GERMANY: World War II veterans take part in Dachau memorial as part of Battlefield Remembrance tour

Record ID: 1538833

  • Title: GERMANY: World War II veterans take part in Dachau memorial as part of Battlefield Remembrance tour
  • Date: 13th May 2007
  • Summary: WREATH WITH RIBBON SAYING "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" VARIOUS OF VETERANS ARRIVING FOR MEMORIAL CEREMONY/ BELLS TOLLING VARIOUS OF VETERANS AT MEMORIAL CEREMONY VETERAN WIPING HIS EYES
  • Embargoed: 29th May 2007 13:47
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVAE1J5TS2XP5KASQTMQDT29T4Q
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: A U.S. organisation is providing World War II veterans with the opportunity to revisit the sites where they fought during the Second World War and take part in memorial services there. Several hundred people took part in the memorial ceremony for the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp on Sunday (May 13). They laid flowers and took part in a special religious service in memory of those who lost their lives in the Nazi camp.
    American soldiers liberated the concentration camp on April 29 1945. Among them was George Bullene, a doctor in the 42nd infantry division of the US Army at the time.
    He says he remembers the sign on the gate reading 'Arbeit macht frei' (work makes free), but that otherwise it was very different to how he had seen the concentration camp. "It was a lot different, there were a lot of railcars with bodies and this sort of thing."
    Bullene was with a group of U.S. Army veterans who are travelling around Europe as part of a programme which offers U.S. Army veterans the chance to revisit the sites where they fought in peace-time.
    The Greatest Generations Foundation (TGGF) say that fewer and fewer veterans are alive today, and that in this way they want to show some appreciation to these "Greatest Generations" for risking their lives to fight for peace.
    More than six decades later Bullene said it was still distressing to remember the war. "I am rather emotionally disturbed still. I have many pictures at home that depict this as it was then, and I have feelings that it was a horrible, horrible thing to have ever been allowed to happen."
    The organisation calls the tour "Battlefield Remembrance". They fund the visit for the veterans through donations, and take them to various sites around Europe. In this way they hope they can help to make sure that these episodes of history do not get forgotten as the numbers of survivors diminish.
    Cy Mermelstein also knows the horrors which his comrade George talks of. He was part of the first and only joint U.S.-Canadian unit, the First Special Force. While he was seeing Dachau for the first time, he had seen the concentration camp at Buchenwald at first hand, and says it is hard for the following generations to imagine what had really happened in these camps, which were now memorials.
    "I did go into Buchenwald in 1945 on April 13th to 14th, that was two or three days after the camp was liberated. The horrors I saw I cannot forget," he said.
    Buchenwald and other camps were based on Dachau, which had originally been a camp for political prisoners. In the 12 years of its existence 200,000 people were imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, more than 43,000 of them died. At the time of its liberation, over 67,000 prisoners were in the camp.
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