163256: A Memoir of Resistance

Chapter Six. Liberation

50 at the beginning of april 1945, everything changed. the first hint we got was that one night, without any explanation, we were not taken to work our regular shift at the factory. The next morning, all the German guards had disappeared from the camp, and in their place were Hungarian guards. The German guards had fled because they knew that when the Allied troops arrived, the Germans would be held responsible for the deplorable conditions and horrific events in the camp. All the prisoners were kept inside the camp.We no longer went into the mountain to work. Rumours were flying around that there were liberating troops nearby. We could hear bombs exploding and machine gun fire that sounded not far off. And then it was over. The Hungarian guards surrounding the camp put white flags on their rifles and the first Allied troops walked into the concentration camp to liberate us. I was free after more than three years in captivity . The date was April 13, 1945. I have often been asked how it felt when I first realized that we were finally being liberated from the terror and the torture that we had lived with for so long. My first feeling was disbelief. I could hardly believe that it was really over.When the reality sank in, the disbelief was followed by a strange sensation that I can best describe as feeling like a flat tire after all the air pressure had been drained out of it. The one feeling I never had was jubilation because I had a strong feeling that I was the only survivor in my family. I knew that my wife, my parents, my sisters, and my nephew could CHAPTER SIX Liberation not possibly have survived the Nazi’s senseless, brutal, and deliberate destruction of human life. When the first Allied soldiers marched into the camp, I thought that they were English because by then my eyes were so badly infected that I could barely see anything. I couldn’t even see my liberators. Forty-seven years later, in May 1992, I found out that the liberating troops were Americans : the 3rd Armored Division, 140th Infantry.According to Rabbi Gunther Plaut, who was with the U.S. troops, those soldiers could not believe their eyes. Nothing had prepared them for what they saw—skeletons everywhere , some of whom could still move a little and some of whom could walk. The soldiers started to hand out tinned food.We did not have any can openers, but we attacked the tins with spoons and any other tool that we could find. Handing out the food like that was actually a big mistake, because quite a few of us started to eat whatever was inside of the tins, ham, corned beef, or beans, including the fat. But our weakened bodies could not digest such rich food. Many of the prisoners got terrible cramps and some died from eating too much, too soon. I ate whatever I could get my hands on, but fortunately, I mostly ate bread. As soon as possible, the American commander started trying to sort out the survivors. He gathered as much information as he could and then grouped us together according to what country we came from. There were 102 Dutch survivors in the Dora camp. The commander decided to transport those of us who were in the worst physical shape back to Holland on army trucks. Since I was one of the skeletons who could still walk, I was allowed to sit up front beside the driver. I must have been quite a sight. I weighed all of eighty-five pounds (thirty-nine kilograms) and wore welder’s glasses. After several hours on the road, our driver decided to stop at a farm house to see if there was any food there. He came out with a small ceramic bowl that he handed to me and said, “Wet your fingers in your mouth, stick them in the bowl, and then lick your fingers.” The bowl was full of sugar. It tasted delicious! Then I felt something else inside the bowl. I took it out and saw that it was a wristwatch. I showed it to the driver and said in my best English,“I’ll make you a deal.You keep the watch and I’ll keep Liberation 51 the sugar.” At that moment, the sugar was worth much...