Report to Members of the 120^th Evacuation Hospital

Warren E. Priest

Meeting with Bea Kershenblatt: March 1, l999

Bea and I discussed over dinner and afterwards the exact letter that we intend to send out to potential supporters and contributors. It seems that the original letter was too imprecise, and that there needs to be a clear expectation of what it is we want to achieve in returning to Buchenwald, and what we expect each recipient of our letter to understand, and, most important, what each recipient might do to advance our project. We spoke about five reasons for wanting to returning to Buchenwald:

1. Each member of the unit was drawn into the service, and specifically the 120^th Evacuation Hospital from widely differing life circumstances. Some of us were students, some were already medically trained doctors or nurses. We met for the first time in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and began our basic training. We were trained in differing aspects of medicine, and sent overseas to answer a very special need. That need was recognized immediately as we entered Buchenwald, with its horrors, and immensely challenging medical tasks. We met those challenges, each one of us, and when we had completed our service in the army at Camp Polk, we returned to our homes and life challenges. After fifty years of relative silence about our army careers, we began to meet annually, the first reunion in Kansas City, Missouri, in l994. As we met, we began to sense that there was a bond that was more than individual friendships developing among us, and we planned for our next reunion in Portland, Oregon. Our bonding grew, from an initial individual remembrance, and personal association, to a building and maturing relationship to a relatuionship that has become the kind of “unit” that we never recognized before. That more msature relationship has grown with each of the succeeding reunions in Rhode Island, in Richmond, Virginia, and lastly in Tucson.Arizona There we decided, unanimously, to return to Buchenwald in 2000. I believe that our decision to return was based as much on our need to rediscover what we did there, how we worked together to meet the challenges as described by Percy Knauff in the Time Magazine article, and most important, what each individual did to contribute to the dramatic success that the 120^th achieved in lowering the death rate.

None of us had ever discussed with one another what we as individuals did in Buchenwald. Neither have we talked about our experiences with our friends or families. I believe there is a growing need to set the historical record straight, and to relate as much as we can of what we did as individuals in Buchenwald in April, l945. We can do this by talking among ourselves, but more important, what we learned at our Reunion in Richmond, reminded us that we were not working in isolation; that there were prisoners, survivors of the Holocaust who were there. In our Richmond reunion, we sat two to a table---two survivors and two members of the 120^th, and broke bread, and related our experiences we had in common. It was a deeply moving and inspirational experience for many of us, and one that we will never forget. We want to repeat that experience in Buchenwald, and if possible, meet there with some survivors, to join us in conversation, and have our collective memories recorded on tape for posterity.

2. We believe that our returning to Buchenwald in 2000 will carry a message, not just from ourselves, but from all of our country. As veterans of the Army of the United States, we want to remind the nations of the world that we were there fifty-seven years previously, to witness and to fight one of the worst human tragedies in the history of mankind. We were only a small part of that effort, but our specific challenge, to save as many lives as possible, was significant especially to those who survived. In a period of time when the world is looking back on the past century, and making the necessary resolutions for the needed changes in our century to come, the words of Santanaya come to mind: “Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them"

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” was 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, and that criminals are going free—Pol Pot, for example, who was living in luxury until his death in spite of the terrible record of his presidency in Cambodia. By sending the 120^th 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 put up with more Holocausts, anywhere in the world.

4. The year 2000 is important in another way, but in a way related to Buchenwald. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Weimar in the year 1800, and Weimer and the Goethe Institute will be celebrating the event as of world-wide significance. Goethe spent some of his summer months in the Schloss Ettersburg area, writing some of his greatest poetry, and working on his great epic, Faust. In that work, which consumed most of Goethe’s adult life, he includes his philosophy of life, the most significant appears in the final verses where he states “Gefuhl ist alles”---feeling is everything. Having made a compact with Satan agreeing to give hijm his sosul if Satana could bring him to that moment where he could say, “stay, thou art so beautiful---“Bleibe, du bist so schoen”. Goethe discovers that moment of happiness ---and without Satan’s assistance, after a lifetime of searching, by rescuing a community that has been inundated with flood-waters, and was poverty striken. Uising hids knowledge, he taught them how to make their village habitable, and that community service brought him the happiness he had been seeking fruitlessly all his life. That one can achieve happiness, even without the material help from Satan, is another message of significance for the world. The 120^th Evacuation Hospital., by its presence in Weimar, Germany in the year 2000 can carry another message from the United States to 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”, and what happened to human beings in that camp was the cruelest of ironies. I believe that the return of the 120^th 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. We affirm the philosophy of Goethe, that community service is vital to successful community success, and that feeling is paramount in human relationships.

5. 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”?

I believe that we are at another cross-roads in human history, when we must begin looking to ways we can “overcome our enemies” by making them our friends----in the manner of the non-violent approach of Martin Luther King, who followed the teachings of Gandhi’s non-violence, and “Conquest through Love”. By returning to Germany in 2000, the members of the 120^th Evacuation Hospital will give support to a new approach, to begin some of the healing process that still plagues many members of the Jewish Faith, and prevents them from speaking kindly about the German nation and the German people. There may still be some of the residue of Nazi-ism in Germany, but there is also some of that here in the United States, and in other parts of the world. Certainly, we here in the United States have made much progress in healing the terrible race relationships that have plagued our nation for over 150 years! But, we continue to work at it, and our progress is slow, but steady.

It is true that there are many in Germany today who deplore the actions of the Nazi’s, and we must be aware of that fact, and make them out friends and our allies in the efforts top block out the neo-nazi actions, wherever they occur. We can do so by joining in a massive educational effort, first reaching the young people of our countries, teaching them the truth of the Holocaust, and have them interact in educational and social experiences that will lead to a continually diminishing suspicion between our nations. If we can build this kind of innovative educational experience, we could set a pattern to be repeated in other areas where conflicts and suspicion between people of differing races or cultures have led to war and continuing tensions, such as in Palestine and Israel, North Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, India and Pakhistan, Bosnia and Serbia,, and many other areas of the world.

Report of conversation with David Robinson”

David was able to “break away” from his business practice on Tuesday evening, and spoke enthusiastically about the “Project 2000”. He expects to be fully involved in our efforts to get us back to Germany, and in order to do so, will assume the task of “treasurer, and accountant” of 120th donations as they come in. He will have a 501C-3 set up for us just after April 15 of this year, and we can then begin pushing for financial support around the country.

Further, the conversation with Rebecca Ketch-Bennett excited me by the possibility of the 120^th Website, what it can do for our unit, in reaching out to members and friends, but also by being a significant resource for those who are studying the Holocaust in schools all across the country. The set-up will cost nothing, and we can hook up with other websites, and even structure “hoop-ups” ourselves with those in our unit who have AOL. We all get 10 MB’s free, and can change, edit at will from time to time. The potential is enormous for us, especially for us at our age, as we get more restricted to our homes, and are unable to travel, as we see with so many of our unit already who cannot join us in reunions, or on trips to other places. Becky is a historian, has set up a website for her father’s unit of the 104^th, and wants to join us in Buchenwald in 2000! Great possibilities!

Model Letter to be sent to supporters and/or contributors to the “Buchenwald Project 2000”

Dear Fellow Americans:

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 120^th Evacuation was one of the units sent to Germany to provide medical assistance for the 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 120^th 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 120^th experience in Buchenwald so meaningful. We also believe that fuller account 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 indicated, 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 120^th 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 put up with more Holocausts, anywhere in the world.

4. The 120^th 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 120^th 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. We 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 regieme.

5. 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 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.

I believe that we are at another cross-roads in human history, when we must begin looking to ways we can “overcome our enemies” by making them our friends----in the manner of the non-violent approach of Martin Luther King, who followed the teachings of Gandhi’s non-violence, and “Conquest through Love”. By returning to Germany in 2000, the members of the 120^th Evacuation Hospital will give support to a new approach, to begin some of the healing process that still plagues many members of the Jewish Faith, and prevents them from speaking positively about the German nation and the German people. There may still be some of the residue of Nazi-ism in Germany, but there is also some of that here in the United States, and in other parts of the world. Certainly, we here in the United States have made much progress in healing the terrible race relationships that have plagued our nation for over 150 years! But, we continue to work at it, and our progress is slow, but steady. We must apply that same creative energy to healing the feelings that divid us as members of the human race, in all parts of the world. Now is the time to begin, in the threshhold of the new millenium, 2000.