WARREN WOLF
Cordova, Illinois
LETTER
This note is in
reply to your article in the QC Times concerning liberators of the Holocaust.
My friend Warren Wolfe was one
of the very first
to go into Dachau. He was an MP during the war and at Dachau; it was his job to
protect the place so that
Nazis couldn't
destroy the evidence. I told him about your project and he said I could give out
his name and that he would be
willing to talk to
you about his experiences. What you're doing is a great idea. Good luck
with this project.
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INTERVIEW
Q: How were
you involved in the War? What were you doing in Europe?
A: I worked with
the Army here. Then I was with the Military Police attached to several
individuals. I was with Patton's Third
Army, etc.. I
landed in France 35 days after D-Day, and then proceeded with Patton's Army. I
was with an Infantry Division
when we entered
the camps. I live in Cordova now. I'm originally from
Q: How did you
experience the Holocaust?
A: I was at
Dachau and Buchenwald. The troops were told little purposely. They weren't
told where they were going, so if they
were captured they
didn't know anything. We got to Dachau, and they were still burning bodies. We
saw dead German
soldiers. I'm
glad we didn't see who shot them or we would have had to arrest the GIs. I saw
the ring fingers of the Germans
were gone. There
were several piles of clothes. They continued to burn bodies when we got
there. There were several
hundred bodies
there still. I saw only one female body, but I knew women were gassed as well.
I saw the train and the dead
bodies. What got
me was the shape of the bodies...they were just skin and bone. Ex-prisoners
were all around.
We were flagged
down by a prisoner at one time. He got in the jeep and he told where an SS
soldier was in town. We just
missed him...he
had just left his bed.
In Germany we put
up information stations where we posted photos of Dachau. I stood and listened
to the comments as
people looked at
the photographs. Most of the people said they didn't believe what they saw.
They believed they were
mannequins. That
demonstrates the depths that human beings can sink to. Here's a guy , nice
house, nice family in town, and
he goes to work
and kills people. It's almost unbelievable! I can see why Germans deny it
happened!
Q: Were you at
any other camps?
A: No. The
purpose of us being there was to see that nothing was disturbed. Delegates of
the U.S. Congress toured the
place later. They
wanted to see the camp as it was and to see that evidence was not destroyed.
There was no attempt to do
so. Lots of
guards were dead.
Q: In terms of
war criminals, escorting them to trials, what was involved?
A: We didn't
speak the language. We were told not to get friendly with the soldiers. I
didn't do it, but others were given rifles
and bayonets and
acted like they were going to kill them, to get information from them. Officers
who escorted them to the war
trials had no
contact with the prisoners. One time, I was in Salzburg...it took a day to get
there and back transporting
prisoners...were
were in a jeep and we got lost. The German officer we were transporting helped
us find the town. We weren't
aware he could
understand us. I don't know how many were involved in the trials.
Q: Do you
wonder how they could be involved in this and then go home?
A: I don't know
if they were just obeying orders. I don't know the specific crimes they were
involved in.
Q: When you
went back to your unit, how did you describe things to your own comrades? How
did they react?
A: They went to
see for themselves. They couldn't believe it. They saw the cattle cars. They
were just 21 years old. They just
couldn't believe
it. They'd just say that any officer with an SS uniform would kill his own
mother. He was the worst person on
earth. He only
cared for himself. He'd fight to the end.
Q: Think about
people like me, who were born long after the war was over. What message do you
as GIs who did
what you did
want to leave with me and people younger than me?
A: Number one,
You've got to have faith in God that sooner or later all will work out. And,
number two, you've got to be
prepared. You've
got to teach our young people about the Holocaust, as a example of what can
happen. The Holocaust can
be the result of
prejudice. We've got to teach our kids not to be prejudiced. It's very
important to teach them not to be
prejudiced...most
starts in the home.
