you have on the table at the time. so i'd say a real openness as a leader is going to help you with the unknowns because you're to have to take a lot of advice. you got to do a lot of thinking and you can't do it yourself. you're not smart. i know. you're all very smart. i got that. but but on these big problems you're going to be dealing with you need of help so be very open to other ideas and be very agile in your thinking. don't walk into some something you learn somewhere is that's our standard. we're going keep that standard up. that standard may not be appropriate for the the problem at hand. so you've got to be a lot more flexible and how you look at things, especially as you get get more senior. all right, ladies and gentlemen, given us answers. thankit's been a fast morning ba

productive one. earlier we heard from survivors of some of the most difficult and challenging periods in our history. as we heard from the spitz's and many. mandel. now we're going to hear from the liberators. can you imagine most of us have seen photos of concentration camps, death camps. can you imagine being 17 years old and coming up on something that about which you had no idea. so we welcome back to the stage. colonel patrick. thank you very much. and this panel on the liberators. thanks very much, greg. i'd like to read something upfront. and this is in stephen ambrose's

book about citizen soldiers and the conversation he had with world war two veterans when he was writing this book? and one of the veterans says this, imagine this in the spring of 1945, around the world, the sight of a 12 man squad of teenage boys, armed in uniform. it brought terror to people's hearts, whether it was a red army squad and, berlin, leipzig or warsaw or a german squad in highland holland or a japanese squad in manila, seoul, beijing that squad met rape, pillage, looting wanton destruction, senseless killing. but was an exception. a squad of g.i.s. a sight that brought the bigger smiles. bigger smiles. you ever saw in people's lips. and georgia.

their hearts around the world. this was true even in germany, even after september 1945. in japan, this is because g.i. meant candy cigarets sea rations and freedom. america had sent the best of our young men around the world not to conquer, but to liberate. not to terrorize, but to help. this is a great moment in our history. i would tell you that the men up here on this station, on this stand represent those young men were liberating people all over the world. i've got quite a task here 32 minutes to get all these folks to tell their story and. we're going to try to do that. and i'd like to start with bud goss here. bud. when did you join the army? were you drafted or did you get

drafted? drafted in 18. and where were you at that time? in baltimore. i was working in a aircraft plant martins. and i putting in the the in front of the in front of the tail of the 26. which is very interested in to me, always interested in airplanes. and i for sure, when i got in the army, fly. and so they put you with the rainbow division. i say, no, no. they put me with the horse cavalry. how does that work? it didn't work. and and so they put me maybe it was because of me. it didn't work. but anyway, we we got into the mechanized cavalry. eventually it got into the infantry. so and then in a tank company. okay.

and you pretty well fight your way up. went from marseilles the way up. yeah. into germany. yeah. well, let's talk about a day you were sent north of and you ran into all that. what was that about? we were at that car and we got there. maybe an hour or two later than the first troops. so we didn't have anything to do. so they sent they decided to conquer and my truck was, i drove a 50 caliber hour, drove them a 57 millimeter. paul, 57, made me go guns. so they decided our secret was speed. the faster we get someplace, the better off. so they decided real quick, send us in to munich and conquer munich.

so was put as the second driver. second truck after to go in and conquer munich with a lot of other truck. they were on back to me. you know that. well, this this is the end because you can't do that too easily. but we drove right in and parked in front of the right where nazis from started. when did you encounter the concentration camps that. just before that. well, just before that. what was your it was your. it's nine miles north of meaning. what was your reaction to them. oh, horrible horror. we didn't know anything about it, but. just to see those people that were there were they weren't people you in in ghosts and. we smell course fresh the smell

there all the time. so it was it was pretty even though we had seen a lot that kind of things, you know, a lot of death by that time, it was it was horrible. thank you, bill this one, did you go into the military into the army? i of 1944, five days later, after i got. out of high school. and what units were you with? i took basic training in texas. and then i was in assigned to that permanently to the 89th infantry division, 30, 54th measurement anti-tank tank company, and did you go to go europe? when does when did go to europe? when did you go into europe?

did you arrive okay. we i had basic training, but i had to retrain on the 57 millimeter and tank got me a gun that was used in a company. the division went to boston and sailed for europe. january of 1945. okay. and where was it that you encountered a labor? i'm sorry. where it that you encountered a slave labor camp during the war. okay. it was in april the fourth that the camp was liberated. i was not there at that time and i didn't witness the whole kail. but our patrol on day passed by

the mass grave which was outside the camp of orders and that it was a. estimated 3500 naked scale auto bodies in a big open pit. this rat ran numbly throw it on top of each other. at the time we saw that it must have been a couple of days the liberation and there was a detail of soldiers to a number of germans who were digging six foot deep graves. last time i was showing into pit the individual bodies for reburial and you can't imagine a more terrible job because when they grab hold of a the rotting

flesh would off the bones and. i can't imagine anything horrible than doing that. i understand that you've run people who who are denied that if it happened. when i that they denied it even that the holocaust even happened. what do you say to these people? i think at this stupid. that there's so much evidence the holocaust really happened. general eisenhower came to order of on april 12th and he and general bradley and, general patton and. oh, good blood and guts. patton was the only who got sick and his still i guess what saw and ordered that everything about the camp be fell and photographed and so that in his

words some day somebody is going to say holocaust never happened and this proves that it did. thank you bill. david as we we 84th division. correct? yes. 170 days in combat. i never counted. marched across the netherlands, germany. you fought and not in the netherlands? no. oh, and we were in the netherlands, on the border with germany and then we went into germany. yes. and you experienced the battle of the bulge. oh, yes. how cold it, david. oh, it's to tell you, the snow, the wind, the cold. oh, there were germans there,

too. it was cold? very cold. and you crossed the rhine. yes. and where did you discover or you in this discover labor camps? yes. a labor camp was called oslo near hanover. we were chasing the germans. they were running and we were chasing. and as we came there was an odor in the air which stronger as you went forward until we hit the gates of camp. i'll tell you. it was a hell of a sight. we opened up the gates for them. there was some lying on the ground sick, some were dead, others walking. and the one thing i remember to this day and i'll never forget, we opened up the gates. and one man walked out and

dropped dead. somebody said, well, he was free. i said, this is not the way to be free to walk free and drop dead. after he went through what he went through. that's not freedom that me. and it still does. i. it's important to know you were jewish. yes. oh and they were lucky if there was any germans soldier there. he was dead. believe me, i never shot a german face to face that i couldn't do. and then we didn't. we didn't. prisoners that in my outfit. anyway, others were a little more liberal about that. but we never shot. but this time i would have. were you aware the camps? no, not until we hit this camp. we did. we have any idea that these existed? okay. thank you, herbert. yes, sir.

but you were. you were during the war. what age was. what unit were you? 7/40 tank battalion. and what was your responsibility? well, i started out as a tank crewman assault gun platoon, and one of the fellows that i had to replace came back from the hospital, and he had trained with the unit in the arizona desert at fort knox, kentucky. so he asked if he could get back on the same again, and they said yes, sure. and so they had me at the. the sad part of it was i said, where would you like to go? and i said, well, our home, actually, but i knew that was hopeless. so they said, well, we're going to put you in communications. thank god they did, because i stayed in communication for another 22 years and i was glad. have was your brother serving with you?

is that what i understand? no, no. brother along in the 80 seconds. but you were around to also discovering dacko. can you explain? no, no, i didn't discover it. well, i. i was with the 82nd airborne and the eighth infantry division when they when they discovered the war blind concentration camp was right outside of the town of ludwig's lost and they asked us because we had tanks and, half trucks to lock down of the fences that had because the 80 seconds they had no heavy duty to do so. we just got in and pushed the fences over and we saw what had happened and what was happening there. and of course, we we realized

that were supposed to be bad, but we didn't didn't know that they were going to be that bad. and so we decided, well, when this thing's over, we want to check. well, about. so anyway, we proceeded on to the to the baltic and help the british up there. why we they couldn't figure it out till later on. but anyway, that was my first discovery of of a camp i didn't see dakhil until about a week after the war. and the reason being is because when the war ended on may 8th, we were sent back south through the frankfurt area and the order came down from eisenhower that anybody any troop commander that could release their troops weekends or whatever, even two or three days, send them to the nearest concentration camp and let see why they were going through this.

and so they sent down to dongo and my first mistake was i walked in to the four ovens they had there for burning bodies. and there was still some bones of bodies in in the ovens and i noticed that the floor was all like bricks and the material between the bricks kind of a gray white color stuff. and i didn't think much of that, but they got around and back to the ovens. i found out that this white stuff that was in between ovens was, yes, a stack about this high had been scraped of the ovens. and i broke down. but it's too difficult to talk about. sure. but there i realized i had been talking, walking on god knows how many bodies that had been burned up.

and it really got to me and stayed with me for years until about four years ago. i finally quit dreaming about when i would wake up in middle of the night, not smell dead, and i'd smell the camp smells and a check under my arms like i'd had a shower. but how did that smell get into my bedroom? and as soon as i woke up, the smell was. but it was mighty scary for a long time. thank. thank you. thank you very much. yeah. uh, jack, when did you enlist and i enlisted in when i was 17. i enlisted. in the army. of course, that what. in the army with? yeah, with what? you. what you eventually to wounded that as gp program.

we should push the government killed whoever would be canceled until about two months later because of kasserine pass problem. florida is a more young man to go and fight. so i was in that group and trained in fort jackson, south carolina went over to europe. for in the star, which was very, very bloody, bloody. the battle of the bulge, three, three line. right. and that was we got murdered on the right. right river. they dodged my notes telling me that there was the battle of hill 360 was a pretty bad action that you were involved with. yeah. yeah, they were they were all they were all there. and what one gentleman said about eisenhower or the troops to come and look at at the camp, at buchenwald, eisenhower or that all the people in the surrounding communities come

through. i was gonna ask you about, the germans were they came through and one of the one of the community, the berger meister and his wife came through. and after seeing the mess that they had, they were and hung themselves, both of them, they just couldn't stand. the shame of it, i guess. but the germans vacated buchenwald the eve day one. they could hear that. they could hear the american tanks coming, and they knew that it wasn't time to get. so they because they knew if if our troops came in and saw the mess that germans couldn't cover, they were burned. those german soldiers right there. i was sure of that. so so real took off and i was in buchenwald, nine months ago today when and i was there of 77, eight months ago, 79 years ago. this this time i met a lady

named ursula. i forgot her life, and she was a citizen of the area there. and ursula was 102 and she wanted me because she and i are the only two in our group that were together. eight years ago in the buchenwald. so we had a recent nice visit and she told me the morning that our came over the hill for the first time. she said it was just such a thrill to see these. she was not a prisoner in the camp. she worked as a nurse just nearby. anyway, so ursula got out and went down the road toward the main road where. the tanks were going to come in and comes the tanks and. ursula, standing in the middle of the road, is and she wouldn't get out of the way. and so the tank commander on out and came up to her, she said, you know, we've come to liberate the camp. why are here? and she said, i'm just going to

work work anyway. terrible mess. they the germans even murdered of the some of the inmates in the camp that night. that evening, the tank, because these are some people that could testify against these guards. what tell a war crimes case or could case so. many. it was an awful mess it was a terrible mess. how how the people are in surrounding area. we didn't know what was going on with all the smell. it was kind of how we places and i saw some pictures of how they were they herded the the people into the showers just just killed the hub anybody can be just inhuman another human being is a mystery to me thank jack

very tragic. thank harry. is it true you enlisted when you were 15 years old? no, i'm helberg. huh. hilbert. hilbert? yeah. maybe i'm backwards here. that's exactly what i am. i'm sorry. hilbert. that was me. that you were listed. you were 15 years old. i'm sorry. apologize. there's still fuel. grad student. okay, so you were with your brother in the war? yeah. okay. tell me about you and your brother being in the war. well i was the ellis of identical twin boys and early morning, april 29th, 1945, we were next military target was munich, germany, and it was very

that sunday morning and we saw a roadside. the largest sign said the word ha, which meant the village, this city of how germany and they had other signs. one was pointing towards, which is munich. and we knew that. and we were nine, eight, nine miles north of munich, germany and we got orders to pull over on the right side of the road set up our howitzer guns. we were in direct support of the 2/22 infantry, which burgas was a member of, and one of our jeep drivers came over and said it, must be on everybody's fellow. a smelled a very strong. and one of our jeep drivers came by said there must be a chemical factory on the left side of the road through the woods.

so my twin brother came over to me and he said no, the odor him of when we were children, our mother would go to a meet market and buy a freshly killed chicken. those days. you had to buy the whole chicken. take it home, hold her over the gas flame of the stove in the kitchen to burn off any remaining feathers and. so doing it would burn some of the skin, the fat of the chicken. he that's what the odor reminds him of. so i asked my gun, sergeant, for howard not to go and determine the source of this very strong odor. he said, okay, go ahead. don't stay long. we don't know how long we're going to stay right in this position for. we had munich, so we went through woods. the first thing we saw was a large open area, a lot of railroad. we crawled between two boxcars

and to our right was five or six boxcar cars with the sliding doors were open, each boxcar was loaded with deceased prisoners. we saw some other soldiers going through there. a two story building close by. they went through gate. we followed them, which turned out to be the dark. our concentration camp, which we knew very little about, we inside a large area and were a lot of barracks, buildings other buildings. we later learned at the time that there were 2000 prisoners in the barracks building. we didn't see any of them because we know at the time, the previous arrangements were made to peacefully surrender the camp about which occurred about 230

that afternoon but we didn't understand what we were seeing because we saw a lot of stacks, different places of deceased bodies, had no clothes on. what where we're all naked. and it was like a hollywood movie set. and we later learned that the reason why these bodies were stacked like cordwood. and these different areas was some months earlier. the germans run out of coal, no coal. they could not operate the ovens. so that's why that was a situation i understand you do a lot of public speaking on this one. i understand you do a lot of public speaking, yes. what do you tell people? what's your your message? well, when i do public speaking, i have pictures that were taken later that by a at a tank that

was ordered to return, he was halfway to munich his tank, was ordered to stop, go back to the dachau, concentration camp plan on spending the night there. i spoke to him some years ago on long distance telephone he was in kansas and he told me he got there about 430 that afternoon. by that time we were well on our way to munich and he said he had an official army camera with plenty of film and he took a lot of pictures starting about o'clock that afternoon. and i asked him what, he sent me some of the pictures, which he did. and those some of those especially showing the boxcars and some of the deceased bodies bodies. and i use those pictures to show

in my presentations. well, thanks very much. i appreciate you doing this and i'm sure the people that you speak will appreciate it as well. i think we all understand when we talked about individual camps that the germans had over a thousand camps all across europe and you hear about these larger camps but you know they were they were literally everywhere at the end of the war i think we're got time for some questions now. i'm sure. that some people have some questions. let's take raise your hand please if you have a question near the front. because identify yourself for. i'm good at mayor clark from, the virginia women's institute for leadership, aef, rotc detachment 880. my question for today is after witnessing everything after

seeing casualties. wahab and to your perspective of humanity and, how did you keep your resolve. i guess the question is having seen all this that each one of you saw, how could you keep your your feeling of humanity and effect it had on you afterwards? is that fair? that question repeated over here, too, after all of this, how do you how is your sense of humanity how is your sense of humanity affected? how would how do you how do you feel about that? is it anger? is it sorrow is it. well, one, we first saw the the mass graves. we were all mad as hell and we didn't treat captured germans

very civilly some it's reported that some some who in some frozen prisoners were captured and they always opened up their clothes to look at their left arm because the ss soldiers had blood tattooed in that spot and in some some reports they didn't join the live prisoners of war. but it made us really mad at the soldiers and very wary of the germans civilians who lived through that. thank you. i we were so hard. and by that time that we were

kind of like different people. it saw that many times. it is it's you want to become a combat soldiers. it's a different you're a different person and it's it's i only can say it different. sure. and what else can you say. you know, i think we had not seen so much death before, came to the camps. the camps were tremendous impression on us. but we've living with death every day and seeing seeing so many young american boys that we've just more conditions, a greater magnitude of of of that. and i hope that as time by who will, don't let our impressions

of the camp that this guy was. let's keep it'll keep you members alive and then remember people and. the time for one more question. yeah but. i'm in our mid year to see cadet from lake braddock and i was wondering what did it feel when you got to go home? the question is, did it feel like when you got to go. i could tell you, all right. very. i couldn't care less. i wanted to stay over there. i did. i stayed till july of of 48. and i was real happy it because i enjoyed all the fruits, our labor and the little black cigarets. so i didn't smoke and i was just 16 years old when the war ended. and so i was being the whole

time and i wasn't 17 until two months after the war. and so well, what what were i messed up you harry here. there's a three time war veteran it in world war two it was in korea and it was in vietnam. so when. i'm a slowly, slow learner. well, as a gentleman, i know it's been a very eye opening experience during these gentlemen speak today. so let's get this will for. the music heroes of our. thank you all very, very much. we are are. not envious. i would not want to have gone th