To the people of the United States:

Fifty five years ago, you sent millions of American men and women to wage war against the worst evil that humanity had ever faced in modern times. We fought and won that war against the Nazi’s and their worldwide allies. In gaining the peace, we established a United Nations, and signed the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in 1947. Thereafter, the war criminals were tried in an International Court and convicted

in Nurnberg, Germany, where many paid the ultimate price for their evil “crimes against humanity”.

In the fifty years since 1947, there have been no further efforts to punish or control an ever growing use of “genocide” to control and subjugate human populations.

The 120th Evacuation was one of the units sent to Germany to provide medical assistance for our combat troops. Our lives changed dramatically. when we were assigned to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in April, l945. We faced challenges that we never expected, and beyond human comprehension, at times. Now, fifty-five years later, we have begun to examine our experiences in Buchenwald, and have made a decision

to return to the site of Buchenwald in the year 2000. We want to do so for basically five reasons. Members of the 120th have differing views and interests, but the five reasons listed include the concerns expressed by those interested in returning.

1. We want to meet in the Buchenwald site because we have never talked about our individual experiences with one another, or with members of our families. Our recent experiences in Richmond, where we met and shared a table with survivors was a moving and inspirational experience. By recording our individual experiences with prisoners, and recording them , we will have a much fuller account of what actually made the 120th experience in Buchenwald so meaningful. We also believe that a account of our individual experiences in Buchenwald will send a message of the importance of “hope” in restoring those near death to the living.

2. We want to return to Buchenwald because the world has not heeded the message of Santayana: “Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the lessons of history”. The moral lesson of the Holocaust has been ignored by a world too indifferent to the human disaster that was perpetrated there. Consequently, that disaster has been repeated again and again in differing parts of the world in recent years. We want to indicate, by our presence as a unit of the United States Army, that genocide must be held accountable b y the nations of the world, and if necessary by force.

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3. The scenes and events of the Holocaust were obvious to the world in l945, and so, in 1947, the “Universal Declarations of Human Rights” was passed in the San Francisco Convention. Based on those principles, the Nurnberg Trials in 1947 prosecuted the Nazis who had perpetrated the crimes against humanity, and were punished for those crimes. Between 1947 and 1997, not another person involved in ‘crimes against humanity” has been prosecuted, in spite of the growing number of crimes in all parts of the world. Recent events in Bosnia, in Africa, and now in Kosovo demonstrate, over and over again, that there is too much indifference on the part of world leaders to crimes against humanity. By sending the 120th Evacuation Hospital back to Germany at the turn of the millenium, the United States will be saying again what must be state continually---that we as a nation will not tolerate more Holocausts, anywhere in the world.

4. The 120th Evacuation Hospital., by its presence in Weimar, Germany in the year 2000 can carry another message from the people of the United States to the people of Germany. and to the people of the world. In 1945, two philosophies were in conflict in a location, at the site of the Buchenwald Concentration camp, on which is located the oak tree under which Goethe wrote some of his poetry. His philosophy that “feeling is everything” was in the sharpest contradiction to the Nazi philosophy of “race”. What happened to human beings in that camp was the cruelest of ironies. I believe that the return of the 120th Evacuation Hospital to that location in 2000, along with some survivors, will make another statement from the people of the United States of great importance. By our presence as American veterans, we will affirm the philosophy of Goethe, that community service is vital to successful community success, and that feeling is paramount in human relationships.We want to share in the tribute to Goethe, and to reaffirm our commitment to the message ignored in Germany during the Nazi regime.

5. America’s historical role toward its enemies in the past century has been to defeat its enemies, and then make them friends. This kind of national behavior goes back to our Civil War, and to our great President at the time. President Lincoln, when he was speaking sympathetically with the widow of a Confederate soldier, was confronted by another woman who chided him for speaking kindly to the widow. She said, “Mr. President, how could you treat your enemy so well—how could you be kind to her”? Mr. Lincoln replied, “Madam, when I have made my enemy my friend, have I not defeated my enemy”? We would like to carry that message of President Lincoln to Germany, and begin individually to create a healing process through the creation of a world-wide internet connection, accessible to all people, in all countries, and especially to children in our schools around the world.