Liberation is a compilation of the speeches made by many of the people involved in the first conference of its kind dealing with this topic. Charged with establishing a United States memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, The Chairman of the Committee on International Relations for the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Miles Lerman, organized and presided over a reunion of people from the various categories you see above. Lerman writes, in the Foreword to Liberation:
They were battle-weary veterans of fierce military campaigns – the Normandy Invasion, the Battle of the Bulge, Stalingrad, and Kursk – soldiers who were hardened in battle and thought they had seen everything, and were beyond shock. Then they entered man’s worst Hell.
Some had quietly told friends and relatives what they saw there. They always searched for words to describe their impression. Others, knowing the difficulty of the task, kept the witness in silence, refusing to speak the unspeakable, unable to convey what they saw (vii).
Robert H. Abzug writes a worthy Introduction to this book, providing the backdrop for the conference. Abzug gives a very concise history of the Shoah (from its beginnings toward the events that led to its end), then writes of some of his impressions of the conference, including memorable testimonies he heard, statements that stand out in his mind or epitomize some of the emotional and/or moral scars left unhealed even after (at that point) some 35 years. Abzug recounts an episode involving three notable American generals, Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton, who toured the Ohrdruf concentration camp (a subcamp of Buchenwald) a week after it was liberated by the Allies. He writes:
…Patton almost immediately became physically ill and slipped behind a barracks to vomit. Bradley and Eisenhower doggedly submitted themselves to the full tour, and left the camp angry and shaken. Ike ordered all soldiers in the area not in combat to see Ohrdruf. “We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for,” he declared at the time. “Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting against.” Soon after he cabled London and Washington, urging both governments to send officials and newsmen to become unimpeachable witnesses to the atrocities (5).
Liberation, after the introductory texts, is really the minutes of the conference. Each chapter shown above from the table of contents page has a cover sheet that identifies the excerpted testimonies of the conference speakers and then presents in whole or in part their speech to the attendees. In some cases speakers allude to the words of previous speakers, in other cases they look toward those who would follow them on the dais. The style of each speaker is thus preserved, and the reader can sense the overall mood at the time of the presentation. From the diversity of the presenters, the reader can obtain a nice cross-section of the experiences of those who were present as the gift of freedom was returned to those lucky enough to have survived.
This book is a very good resource for first-person testimony. If your students need work with reading personal histories, this is a worthwhile text for which to expose them. See below for a lesson plan that will get students involved in forming a large picture from various “puzzle pieces”. Overall, the testimonies are short reading, which makes this a wonderful resource to supplement other materials you might present through lecture or visual media.
PASSAGE/QUOTE FOR CLASSROOM USAGE
If I am only going to have a short time to use “extra” resources in our discussion of liberation, I will use the testimonies of American Douglas Kelling (31-33), who was the division psychiatrist of the 45th Infantry Division and 42nd Rainbow Infantry Division and was present at the liberation of Dachau, and of Alan Rose (34-35), who was a sergeant in the 7th Armored Division of the British Army, and who was present at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. I will simply read these passages aloud and we will discuss them in the context of other discussions/lectures we’ve had, or film we’ve watched.
When I cover survivors, I will return to this book and read the testimony of Anthony F. Van Velsen (149-150), a Christian prisoner who survived Auschwitz. His testimony tends to perk up the ears of my students, as he is not in the typical target groups we study, which gives us a new avenue for our dialogue.
RATIONALE FOR USAGE/UNIT RELEVANCE
Teachers should use this book at any time during a discussion of the liberation of the camps; within can be found numerous testimonies from the soldiers and medical personnel, the media and other eyewitnesses who were present. Survivor testimony concerning the moment of freedom is also abundant.
CLASSROOM METHOD OF USAGE
At times I choose a few of the testimonies to read aloud to my students, and then we have discussion on them. I also, when time permits, use selections from this text as a way to get students to use information to piece together a larger picture. See below for the exact assignment, which can be done on an individual or cooperative learning basis.
STUDY QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION GUIDE
For the following assignment I have chosen Dachau as the subject. I’ve chosen it for no other reasons than it was the first concentration camp built by the Nazis, and there is a fair amount of material about it in this text. You might note that some of the other major or well-known camps are also mentioned extensively – Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Majdanek, Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, and Treblinka, as well as the Warsaw Ghetto. Here is the task for your students:
Dachau: A Nazi concentration camp in southern Germany. Erected in 1933, this was the first Nazi concentration camp. It was used mainly to incarcerate German political prisoners until 1938, whereupon large numbers of Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and other supposed enemies of the state and anti-social elements were sent as well. Nazi doctors and scientists used many prisoners at Dachau as guinea pigs for pseudo-medical experiments. During the war construction began on a gas chamber, but it never became operational. Dachau was liberated by American troops in April 1945 (from the glossary, page 206).
Dachau is the subject of the testimonies of Douglas Kelling (liberator, psychiatrist – Dr. Kelling spoke twice at the conference, as part of the eyewitnesses to liberation and then again in his medical role – pages 31-33, 61-62), William Quinn (intelligence officer for US 7th Army – pages 33-34), George Tievsky (MASH unit – 66th Field Hospital – pages 62-65), and Rabbi Judah Nadich (US Army Chaplain – pages 96-98).
Using the experiences of these four men, who approached Dachau from varied purposes and backgrounds, construct what the camp might have been like, either before or right at the time of liberation. In groups of 3-4 students, make Venn diagrams or flow charts that show the differences and/or commonalities of these men’s observations. General note taking should take place first so that you can better organize your final project. See the example below:
Questions:
- What statements do these men make that are supportive of each other’s testimony?
- What statements do you find unique to one man’s testimony that you thought was important enough that the others should have mentioned it, too? Why do you think the speaker exclusively mentioned it? Was his experience in the camp the only one of its kind?
- Generally, we have read testimony from one person as an example of a certain type of individual who came into Dachau upon or shortly after its liberation. How do you think any of these testimonies could have differed were we to read the thoughts of another psychiatrist (perhaps a Jew), or from a Christian chaplain? What factors can you think of that might influence another person’s interpretation of these events?
- Why is it important to read these accounts? Do you feel their significance will increase or lessen in the next 25 years? After the death of all of those involved, do you think the Holocaust will be able to still stand against the deniers and revisionists? Why or why not?