The unit initially set up a buffet-style food line for the prisoners in one of the former SS barracks. Hontas, a surgical technician, recalled. The medics spent roughly two days setting up a hospital in abandoned SS barracks, where conditions were initially wretched and unsanitary.
They discarded the furniture, rugs, bedding, and drapery, scrubbed the tile floors and walls, and brought in new army cots and blankets scrounged from U. Liberated inmates strong enough to work assisted the Americans.
The soldiers of the th then surveyed the camp to begin the job of gathering and moving those who needed medical attention away from their squalid quarters and into a clean hospital. Hill wrote in a letter to his wife.
You can imagine the odor. Some of the surviving prisoners were children. About inmates were below the age of 18 and had been housed in one overcrowded barracks amid deplorable conditions. Tec 5 Warren E. Priest, a German translator and medic, received orders to check their building and make sure no one was left. He ducked inside and was nearly overcome by the powerful stench of decay and rot. Miller, who took this image. Army Signal Corps. He held his breath and briskly walked along the rows of rickety beds, past piles of debris and detritus, hoping to sweep through the vile building as quickly as possible.
He reached the end, saw nothing, and turned to go back to the entrance. Just then, he noticed a slight movement amid a pile of clothing in one of the beds. His first thought was that a rat had found an appropriate home within the filth. No sooner had this thought flashed through his mind than he heard a whimper.
He picked up a stick and poked the pile to investigate. Astounded, he gently pulled her from the bed, wrapped her in his field jacket, took her in his arms, and rushed from the barracks.
She was unbelievably light, so much so that he kept glancing down to make sure he was still holding her. She whimpered again and then he heard nothing. The young girl had died in his arms.
Deeply moved, saddened beyond description, defeated and discouraged, he laid her little body down. She made such an impression on him that he gave her the name Angela, to indicate that she was an angel in the middle of hell. In a few instances, they steam-deloused the clothes and returned them. More often they simply burned the filthy rags and scoured surrounding areas and nearby army supply depots for pajamas and other appropriate clothing. Most of the soldiers were so alarmed at the condition of their patients, they struggled to find words to describe them.
We were sort of horrified. Mason Jr. Disturbed by the plight of so many people near death, Lieutenant John O. There were leg ulcers, bed sores, and wounds that were not healing. George S. Patton's 3rd Army, was deployed in Weimar and first saw Buchenwald survivors a few days after the liberation. They just looked awful," said Harmon of Seattle, who turns 90 Sunday. Patton was so disgusted that he ordered residents of nearby Weimar to march the few miles up the hill to see what had been going on so close nearby.
Facebook Twitter Email. Survivors, veterans recall Buchenwald 70 years later. Sources: Hackett, David. Translator The Buchenwald Report. CO: Westview Press, Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library.
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