Bill Sykes' - In Retrospect
XVIII.
(May 2009)
Bill
Sykes looks back in retrospect at material which has
been published in previous editions of "View from
America", in an attempt to determine whether the
subject matter written then is still applicable in
today’s world.
Article #18D (May 2009)
Nuremberg to Buchenwald Concentration
Camp.
Forgive me as I appear to have veered
away from the intended story as to how I survived
and finally got to Nuremberg and then on to the concentration
camp at Buchenwald.
After my departure from the wooded area I found myself in the small
town of Wermsdorf and I spend a few days with a German family before being
picked up by an American patrol and transported to an American hospital
in Nuremberg.
During my stay at the hospital, (shortly after the 11th of April 1945), I
happened to meet up with an American army sergeant who had a jeep, and he had
just heard of the relief of a concentration camp at Buchenwald and
was looking for an individual to travel with him to the camp.
Being in a somewhat emaciated state myself, and still suffering from malnutrition
and dysentery, I figured that maybe I would fit right in and so I decided to
travel with the Sergeant.
Alas how wrong could I be, as when we arrived at Buchenwald
I saw for myself the terrible atrocities that had been
committed against the prisoners in there, and I witnessed
the piles of bodies lying
around where one could not distinguish the living from
the dead.
What a terrible mental shock it was for me to see the
conditions of what once had been human beings which
were now just skin and bone skeletons piled one on
top of another. I also remember the stench, the smoke,
and the people who were still barely alive wandering
around in a sort of mental daze.
I don't know whether
it was a good thing for me to drag back those memories
from the past of what I saw that very day so many years ago, as on
rare occasion such as now I still get mental flashbacks and see pictures of abject
horror which still remain hidden within my aging memory banks, and I suppose that
they will remain hidden there in the far reaches of my mind until
the day that I die.
Oh yes the Holocaust did happen - no matter who denies
the fact!
Research.
After writing this article I decided that after my
very short visit to Buchenwald that I really did not
know very much about the whole story and history of
the concentration camp and so I did a little research
and came up with a more definitive article on the web
which comes under the name of Geoff Walden.
The article can be found on the web at http://thirdreichruins.com/buchenwald.htm
This article obviously gives a much more detailed description
of Buchenwald than I can remember,
and includes photographs - many
of which I assume were taken quite some time after
the camp was released in April of 1945.
Please remember that the material and the photographs
in the article are copyright - therefore
I have not reproduce them in this newsletter.
Disclaimer:
Some of the information gathered for this news letter
has been gleaned from American and International
media sources, (Including the Internet), and as such
is quoted as accurately as possible. I try to obtain
confirmation on each subject from several outlets,
so the text is a mixture of composite news items
and my personal comments and therefore the reader
must make his/her own judgment as to the reliability
and degree of accuracy of the subjects discussed.
Eric (Bill) Sykes, (Southern California).
May 2009.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents
of these articles. Please send all correspondence
to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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