Day 104 - The smell of burning flesh around Weimer!!

''The world was well satisfied that justice had been done at the "Nuremburg Trials".  Personally, I lost respect for the process of justice after the Trials! It seemed to me that the money distributed was of most benefit to many of the most affluent victims!  


All I can say is that, "I have been in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.  My files have resided in Bonn, Brussels and The Pentagon and who knows where else!  Whitehall and maybe Moscow but the best place is nowhere!"


Antonio ánd I now descended into the forest and walked towards the old quarry and the open plain.  At the bottom of the hill we came across a funny haystack!  To me, it stuck out like a thorn in the middle of a field and on the wind we smelt petrol fumes and human flesh.  No doubt, the S.S. had been around at work, who else!!!


I looked at the haystack again and said to Antonio, "It seems to be a set-up, probably an ambush -  let's get out of here quickly before we get fried".  It was too early in the year for a haystack and also the flat facade on the front was facing the road towards us.  Besides all that I also felt like someone was starring and watching us!  Once behind the walls of a building we made a safe getaway.  Who wants to get shot at the last minute when the hostilities are over!


When we got back to what had been, Buchenwald concentration camp,  Elmer came to see us.  He announced that he had a mission arranged with the Commandent and that everything was in order for him to take us and start a report.  Antonio was a good hand at typing and I had all the information on Auschwitz and the extra's!


To be continued ...

Day 103 - Reality after being in Buchenwald!

Ëlmer now told us to stay close by and be available to complete a report.  In the meantime, we had a thorough walk around the camp and scrutinized everything very carefully!


Firstly, we came across two funny fellows throwing combat knives into a board.  They were standing at the bottom of where a watchtower had once stood and were very near to where I had once stood eating Beech nuts which was also close to where the S.A.S. had been shot!


We were unarmed as we had been asked to surrender all weapons to the new Camp Commandent from the U.S.A.  I said to Antonio,  "I think those two are former S.S. and it is better if we make a hasty retreat as they are not Americans at all"!  They hardly spoke to us!


Later on the British did find the S.S. member Koch, former Commandent of Buchenwald.  Apparently, he was hiding and disguised in a prisoner of war camp!  Ilse, Koch's wife was found to be pregnant and given amnesty.


So much for that!  No doubt, they were living it up somewhere after the war!  The leniency of our judicial system and courts have become our downfall and maybe what I don't know yet????!!!!!


We cannot change thinking; we certainly have not found a cure for the wrong doings of people all over the world!  To me, we seemed to have developed a kind of upside down psychology.


No matter how many books are written!


There is not, as far as I know, any real proof or truth in any of the new philosophies in relation to psychology.  This new "science" is certainly in a favored position in relation to acceptability and having the opportunity, at this moment in time, to do a lot of writing and analysis on the subject!


Until we can change our primitive minds and construction of our brains or psychological makeup - I cannot see how we can do anything about it at all. 


This is my theory on the subject based on  conclusions I have made after what I saw in Aushwitz and Buchenwald as well as from my other life experiences.  It is the only thing that seems to have any reality for me the rest is all humbug!!!


To be continued ..

Day 102 - Continuation of the Buchenwald tour!

Disturbing content!!!


"There was a perfectly manufactured lift or elevator in good working condition which carried the executed ones up to the ovens and it had three powerful furnaces.  Everything worked so smoothly most of the time, without many interruptions.


The skull smashing mallet was laying nearby where they had dropped it.  Some evidence, for the victims, some of whom would have been partly alive after the prolonged slow suffocation on the strapping clamps or hooks - a last order would be given if there were kicking stupors!


There was the whipping block, the ashes and partly burned bones and bodies everywhere!  Unearthing a mass grave near the Bismarck Tower was enough evidence as to what happened to the transports which never got off...........!!!!!


All these places were opened and even Germans were made to have a good look and do the digging back in or carrying the corpses'.


I never saw Janeck and many others again, only Antonio, his Dad and Jose Dewever and a few others.  I figured that 1,200 to 1,600 of my transport had vanished as only two hundred had survived!!"


You can think that it was about the same for the other transports.  The health of the few who survived, like myself, left much to be desired.  A good many of the survivors died shortly after being liberated, others were handicapped and invalided.


We weren't given too much food when we first arrived, weaned like babies I should say, food was another hazard for our delapidated bodies.  Some people were worse off than others of course.


Elmer Luchterhand, Antonio, myself and another prisoner had our photo taken at the gate of the watchtower with "Yedem das Seine",
for Walter Poller's book called, "Medical Block Buchenwald".


We stood there like two bookends, with Antonio and Elmer hiding behind the two in front.  Walter Poller had been a former German inmate of Buchenwald and he was one of the first people back in the camp after liberation.




To be continued ....

Day 101 - The Control Commission!

"Before liberation, Antonia and I had once been assigned for commando work in the environs of some aristocratic type people.


The French President and his wife were staying in a villa retreat in our environs.  I do not know what happened to them or the other Russian aristocrats who were in the area, they just went back like us I suppose!


We had to show an American Sergeant around who was in charge of the "Control Commission".  His name was Elmer Luchterhand and he became a proper friend, S/Sgt. H.Q.Co., Inf. E.T.O. U.S.A. Army.


While going around the camp we all looked into the oven which now held the charred remnants of what had once been people!


We also saw the horrible little hobby of Ilse Koch, the wife of the Commandent, and also the shrunken heads.  Diverse masks representing the different races - looking like partly shrunken heads staring at you from the wall.


One in particular, took my attention and I recognized it, it was of a tall Cameronian I had seen in Fort du-Ha or Caserne Boudet.


Different dissected human parts were preserved in jars for multiple experiments, it was there for all the believers and non believers alike to gaze at!


It still should be there to look at but I heard lately that evidence is gradually disappearing!  Madam Tussards  had nothing on this, it was the real thing and a mind boggling experience for us all!


The hooks in the crematoriums were all covered up, about fifty of them, freshly cemented in, all the evidence destroyed on the surface!


We then proceeded to another crematorium between here and the kitchen, with bigger foundations which was under construction.  They had, indeed, great plans for the thousand years Reich, ambitious, continuous and of a lasting kind!


To be continued ...

Day 100 - Skeletons moving around at Buchenwald!!

"When I looked at our squadron and their weapons it was an impressive crowd and a Farewell to Arms.  Luckily, except for a few skirmishes most of the battle was over now. 


Later we found out that when released, those big grenades, with their sticky ends moved by a strong spring more often than not exploded with a big rush!  The operator was supposed to sit in a fox hole and then pop up and manage the grenade!  They were a forerunner to the bazooka.


Now, some of the Germans went straight back to their old homes, weapons and all were taken.  Nothing was heard, everything was under control and orderly.  Big sprees of revenge didn't occur beyond what one would normally expect in such circumstances.  Talks with the townspeople took place on a grand scale.


The only news that was of any importance to us now was discovered by the Americans.  Apparently, before liberation an S.S. platoon had been on its way to burn us out with flame throwers and with a scissor grip!! was intercepted just in time! The intention had been to trap us inside and then set fire to every block with their hellish flame throwers.


If they had started with the flame throwers we would have been ready with our few weapons.  After suffering at the hands of our cruel captors for so long, many of us, would have tremendously welcomed a battle.


Instead, we were told food would come first and that first aid would be made available and that everybody would receive relief at the same time.  Lastly, we were informed that, after scrutiny, we would be given proper identity papers and eventually repatriated.


Delegations from the Red Cross and others now arrived at the camp which was laid open for general public inspection.  Nobody could understand the evidence bared to their eyes!  It was beyond normal reasoning and moral decency!


The skeletons of dying people were still moving around for everybody to see.  The mass graves were opened up and the yard at the crematorium was made available for everybody to see the pile of the dead who were still there!  The sites people now had to witness were incomprehensible to most.............................!"


To be continued ......












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Day 99 - The LIberation of Buchenwald!

The following is from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Web Site.


The Liberation of Buchenwald
As Soviet forces swept through Poland, the Germans evacuated thousands of concentration camp prisoners from German-occupied areas under threat. After long, brutal marches, more than 10,000 weak and exhausted prisoners from Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen, most of them Jews, arrived in Buchenwald in January 1945.
In early April 1945, as US forces approached the camp, the Germans began to evacuate some 28,000 prisoners from the main camp and an additional several thousand prisoners from the subcamps of Buchenwald. About a third of these prisoners died from exhaustion en route or shortly after arrival, or were shot by the SS. The underground resistance organization in Buchenwald, whose members held key administrative posts in the camp, saved many lives. They obstructed Nazi orders and delayed the evacuation.
On April 11, 1945, in expectation of liberation, starved and emaciated prisoners stormed the watchtowers, seizing control of the camp. Later that afternoon, US forces entered Buchenwald. Soldiers from the 6th Armored Division, part of the Third Army, found more than 21,000 people in the camp. Between July 1937 and April 1945, the SS imprisoned some 250,000 persons from all countries of Europe in Buchenwald. Exact mortality figures for the Buchenwald site can only be estimated, as camp authorities never registered a significant number of the prisoners. The SS murdered at least 56,000 male prisoners in the Buchenwald camp system, some 11,000 of them Jews.

---

I still have about another 10 or 20 blogs to do before I finish my Dad's memoir and then I am probably going to add his manuscript on the war in Zimbabwe - we lived there too during the terrorist war!

I also have another blog that I have been running parallel to this called: Buchenwald's Belgian Daughter - it is at www.laurafynaut.blogspot.ca or .com!

Day 98 - The U.S. 6th!! Army was on the way!

"'The remnants of a small rebellion of Danish Police, started in Copenhagen, were dying like flies.  They were unused to the severe hardships and the extreme conditions which the rest of us had gradually adapted to while in Buchenwald."

At the last minute, Red Cross packets  had been sent for them.  As much as possible, these packages had been divided and distributed to everybody, on an international basis.  So, the chances for all turned out to be more or less equal!  

I had an advantage because of one of my former commandos in which I had access to the animal food from the pig's trough.  This  had help supplement my diet and the meager supply of food.  

All that we could do now was sit and wait for the last orders.  We were ready for action.  The tension was growing!  At last, on April 11th, we heard the tanks crawling up the hill.  Also, flying overhead that morning and clearly visible we had seen spotter planes.

The U.S. Sixth Army was on it's way!Not sure if is was the Sixth or the 8th - there may have been a typo when originally typed!!

The watchtowers gradually turning their machine guns on the advancing army and assault troops - who were coming steadily and stealthily up with the tanks.

When they were near enough and the sporadic firing had started that was the moment we had all waited for.  At a quick tempo and on a signal, every block stormed out and was organized by the already prepared Commanders.

I had Commander Blum of Brussels as my leader:  "You and you, there you go".  No doubt or shaking of your heads was tolerated.  He now told the slackers to stay behind - speaking directly to a lawyer!

It was four o'clock in the afternoon.  The ones that didn't go for the fighting had to pass the arms to us.  White flags were put up in the blocks to avoid confusion and mistakes by the fighting forces.

I was given two German stick grenades and told how to use them, putting them in my belt.  Knives, pistols and a few rifles - that's all we had!  Now, everybody can observe why we hadn't broken out before - what we had was negligible!

While the Americans were battling in front we charged like mad bulls at the fence.  It only took a few grenades to get a gap in the fence and cut the electricity flow. 

From our positions, we were now throwing grenades into the watchtowers.  In a hurry, we then had to make for the S.S. arsenals -  that's where the weapons were; in no time we were armed from head to toe, a formidable little army to account to.

The die hard S.S. were killed where we found them, no chance was taken, in their fox holes.  In all, we took two hundred prisoners by ourselves, which was not a bad show.  We were able to hand them over to the Americans almost intact! Here and there an individual bit the dust of course, that was understood.  

I found my tormentor from my beating incident! Dead already, in a fox hole, fighting until the end.  He had chosen his own way out and not otherwise!

During the past day, President Roosevelt had died and we made a last farewell ceremony in arms, as a solemn tribute to him and what it all stood for, the final victory!"

To be continued .....