermann Cohn was both a survivor and liberator. Originally from Essen, Germany, he fled to Holland following Kristallnacht after being beaten up.
A survivor at the reception, Ben Lesser of Las Vegas, thanked the liberators for the pivotal role they played in determining his fate. ““You gave me life, and for that I thank you again and again.”
PRIOR TO the larger commemoration where Merkel spoke, religious ceremonies were held across the camp. Many Catholic priests were imprisoned at Dachau as were other religious opponents of Nazism.
At the ceremony held at the Jewish memorial site, leaders of Germany’s Jewish community decried the increase in anti-Semitism in Germany, but were defiant about their place in German society, a sentiment echoed later at the larger gathering by Merkel.
Dr. Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, a nationwide umbrella organization, urged that it be compulsory that every German student visit a concentration camp.
For Schuster, as well as Dr. Charlotte Knonblauch, president of Bavaria’s Jewish community, the evidence that such education is necessary was exemplified on April 30, when a neo-Nazi demonstration against the opening ceremony of a museum documenting the history of National Socialism in Bavaria was permitted.
“Right wing extremists haven’t disappeared merely because the media decided not to pay attention,” Schuster said, criticizing both government and media for not being more vigilant against neo-Nazis and other racist groups.
“The past is not over,” warned Knoblauch. “It’s not even in the past.”
Both Jewish leaders also made clear their view on anti-Semitism masquerading as criticism of the modern state of Israel, another sentiment, once again, later echoed by Merkel.
“It’s the same age-old stereotypes of Jews that are passed down generation to generation,” said Schuster. “No one is born an anti-Semite,” he said, emphasizing the need for society-wide commitment to countering anti-Semitism and what he and Knoblauch said was rising racism in Germany.
On the site of the former roll-call ground of the camp, Germany’s Chancellor Merkel delivered a stirring address, thanking both the liberators and survivors, and reflecting on the abominable chapter in Germany’s history.
“The inmates at Dachau and at the many other Nazi concentration camps were persecuted, tortured and murdered by the Nazis because they thought differently, believed differently, lived differently from the National Socialist ideology. Or, simply, because they existed.”
Over 41,000 people died at Dachau.
Like the representatives of Germany’s Jewish community, Merkel warned of growing anti-Semitism in Germany and the anti-Jewish hatred present at anti-Israel demonstrations.
“The root of the increased attacks on Jewish institutions, as well as on Charlie Hebdo,” said Merkel, “is murderous Islamic terrorism and anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews.”
She urged vigilance and said it was incumbent on all Germans not to close their eyes or ears to these attacks, nor ignore the reality that identifiable Jews are today molested, threatened and attacked.
THE HIGHLIGHT of the ceremony was three powerful testimonies from Holocaust survivors.
Jean Samuel, the French survivor, recalled that April 29, 1945, “was the most beautiful day . . . I had a deep-felt happiness because the nightmare was over.”
Vladimir Feierabend, from Prague, remembered the day similarly: “When the Americans came,” he said, “we were able to take a deep breath. We were not a number anymore. We were humans.”
For Abba Noar, a Lithuanian survivor now living in Israel, the day of liberation was tinged with great sadness. “For many,” he said, recalling the demise of family members in camps and ghettos, “the Americans came too late.”
Noar spoke flanked by two of his great-grandchildren, embodying the resiliency of the survivors and of the Jewish nation.
He cited the much-known Talmudic saying that if one saves a life, it is as if one has saved the world. “If that’s true,” he said, “then the Nazis killed billions of worlds.
“The Nazis,” he warned, “were people, like you and me. And that’s the horror of it. The commandants played with their children, while at the same time they were sending thousands to the gas chamber.”
For Jack Adler, the Dachau and Auschwitz survivor from Lone Tree, the ceremony was the best part of his trip.
This was his first time back in Dachau, although he joins the March of the Living in Poland annually. He also speaks regularly on the Holocaust to school classes.
It was very important for him to return to Dachau, Adler shared with the IJN at the ceremony, because he recently found out that his father, from whom he was separated in a Dachau subcamp, Kaufering, died on March 25, 1945, just weeks after their separation.
“I never had a chance to say goodbye to him. So it was an inner feeling of accomplishment, to be able to say goodbye to him.”
Regarding closure, Adler says that he cannot visualize closure from anything so horrific. Returning to Dachau was “just something I felt I should do.”
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com. More photos of her trip can be found on the IJN’s Facebook page.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
