The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust (55 page)
Read The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust Online
Authors: Michael Hirsh
Tags: #History, #Modern, #20th Century, #Holocaust, #Psychology, #Psychopathology, #Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Copyright © 2010 by Michael Hirsh
Map copyright © 2010 by Mapping Specialists, Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Hirsh, Michael.
The liberators : America’s witnesses to the Holocaust / Michael Hirsh.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90731-5
1. World War, 1939–1945—Concentration camps—Liberation. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Concentration camps—Germany. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Concentration camps—Austria. 4. Concentration camps—Germany—History—20th century. 5. Concentration camps—Austria—History—20th century. 6. World War, 1939–1945—Atrocities. 7. Soldiers—United States—Interviews. 8. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, American. 9. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Personal narratives. I. Title.
D805.G3H523 2010
940.53′185—dc22 2009042954
Frontispiece drawing by 84th Infantry Division combat artist Walter H. Chapman. It depicts the burning of barracks at the Salzwedel concentration camp, as described in
Chapter 7
.
v3.0
Table of Contents
Introduction: How Do You Prepare to See That?
Mere Death Was Not Bad Enough for the Nazis
Buchenwald: This Ain’t No Place I Wanna Be
Gardelegen: Even the Good Germans Had Blood on Their Hands
Bergen-Belsen: A Monstrous Spectacle Set to Music
I Start Crying and I Can’t Talk Anymore
Landsberg: The Kaufering Camps
They’re Killing Jews—Who Cares?
Gusen-Mauthausen: How Sadistic Can You Be?
You Are Still Individually and Collectively Responsible
After the War, and Long After the War
Acknowledgments
List of Interviewees
Bibliography
Illustration Credits