The Testimony
April 11, 1945. We didn't know what it was. The Third Army had been moving fast, and we were just following the tanks. Someone said it was a POW camp, but it wasn't like any POW camp I'd ever heard of.
The smell hit us half a mile away. I thought it was chemical weapons. When we got closer, I could see the buildings but I couldn't understand the people. They were skeletons. Not thin—skeletons with skin. Some of them were walking. I don't know how.
A man came up to me. He had stripes on his clothes, like pajamas. He touched my rifle like he was checking if I was real. He started crying. Then I noticed he was younger than me, maybe twenty. He looked sixty.
We found the crematorium. The furnaces were still warm. There were bodies stacked outside like firewood. Some of them were children. I vomited until there was nothing left in my stomach.
The prisoners told us things. Experiments. Beatings. The hanging hooks in the stone quarry. I stopped listening. I had to.
I gave a man my chocolate bar. He ate it and died. His body couldn't handle food anymore. I didn't give anyone food after that, just water.
That night I wrote to my mother. I told her I was fine. I didn't tell her anything else. I never told anyone until 1998, when my grandson asked about my medals. I still dream about the hanging hooks.
[PFC Aalund served with the 6th Armored Division. His testimony was recorded by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995. He received no decorations for Buchenwald—his division was not awarded any unit citations for the liberation.]
The smell hit us half a mile away. I thought it was chemical weapons. When we got closer, I could see the buildings but I couldn't understand the people. They were skeletons. Not thin—skeletons with skin. Some of them were walking. I don't know how.
A man came up to me. He had stripes on his clothes, like pajamas. He touched my rifle like he was checking if I was real. He started crying. Then I noticed he was younger than me, maybe twenty. He looked sixty.
We found the crematorium. The furnaces were still warm. There were bodies stacked outside like firewood. Some of them were children. I vomited until there was nothing left in my stomach.
The prisoners told us things. Experiments. Beatings. The hanging hooks in the stone quarry. I stopped listening. I had to.
I gave a man my chocolate bar. He ate it and died. His body couldn't handle food anymore. I didn't give anyone food after that, just water.
That night I wrote to my mother. I told her I was fine. I didn't tell her anything else. I never told anyone until 1998, when my grandson asked about my medals. I still dream about the hanging hooks.
[PFC Aalund served with the 6th Armored Division. His testimony was recorded by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995. He received no decorations for Buchenwald—his division was not awarded any unit citations for the liberation.]