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World War II Soldiers Who Liberated Nazi Death Camps Meet at Holocaust
Museum

   Jerome Socolovsky | Washington 16 April 2010

   More  than  100  former  U.S.  soldiers who liberated Nazi death camps
   during World War II were honored this week in Washington. The veterans
   recalled the horrors they witnessed 65 years ago when they encountered
   the victims of the Holocaust.
   The  flags  of their war-time divisions lined the U.S. Capitol rotunda
   for  the  ceremony  to  honor the old soldiers. And Army General David
   Petraeus  paid them a tribute. "Just as the horrors of the death camps
   will  never  be forgotten, neither will your courage, selflessness, or
   compassion," he said.
   These men are known as "The Liberators."

   They  were among the first witnesses of one of the greatest horrors of
   the  20th  century  --  the  concentration  camps  where more than six
   million Jews were systematically slaughtered.
   Much  of  what they did is commemorated at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
   Museum in Washington. They toured the museum before the ceremony.
   George  Sherman  is  now  84 years old. He was in the U.S. Army's 11th
   Armored  Division.  In  May 1945, his squadron left Linz in Austria on
   its  way  east.  "Within  a  kilometer or two of leaving we started to
   smell  an  odor  which  we couldn't identify which was really strong,"
   Sherman said.
   Sherman was in a reconnaissance unit.
   So  he  and his buddies followed the stench and found scenes that were
   similar to those found elsewhere in Nazi-controlled Europe.
   There were prisoners wandering all over.
   "But  inside  the  gates  there  were  just  piles of bodies," Sherman
   explained. "Stacked up and mainly people coming out of what turned out
   to  be  their barracks, in the worst physical conditions, skeletons, a
   lot of the things they were wearing were just rags."
   The soldiers of his division were welcomed as heroes at the Mauthausen
   concentration camp.
   "There's  the  patch of the 11th Armored Division," he said. Sherman's
   wife  Marcia  accompanied  him on the museum tour. She says it brought
   back  memories he's never talked about before.  "The ovens were still
   hot,  because the Germans, they're methodical," he added. "Right up to
   the  last  minute. You'd think they would try to get away and whatnot.
   No,  right  up  to the last minute they were trying to kill as many as
   they could kill."
   What angers Sherman now is when people try to deny the Holocaust. "How
   they  can  in  the  face  of all the evidence, that has been carefully
   documented   and   authenticated,   how   they  can  deny  this,  it's
   unbelievable," he said.
   The Holocaust museum documents the genocide -- and the testimony -- of
   the aging survivors..
   Steve Barry is 85 years old.
   He  was  on a train crammed with prisoners and still remembers the day
   he  saw  his  American  liberators.  "I  don't think the word has been
   invented yet, of how I felt," Barry said.
   He  says  he owes those liberators his life. But one he met disagreed.
   "And  he  said, 'You know, you don't owe me or us anything. This whole
   world  owes  you  everything, because what they took away from you, no
   one can give back to you anymore," Barry said.
   But the liberators did get something here in Washington. Gen. Petreaus
   honored  each  with  a  medal. "Did you get a coin? Ok, you're good to
   go!"
   The  aging vets could still stand proud once more for what they fought
   for - 65 years ago.
   

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