Dear veterans, dear friends,

please excuse that I answer so late on your last e-mail. I was a little bit
busy concerning our preparation for the visit of veterans of 80th Infantry
Division in October in Weimar. The Project 120th Evac will be truly the next.
I am sorry, my English is not well to understand all of your letter.

I do not finished to contact all adresses which you sent my some times ago.
Some letters returned. Some of your buddies really wrote me. But, no many of
them have more material than you and Mr. Priest. After October I like to send
you a list of your buddies who answered.

In the next time I try to contact your other veterans of your unit too. It
will need some time. I think to be finish at the end of year.
But it will be all right, if one or more of your buddies and friends of your
unit like to plan to come to Buchenwald and Ettersburg in the next year  it
would be fine and easier for the project.

Mr. Priest, your message sounds fine. It make this project easier. But we
have to look for the right costs .
The memorial plaque need some preparation and welcome of officials. I wrote
you that we will meet many German and American officials at the ceremony of
the 80th ID in Weimar. I had the chance to speak about the PROJECT 2000 and
about the memorial. And it is the best and only chance in the next time. We
never find a better.

So I would like suggest you very much to write a letter to TO WHOM MAY
CONCERNS or TO OFFICIALS to write about the matter, finally about the
memorial plaque where  people of Weimar and area and some associations like
to help.
This letter would be a great help for our work.  Maybe it will be possible to
send it in next week and maybe you like to include Mr. Priest.
And maybe you can think about a possible inscription what you would prefer.

A other political background is that Americans sponsor a memorial to rmember
for the Small Camp in Buchenwald. The sponsors are survivors who are living
in U.S.A. Costs are $100.000,00. I would be a great idea at the same time to
remember for the American unit ( 120th Evac) who had done the best to help
and to bring medical and food supplies. The costs for a plaque would be
approximate 3.000,00 German Mark and with a right stone approximate 10.000,00
German Mark (I think so.).
The same officials who received the check will come to Weimar in October.

Dear Mr. Steffy, I know about your problems that Weimar citizens told never
had a knowledge about the camp. It was a lie. Fear or Shame. And it was not
right from the Germans. I am from the next generation who like to know the
hold truth about Holocaust, Concentration Camps about the war and about our
parents. The history have to be true. And we Germans have to learn from it.
The project with your unit is a right connection to Buchenwald. To remember
for the horror and the work of your unit. Let us do it together - for our
children and grandchildren.

Here is the Fall coming now. It is raining.

Yours truly, Bernd Schmidt, Weimar