A Letter from Buchenwald, 1945

By Israel Friedman

(The following letter was written in the closing days of the war by then Staff/Sergeant Israel Friedman to his family. They passed it on to “The Signaleer” a publication of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, where it was originally printed in 1945)

Dear Alice:

By the time your letter reached me, I had moved all the way across France and a good part of Germany. What changes will have taken place between today, in the midst of so many peace rumors, and the day you get this letter?

Enclosed you will find an account of our last assignment…an experience that without doubt was the most terrible I ever encountered---or expect to. From now on, anything we may meet, even if it proves to be actually worse, will not seem nearly so. There’s nothing I can add to what you have undoubtedly read of the things that took place at Buchenwald except to say that they’re true, because I saw them. However, can you imagine how I felt voluntarily entering a concentration camp? We were parked a little below the camp, and that morning many of the boys were doubting all the atrocity stories, despite the fact that the liberated prisoners had been wandering in among us, anxious to tell us of their experiences and to thank us for having saved them. We walked up that afternoon to see for ourselves.

The civilians joined us, and in my broken German, I discovered that they were prisoners now engaged in searching out SS men who were hiding in civilian garb. A little more broken German, and it turned out that they had fought in the Spanish Civil War, and had been turned over to the Gestapo by the French at the end of the war. They took us through the camp, explaining and showing us all the barbarisms the Nazis had concocted for their victims. We were present at the Crematory as the AMG (Allied Military Government) paraded the civilian population of Weimar before the piles of bodies, and showed them the fruits of Hitler’s civilization. The Germans are constantly protesting that they knew nothing of these goings-on, but the expressions on their faces showed no shock or surprise at what they saw. It seemed to me that most of them must be thinking that we had perpetrated all that, and blamed it on them. Margaret Bourke-White took pictures, and I’m almost sure that her story will place the emphasis on just that….

You know the horrors that were found at Buchenwald. By this time you’ve read all the stories of the piles of bodies found outside the crematory; you’ve seen the pictures of the heaps of bones; you’ve heard the commentators describe the remains found at Buchenwald, in the furnaces, and tell of the lampshades made of human skin. They’re all true. But how can words and pictures alone properly convey the suffering that existed? Can they show the 800 children living in terror of the SS men who used them as toys and sources of amusement? Can they actually show you how 1,200 men lived in one-room barracks, six men sleeping in a cubicle that was no more than four feet wide, two feet high, and six feet deep? Can they show you how, day after day, exhausted bodies were found dead all over the place, even after we arrived? How many of them kept alive was the great miracle of the place.

51,000 people, perhaps more, died here. Did I say died? Not exactly…. They were burned to death here, they were hanged to death here, they were mischievously shot to death here. Many, many thousands were kept at the threshold of death, suffering illness, hunger and acute torture until dying was a welcome thing.

Day and night the smoke could be seen rising from the chimneys of the crematory, and the fuel used was not always dead. There were two entrances to the basement. One was by the stairs from the furnace room. The other was through a trap-door from the outside. It was through this entrance that the victims were most often dropped to be hung on the hooks that lined the basement wall. Sometimes they arrived after being shot through the back of the neck. The living, if there were any, were hung up for a few minutes, probably so that life could run out more easily. If they still clung to what was left of life, they were cut down and they were beaten with clubs. Then they were chucked into an elevator, which hoisted them to the upper room, where six large human-sized furnaces waited to receive them.

Buchenwald was a political camp. Here were sent---until the Allied armies began squeezing Germany from both sides---only Hitler’s political enemies, the Communists, the Catholic Centrists, the Socialists, the trade-unionists, and any others who dared raise voice or pen in opposition.

Thus, the prisoners of the camp included Germany’s foremost writers, scientists and artists who had not managed to escape to the democratic countries…. Each one, as he arrived, no doubt looked about for means of escape. It didn’t take long to discover the impossibility, and so they settled down to preserve themselves and wait for help to come.

They organized themselves into a highly integrated underground government, and ran their society under the noses of the SS watchmen. There were many committees and sub-committees, based on previous political affiliation and residence, but it had only one great purpose: anti-fascism.

They maintained themselves by subterfuge, by cunning, by ruthlessness and by infinite precaution. No member knew more than two others—the one he received his instructions from, and the one to whom he passed them on. Their members were in every camp department, and even in the SS itself. They practiced the “one for all and all for one” precept, and helped each other in their work and shared the few comforts they managed to obtain while out on transport or by raiding camp supplies. Each newcomer was immediately “investigated” by someone from his own vicinity to discover his sympathies and the possibility of his being a spy; but they were quickly discovered and disposed of. It was common to discover that a plant (spy) had tripped while coming down the stairs and broken his neck. The legitimate newcomer was welcomed into their society, and only two basic things were required of him: that he do his share of the common work and that he keep clean. They were firm on this point, and it was significant that Buchenwald had a good health record until the influx of prisoners from other camps….

We went through the beautiful laboratory set up by the Nazis to make the serum that was to keep the German soldier from catching the typhus that is so prevalent in Europe. The laboratory was operated by a Polish prisoner scientist. He was ably assisted in his work by two Frenchmen, one of them from the famous Pasteur Institute. “Not one c.c of valid serum was sent out of our laboratory to the German army.” he said, adding that it was customary to throw in a few virulent bugs for good measure. It seemed incredible that they could get away with it under the noses of the German doctors. After all, German science was not to be belittled: “ The laboratory in under the control of the SS doctors. The SS doctor comes from an SS medical school where they are long on military matters and short on medical. He is OK on ordinary medicine, but doesn’t know very much about the more intricate aspects, and rather than admit that he knows nothing, he approves all our work.”

We could understand that. But weren’t there older, better trained doctors who could detect the fraud? “Yes, they could, and probably did. But who were there bold enough to question anything the SS did? They produced two batches of serum, one for the army and one for the camp. It was significant that until the influx of new prisoners there had been no typhus cases at Buchenwald.”

In every way the prisoners tried to keep their mental and physical faculties alive. How well they succeeded may be judged by the fact that they assembled several guns over a period of years, made plans for the day of liberation, and for the days to follow, and studied. When the first American tanks were spotted entering a nearby town, the prisoners attacked from the rear, and captured both the camp and the SS troops firing upon our tanks.

Within a few days, flags of all nations were flying over the barracks housing the people of those nations, and pictures of their leaders and slogans appeared on the walls.

How these people maintained themselves in all the horror that was Buchenwald is truly a miracle. Despite the fact that they were victims of Hitler’s regime, their program also accepts for themselves Germany’s guilt, and they are prepared to undertake the obligation placed upon them by the Allied Nations.

It is important to remember that Buchenwald was only one of Hitler’s many horror resorts. Those that have since been liberated, and those still to be liberated, will prove to be worse in every respect. But in them, we may hope to find the people on whom Germany’s future will depend.

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