All language subtitles for 16.Photographs.at.Ohrdruf.2013.1080p.AMZN.WEBRip.DDP.2.0.H.265.-iVy

[projector reel clicking]

[upbeat classic music]

[ominous music]

- [Voiceover] We
couldn't believe

man's inhumanity to man.

It just...

It just shocked us.

Literally shocked
us to the point.

We couldn't believe what we saw.

- [Voiceover] At
two in the morning

on Christmas Eve of
1995, my sister and I

opened this trunk and
took out an envelope.

Inside was a small
stack of photographs

that our grandfather had taken

while he was at war.

The only light we had
came from a small lamp

left over from my
uncle's childhood.

Earlier that day our
grandmother had threatened

to destroy the pictures.

Slowly and quietly
we laid them out

on the top of the trunk
and I used the last roll

of film in my camera
to make copies.

I could barely look at them.

They were so gruesome and sad.

Sixteen years have
passed since then,

but I now have a reason
to print those negatives.

As a teenager I saw the
horror in the pictures,

but I never thought about
the man who took them,

the young soldier
behind the view finder

snapping the shutter.

My grandfather may be dead,

but his pictures tell a
story of his time at war.

It's a story of mass murder.

Of a Holocaust and a liberation.

It's a story of silence.

And once I tried to
understand the photos

I realized that it was
the story of hundreds,

even thousands of
others like me.

The chaos of World
War II was much more

than I could ever
hope to understand,

but I have these 16
pictures and for me

they're the key to
unlocking a family secret

that's only ever been
told in whispers.

[somber music]

- [Voiceover] Tucked
into the mountains

of Vermont is the tiny
town of East Dorset.

The marble quarry here
is the oldest in America

and it's the home
of Bill Wilson,

founder of
Alcoholic's Anonymous.

It's the kind of town where
everyone knows each other

and where Memorial
Day is celebrated

with flags and motorcycles
and church services.

On Pleasant Street is the
house my grandfather built

on a plot carved
out of the woodlands

where my great grandfather
once tapped for maple syrup.

This is where my mom grew up

and we've come to
try to untangle

the story of the photos.

- [Voiceover] Do you
remember Don talking

about the war very much?

- Not much, no.

I do know he would say he
was General Patton's driver

and I knew he had been
in concentration camps,

but he didn't talk about it.

- [Voiceover] We
talked for a while

about family history, but
eventually I have to ask

about the photos that I
shouldn't even know exist.

- [Voiceover] How did
you feel when I told you

that Martha and I had
made copies of them?

- Well, by the time I
knew that I was glad

because I knew my mother
wanted to get rid of them

and I don't feel they
should be gotten rid of.

- [Voiceover] I guess
everything starts there.

[instrumental Christmas music]

- [Voiceover] In
the winter of '95

I was studying
photography in Boston.

I'm not sure why, but when
I left town for Christmas

I only had one roll
of film with me.

I took a few pictures
on my way out of town

and the rest of the
roll is very different.

Those copies I made of my
grandfather's pictures.

This is the room where I've
slept since I was a kid.

It had been my uncle's bedroom

and later my grandpa's office.

My sister Martha, was with me

the night I made the
copies of the photos

and as I stand in this room

I wonder if she remembers
things the way I do.

- [Voiceover] Not
really, I mean I remember

what my mom talked about it

a few months ago, I remember
her talking about you

finding all these
pictures of grandpa

and you know, that he
saw in the Holocaust

that they took pictures of.

I don't remember it as a kid.

I remember our dad
talking about it.

I remember, you know, grandma

but she never talked about it.

I don't think she
liked to think about it

so she didn't want
them around probably.

- [Voiceover] I've
often thought about

how I first heard of
the Ohrdruf photos.

Don was always very
silent about the war,

but there were clues
to what he had seen.

I was the oldest grandkid,

but I was only 14 when he died.

He only mentioned
his pictures once

while we were stacking
wood in the barn.

So this is what I know
after all these years.

No one really remembers
why we felt compelled

to copy the photos,

to save them from
some vague threat

from my grandmother, but we did.

Now all I'm left with
are my own memories,

which are confusing
and incomplete.

[instrumental hymn music]

My grandmother has
played the organ

in her church every Sunday
since Eisenhower was President.

She lives a life of discipline

and unbending principle.

In her home there is
no sugar, no salt,

no caffeine, no alcohol.

Recently my grandmother
has been giving away

Don's books and papers,

and I worry that she's
gave away his pictures too.

I wanna ask her about them,

but she keeps putting me off,

so I follow her
around with my camera

hoping she'll tell
me where they are.

So my first question is

when did you meet
your husband Don?

Eventually she
agrees to sit down

for an interview.

Her memory has faded and
she doesn't say much.

I'm not sure if she's
scared of the cameras

or if she really can't remember,

but it looks like I'm gonna
have to wait a little longer

before I can ask her where
the pictures have gone.

- I think they were very
typical boys, kinda rowdy.

Preacher's kids, you know?

So they had to be
bad because they

were the preacher's kids.

- [Voiceover] Is that the
rule, you have to be bad?

- Yeah, you have to
like rebel against

being the preacher's kids.

My Uncle Warren was the oldest,

and then there was Uncle Bob,

and then my dad
was the youngest,

and they were all about
two-and-a-half years apart.

- [Voiceover] Like
many families,

we keep our history in snapshots

and half remembered
stories so we start looking

through old photos,
piecing together the life

of Donald Johnson.

- I think my dad came back

and he had a very
successful job.

He became a banker and,

You know, he made a good living.

He was able to build a
nice house and everything

and I think my Uncle Warren
had a more difficult time

maybe getting jobs.

The other thing was
he was the oldest

and my dad was the youngest,

so it's possible he had
some of the sibling rivalry,

unconscious probably, of
the older and the younger

and actually the younger
probably being more successful.

- [Voiceover] The Don I
remember was an old man,

a grandpa, but the pictures
tell another story.

How do you explain a full life?

Here was a man who
fought in the war

and came home to start over.

He built his own house
and had a good job.

He was a father and a husband.

Raising two kids in a
conservative, but loving home.

He served in the
National Guard from 1957

until retiring as a
Captain in the '80s.

Does any of that
really get to the heart

of who he was?

So which one is which?

- This is Warren, and this
is Bob, and this is Don.

1939.

- [Voiceover] Which one is you?

- Me.

- [Voiceover] The smaller one.

- [Voiceover] Wow.

Nice mustaches.

[laughing]

That seems like a
lot to get through.

- Holocaust.

- [Man] Now that,

if you wouldn't mind
holding onto that

for just a second.

That is what...

So could you...

- [laughing] My report cards

when I was little.
- [Man] Your report cards?

Well, here, why don't we open up

the one that says Holocaust?

- Order right here.

David Thum.

I never saw these.

He never showed 'em to me.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, I don't wanna...

- [Voiceover] What I wanna
know is what this is.

These are the originals.

It says pictures
taken at Ohrdruf.

First death camp
overrun, April 1945.

Then picture one
is of the lyme pit.

Picture two...

- He never showed me these.

- [Voiceover] He never showed

you those?
- [Voiceover] No, no.

- [Voiceover] Then he
never talked about it,

but this is a list
of the pictures.

So these are survivors.

I don't...

They have numbers on them.

So one is a lyme pit,

and two is clothing,

and this is three.

So he'd labeled them all.

Three.

Oh, that's gross.

This is, it's a...

It was used to
incinerate the bodies.

Oh.

I'm just reading the
rest of this list,

doesn't look very pleasant,

but these, so these are the,

so these are the pictures
that grandpa took.

[ominous music]

And he never showed them to you?

- No.

- I'm sorry to have to dig up

all this old stuff.

- I don't like it.

- [Voiceover] That night
after my grandmother

has gone to bed, we start
looking through Don's books

for pages that he
might have marked

and clues he might
have left behind.

We decide to take
out his pictures

and look them over
one more time.

- I can't imagine
bein' 20 years old

and walkin' into this.

[peaceful instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] Of the
few things that I can

remember about Don

it's his work on
the Ambulance Corp

that stands out the most.

He was always
running off to answer

an emergency call
and to this day

my grandmother leaves
the police scanner on

in the living room
even though the EMS

has gone digital and the
scanner is now silent.

- He went on the Ambulance
Corp after he retired.

I won't say he was always
easy to get along with,

so I have a feeling
as management

and times changed in
the bank they kind of

wanted to push him out.

So he was looking
for something to do

and I guess he had
always loved the medic

aspect of his work in the war.

So he became an EMT.

He had surgery

to have a lung removed in the
middle of '90, late in '90.

Just before Marty
and I got married.

In fact, we had to
change our wedding date.

He made it to our wedding.

I'm sure that was
more difficult for him

than we knew at the time.

But he eventually just, ya know,

he just sort of got
worse and worse.

The radiation and
the chemotherapy

just kind of didn't cure it.

When they knew there was
really nothing else to do

they gave him
medicine he could take

to prevent the pain
or to ease the pain.

There was a hospital
bed right here,

in the middle of
the living room.

Just mom and I were here
when he died, no one else.

People in and out all the time,

but as it turned
out just mom and I

were here when he died.

[bagpipes playing
"Amazing Grace"]

- [Voiceover] I'll never
forget Don's funeral.

There was a bagpiper
on the hill,

and I stood by his grave
in the hot August sun,

mumbling the words to Amazing
Grace under my breath.

[somber instrumental music]

Back in Boston it
takes me a few days

before I open up the envelope.

Even though I went to Vermont

with a plan to get the pictures,

part of me hadn't really
expected to come home with them.

I read through the letters,

which are mostly from
the United States

Holocaust Memorial Council

who would later build
the museum in DC.

The letters date back to 1979,

but the most
important is the one

written by my grandfather.

- [Voiceover] We were
present at Ohrdruf,

the first of the
death camps uncovered.

I have some snapshots
of scenes there.

Members of my platoon shared
what little film we had

and I have my set of prints.

Our negatives disappeared
in Linz, Austria

and we were told that
counter intelligence

had confiscated them.

I'm enclosing copies of these.

- [Voiceover] The date
on the back of the copies

is November 1984.

Amazingly, 27 years later,
the phone number still works.

- Hello?

- Yes, this is Mathew.

Pictures of the liberation
of a concentration camp

during World War II.

So, do you even remember
making the copies?

Oh.

They're pretty
gruesome, I have to say.

- [Voiceover] I had hoped
that he could tell me more.

That maybe my grandfather
had told him his story

when he asked for the
copies, but no luck.

[slow classical music]

- [Voiceover] So 20
years after his death

I finally have his photos.

I was so worried my
grandmother had destroyed them,

but now they're safe with me,

but reading through the letters

I feel confused and
a bit frustrated

because I have no
idea what they tell me

about his life.

- [Voiceover] The
memory of Ohrdruf,

particularly is
engraved upon my memory.

I keep the pictures
close at hand

and have made a point of
looking at them frequently.

- [Voiceover] Where was Ohrdruf

and how did he end up there?

What exactly is the story
told by these pictures?

The truth is that I'm not
a researcher or historian.

Just a grandson
trying to understand.

I'm a photographer
and I point a camera

at the world to learn about it,

so my research into
Ohrdruf takes a long time.

Even though the internet
is full of information

about dates and locations

I still can't connect the
horror of these photos

to the cold facts.

Many of the articles I find

refer to one interview from 2008

with a veteran
named Charles Payne.

He's the great uncle
of President Obama

and the article came
out a week after

Obama caused a scandal
on the campaign trail.

- I had a uncle
who was one of the,

Who was part of the
first American troops

to go into Auschwitz

and liberate the
concentration camps.

- So why is everyone up in arms?

Well, first, Auschwitz
was liberated

by the Soviet Army and second,

Senator Obama's American
mother didn't have a brother.

- [Voiceover] First,
Obama didn't have an uncle

who served in the US Army.

Second, Russian forces liberated

the Auschwitz
concentration camp in

Poland in January of 1945.

- [Voiceover] For a
week Obama's opponents

hyped his mistake
until the AP article

about Mr. Payne came out.

In it he said that it wasn't
Auschwitz that he liberated,

but the sub-camp of
Buchenwald called Ohrdruf.

To be honest, as excited
as I might have been

to make this connection
between my grandfather

and the president, I wasn't
really all that thrilled

about spending a year of my life

immersed in the gruesomeness
of the Holocaust.

But as I started
doing my research

and learning more about the camp

and the men who
liberated it, I realized

that I really needed
to know what happened

in April of 1945.

The problem was where to begin.

I decided to call Mr. Payne.

He's kind and talks
with me a little,

but refuses to let me
record the conversation.

He gets off the phone
as quickly as he can.

As I hang up I realize that
in my rush to talk to him

I hadn't thought about
all the horrible memories

I was forcing him to relive.

In fact, I had no real idea

what those soldiers saw when
they liberated the camps.

My guilt about how badly I
handled things with Mr. Payne

almost made me forget
something he told me

in our conversation.

That he had served in the
89th Infantry Division.

That led me to Mark Kitchell.

Mark helped his dad
run the 89th website

and they had been dragged into

the controversy around Obama.

- [Voiceover] Some of the
emails had been pretty nasty,

so his first responses to
me were really defensive,

but eventually
when he understood

what I was trying to do

he agreed to help me find
some veterans to talk to.

- [Voiceover] I didn't
know it at the time,

but in the months to come

Mark would have a huge
influence on my life.

So here I was, waiting for Mark

to help me find some veterans.

Trying to connect my
pictures to April 1945.

I didn't know what else to do.

All I really knew was
that my grandfather

had been at Ohrdruf and
that the 89th Division

had liberated that camp,

but how do I find one soldier

in a war of millions?

[ominous music]

[projector reels clicking]

The Holocaust looms large

in our cultural memory.

Places like Buchenwald
and Auschwitz

are permanently ingrained
in the American Psyche.

Images of the suffering
inflicted in those camps

have forever shaped
how we remember

World War II.

Writers like Elie
Wiesel and film makers

like Steven Spielberg
have turned the memories

of the camps into a
cultural language.

Something we all
recognize immediately.

Yet, as I look at my
grandfather's photos

I realize that I
know nothing at all

about what he saw.

In fact, other than the
general Holocaust images

of movies and documentaries

I can't say for
certain what a soldier

like Don would have seen.

So I start looking for
people who can help me.

- [Voiceover] It's
already understood,

even when the Nazi's were,

before they came to power,

that the Nazi's wanted to set up

some kind of
concentration camps.

- [Voiceover] Long
before American soldiers

started fighting in Europe,

the Nazi's had
been killing people

in concentration camps.

Geoffrey Megargee
and Joseph White

are senior researchers
at the Holocaust Museum.

They helped me fill
in some details,

and we talk about
their new book.

- The United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum

Encyclopedia of
Camps and Ghettos.

- I began in January of 2000.

And, at the time, we were told

that we were looking
at probably about

between five and 7000
sites that we had to cover.

We then started our research,

and the numbers have been
expanding ever since.

We're up to somewhere between,

well, probably close to
30,000 at this point.

The first volume covers
the so-called "early camps"

that the Nazi's set up on
an ad hoc basis in 1933,

and then that
system evolved into

the series of main
concentration camps.

The big names that
most people know,

Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen,
Buchenwald, and so on.

About 24 of those and
about 900 sub-camps.

- Well, I would say
that in some way

I sort of see the
Holocaust experience

as shaping my entire work life

and issues and questions
that I, you know, pursued.

Well, I think there are
a number of processes

involved at which a central one

is a dehumanization
and there are, again,

I think degrees
of dehumanization,

but the ultimate
one is when you see

the target as not,

as less than human,

not subject to the
moral obligations

that one owes to
other human beings.

In the cases of
genocide, it seems to me

it's gone to the point where

there's a moral obligation
to kill these people.

They are evil.

They are insects.

They're termites.

They need to be exterminated.

- July 1944, I was
deported to Auschwitz.

Stayed in Auschwitz
'til October 23, 1944,

at which point I was shipped out

on a transport to a
small satellite camp of

Buchenwald called Niederorschel,

not far from Ohrdruf.

They did not tattoo
you on the way in.

They only tattooed
you on the way out

if you managed to get out.

So I was tattooed when I
left Auschwitz, not before.

- [Voiceover] I can't
read it from this angle.

What does it say?

- B13174.

- [Voiceover] Thank you.

- We make the
distinction between,

for example, a
concentration camp

where a lot of people died.

Especially a places like Belsen

and Mauthausen where
conditions became very bad

and Buchenwald, very bad
toward the end of the war.

Versus those few
sites, and the Museum

actually lists five of
these at this point,

whose main purpose was to kill.

Where most of the
people who arrived

were gassed immediately.

Those are Chemno,
Bezec, Sobibor,

Treblinka, and
Auschwitz-Birkenau.

[male foreign singing]

- [Voiceover] Other
than Auschwitz,

I'd never heard any of
the extermination camps,

and I had no idea what
went on inside them

until my wife sent
me an announcement

about a talk at a
local synagogue.

- Today I had a discussion with
my wife, and I was wondering

if I should bring my children
here tonight with us.

On the one hand, I
figured they're young,

I don't know if this is really
the place for them to be.

And then I thought to
myself, "When are they gonna

"have an opportunity to
meet a man as Mr. Bialowitz.

- [Voiceover] Sobibor
was an extermination camp

set up by the Germans to
liquidate the ghettos.

Philip Bialowitz was
among a small group of

slave laborer's kept at the
camp, to work for the Nazis,

and his story is as
heartbreaking as it is amazing.

In 1943, the 600 Jews
at Sobibor rebelled,

killed the Nazi guards
and ran for the woods.

By the end of the war, nearly
60 of them were still alive.

[German shouting]

- [Voiceover] The people of
Eastern Europe faced terrible

hardships during
the mid war years.

Under Stalin, the people
of the Ukraine were starved

by the millions under Soviet
collectivization policies.

In Germany, the Nazis began
setting up concentration camps

as soon as they
took power in 1933.

According to some historians,
over 14 million people

died in the
bloodlands of Europe,

controlled by Hitler and Stalin.

In the fall of 2011, as
I'm doing my research,

the U.S. honors the
10th anniversary of the

terrorist attacks
of September 11th.

Nearly 3,000 Americans
died on that tragic day.

For the people of
the bloodlands, there
was a 9/11 every

single day, between
1933 and 1945.

For me, this is just
too much to take in.

I want to understand the
story of one soldier,

but instead I'm confronted
with the mass murder

of millions of people.

How can I understand
anything about Ohrdruf unless

I get into the one
story I can grasp,

the story of my grandfather.

I need to map his path across
Europe, and know his version

of the war to really, truly
understand what he saw.

I'm not even sure
where to begin,

and it all seems
so overwhelming.

And then I meet Anna Rosmus.

- When I published my
first book about resistance

and persecution, in Passau,
my hometown in Bulvaria.

In '83, it garnered
a lot of attention.

Locally, of course it
was considered a scandal

more than anything else,
for breaking a taboo,

for publishing things that
I should not have published.

I was already a student
at the University

when I wrote a
nationwide essay contest,

and one of the topics, one of
the five topics to choose from

was the pre-war
years in my hometown.

So I started, literally,
at zero, absolutely zero.

It was not only World War
II per se that we hadn't

learned about, it was in
particularly our hometown.

In hindsight, of course, I
do understand why that was.

My hometown was also
Hitler's hometown.

My hometown was also
Adolf Eichmann's hometown.

This was a town where him
and Goring was active.

This was a city where the
big shots were at home,

long before Hitler took power.

I started to catch up,
and before long I realized

that locals, with very few
exceptions, were unwilling to

address the topic,
were unwilling to
answer my questions.

And I had to go
outside of my hometown,

to look for evidence.

There was a movie
about my early work,

and the movie
premiered in America.

- [Voiceover] In 1991, director
Michael Verhoeven made a

film about Anna's work, that
showed how angry people were

with her, for talking
about the Holocaust.

The English title of the
film is The Nasty Girl.

- The German title is
Das schreckliche Maädchen.

Straight forward translation
would be The Terrifying Girl,

which was too terrifying and too

political for American taste.

It wouldn't sell.

The Miramax brothers
told me in person,

that they had to look
for something sexual,

so they came up
with The Nasty Girl.

- [Voiceover] Anna's research
eventually focused on the

soldiers who had
liberated her town,

and she became a
historian and activist,

working closely with veterans.

- On the tour in America,
I had an opportunity

to meet former Passau Jews.

Now it happened that some
of the former Passau Jews

were not only victimized
during the Holocaust

and long before, they
also returned to Passau,

as American soldiers.

- [Voiceover] Mark Kitchell
has found some veterans

for me to talk to, and I'm
ready to start putting together

Don's story of his time at war.

- [Voiceover] Yesterday,
December seventh 1941,

a date which will
live in infamy.

United States of America was

suddenly and
deliberately attacked.

- [Voiceover] Don's
older brother, Warren,

was already in the service
when the war broke out.

- [Voiceover] He
was in the Pacific.

I don't know anything about
a division, I believe it was

the army, but I know
he was at Pearl Harbor.

As he just always said
he was at Pearl Harbor.

- [Voiceover] Pearl Harbor
had shocked the nation,

and it must have hit
really close to home,

to have their older brother
in the midst of the attack.

So first Bob, and then
Don, did what the rest of

the boys of their
generation did.

- [Voiceover] Soldiers,
sailors, and airmen are the

Allied Expeditionary Force.

You are about to embark
upon the great crusade,

towards which we have
striven these many months.

The eyes of the
world are upon you.

The hopes and prayers
of liberty loving people

everywhere march with you.

- [Voiceover] On June sixth
of 1944, the largest invasion

in history took place on
the beaches of Normandy.

As the allied soldiers pushed
into the French countryside,

they took appalling casualties.

To fill the ranks, the
army called up soldiers

who had been given
non-combat assignments.

Many of them were in college.

It was joked that the
rolling W was the smartest

division in the army.

- [Gene] We decided
we were going to

join the paratrooper force.

Well, when we'd gotten down
to the office to sign up,

he said, "Well, now you
know that if you don't want

"to jump, you're gonna
jump one way or the other."

He wasn't signed up for the
paratrooper, so I told him,

I said, "Well, I'm very
unhappy in this outfit,

"I want to get in an outfit
where it's matching."

So I went in and I
signed the document,

and 10 days later,
I was transferred to

the 89th Infantry Division.

That was in July of 1944.

- [Voiceover] Over the next
few weeks, I pieced together

the story of the 89th,
as told by the veterans.

- [Donald] So I had
volunteered, I did that,

then the next thing I know,
I was taking a physical.

- [Ralph] Well I was in, of
course, in the 89th division.

And infantry divisions
in World War II were

divided into three regiments.

The 89th had 353, 354
and 355 regiments,

and I was attached to the 355th.

- [Ralph] We continued
to be in the army,

when we were in college.

They said, "You're going
back into the army,

"and you're all going
into the infantry."

We were all told,
"You're all privates,

"no matter what your
rank might have been

"before you came to college."

We were put through
the extensive training.

We were told that, "We want
to be sure that you get

"the best training
you can possibly get."

We were delayed a bit going
to Europe, until they made the

89th division a
full man division,

rather than a light division.

We shipped out of Boston,
and it was in February.

The riggings were full of
ice, it was cold as cold

can get.

Seas in the winter time
get pretty vicious,

and we had a lot of
sick boys on board.

We did not go to England, we
landed in the heart of France.

- [Voiceover] We
unloaded at midnight,

and we were sitting
on top of trucks

that were carrying guns.

We almost froze to death
going 25 miles to a camp.

We got to the camp,
and there were--

It was, I'd say, nine inches
of snow on the ground.

And there was a bunch of cots,

but there was no tents.

- [Voiceover] Well, I guess
you know that the different

camps were called
by cigarette brands.

Lucky Strike, Old Gold
and Philip Morris,

they were all designated
as camp names.

- [Voiceover] It seems that
every veteran I talked to

has bad memories of
Camp Lucky Strike.

- [Voiceover] They had
put cots in the tents,

and the snow was all
the way up to the top,

up to the cots.

So when you lay, went to lay,

you're slept on the snow really.

- [Voiceover] When I first
went into my tent on the

first night, I took all the
stuff out of my duffel bag,

all my my clothing, my
overcoat and all of that.

- [Voiceover] Well,
and the thing was that

quite a few of the
guys lay on their cot

and put the blankets over them,

and wound up with
frost bite from below.

- [Voiceover] As it turns
out, I made a mistake.

For the last year, I'd been
researching the 89th division,

and what they did
during the war.

But recently, my mom found an
old newspaper in the attic,

and it has my grandfather's
obituary in it.

- He wasn't in the 89th
division, he was in the 65th.

He was a platoon
leader in B company,

of the 365 medical battalion.

I've been looking the wrong
place for over a year.

I spend a few days frustrated,

until I find a guy named Bob
Patton, who sells books online

about the 65th division.

When I email him about my
grandfather, he sends me copies

of all the letters to
the 65th newsletter

that my grandfather wrote.

And letters from other
vets that mention him.

- [Voiceover] I was very
interested to know that

someone else was hungry
at Camp Lucky Strike.

For years I forgailed my family
and friends with stories of

small frozen potatoes,
cooked in water

with a large dash of gasoline.

Some KP grabbed the
wrong five gallon can.

- With what?

I don't know, this
has becoming him.

Our 365th medical
battalion, snapshot sent by

Lieutenant Don Johnson.

Don G. Johnson.

And this would be him here.

He's just a little bit
shorter than the other.

The 65th division was
activated in July of 1943.

It was the last division to
be activated in World War II.

In the middle of the
ocean, as a result of the

Battle of the Bulge,
our orders were changed,

and we were told that we were
needed more on the mainland,

than we were needed in
England, so therefore,

we were to dock in L'Heure.

- [Voiceover] The entire world
awaited the fateful outcome,

as the armies of Nazi
Germany lashed out in the

counter offensive
in the Arv Den.

This was the Battle of the
Bulge, the battle that came so

dangerously close
to crushing allied

hopes for early victory.

- [Voiceover] The orders
were changed to go

straight to France,
because the anticipation

that we were going to be going
into the Battle of the Bulge.

Fortunately for all of us,
the Battle of the Bulge ended.

Well, everything was new
to me, because I came from

a small town, I was
drafted at 18, I entered.

Was inducted, I guess you call
it, in those days at about

near the end of 1943.

And I just felt
like I was a kid,

I didn't know where I was going

or what I was getting into.

- [Voiceover] With Bob's
help, I meet Bud Waite,

a veteran of the 65th
who lives a few miles

from me in a Boston suburb.

- [Bud] This one here,
this is the bronze star.

Camp Lucky Strike was near
Metz, kinda near Metz, France,

and it was horrible.

It was cold, it was muddy,

we only had one helmet
full of fuel per day,

to keep us warm.

So that was probably, could
be perhaps the worst two weeks

we ever spent, was those two
weeks at Camp Lucky Strike.

- [Voiceover] It turns out
that my research into the 89th

wasn't wasted time at all.

Both the 89 and 65th
division spent the winter

at Camp Lucky Strike.

The 65th, along
with my grandfather,

arrived on January
22nd, and the 89th got

there two days later.

They would fight
side by side across

Europe for most of the spring.

- It took several days to
get us from Camp Lucky Strike

over to the Easter port,
around the Metz area,

and that was when we were
really committed to hard combat

with the enemy just across
the street, in several cases.

- When we first went into
combat, it was in the middle of

the night, dark of the night.

And as we advanced, we
were advancing by the light

of the burning buildings.

We were moving pretty fast
for a while, and then we'd run

into stiff resistance,
and then it would kinda

clear out a little bit, and
then we'd run into some more.

Unfortunately, we saw
lots of German soldiers

dead on the ground
as we were advancing,

and stuff like that.

- I almost tell you, if
I had a choice as far as

the service was concerned,
I would have been a

conscientious objector,
because I did not want

to shoot any Germans.

I did not have any
desire to kill anybody.

- I guess we had no,

we had little
feelings or something.

People ask me, "Did
you kill people?

"Did you kill soldiers?"

And honestly, I can not
say if I did or not.

I fired at them, and at
distances and so forth.

- [Voiceover] The
65th entered combat on

March seven, near Sarlaturn.

Five days later, the 89th
joined them on the line in

the nearby town of Trier.

- [Voiceover] Well,
unless you'd been there,

you couldn't
understand it, really.

It's...

You really...

Well, you can't let it
bear on your mind too much,

that you might get killed,

but you do give
that some thought.

- [Voiceover] It was unnerving
to the fact that you just

didn't know what you
were getting into,

or what you're up against.

So, you just went and
did what you could do.

- [Voiceover] As I talk with
the veterans about their time

at war, the one story
I keep coming back to

is that of Ralph Rush.

So when he invites me to
his house on a small island

near Seattle, I jump at the
chance to meet him in person.

We spend several
days digging clams

and talking about politics.

He treats me like a grandson,
and I'm glad I made the trip.

As we sit on his deck,
I'm struck by how

beautiful the scenery is.

Such a contrast to the
story Ralph has to tell.

- I was with an I&R platoon,

which is Intelligence
and Recognizance,

Headquarters Company.

We began to move fairly
rapidly towards the front.

We got into some
pretty heavy fighting.

And our job was to find
out the best we could,

where the heavy material was.

Well, you're scared to death.

You're frightened
of the situation,

you're frightened that
you're not gonna be able to

do your required job.

You worry about your buddies.

We had a good camaraderie.

My jeep driver was Neil
Cramer, and he would say to me,

when I got out, he'd
say, "Okay Ralph,

"you son of a bitch, remember
I've got a wife and three

"kids at home, and don't you
get us into any trouble."

[majestic instrumental music]

- [Voiceover] With one
terrific blow, they have begun

the last great
battle in the West.

Now, they will unload,
deploy and drive forward

for their objectives.

The crossroads, the
bridges, the strong points,

which might hinder
the land armies,

thrusting along behind them.

- [Voiceover] The Rhine
crossing was a real tough one.

There were several companies
that were instructed

to go across first.

The company E and company
B lost tremendous amount

of men, crossing the Rhine.

The Germans had positioned
themselves under the coverts

of a number of the roads.

Then they had excellent guns,
20 millimeter guns and 88s,

that shoot almost flat.

I think we almost lost all
of E company, crossing.

Very few of 'em made it
across, because they were just

blown out of the water.

It was a terrible
day for the 89th.

I think they lost--

I don't know how
many men they lost,

but we lost a--

A lot of great guys.

- [Voiceover] Anna
sent me this photo.

It shows medics in company
B tending to the wounded

of the river crossing.

I'm not sure if Don's in this
picture, but it shows the

kind of gruesome work
that a medic would have

done in combat, and it's the
closest I have to a picture

of Don at war.

- Yes, we all remember
the Rhine River real well.

And that is where we were
engaged from that particular

point on, chasing the Germans.

- What many of the soldiers
envisioned themselves doing,

after a few weeks
in combat only,

was to take Germany's capital.

It would have been a
trophy in their eyes.

Of course, many of those very
young soldiers never looked

at the statistics at that time.

They had no clue how
heavily Berlin was defended.

They did not really want to
picture the 65th infantry

division's casualties,
should they be sentenced,

more or less, to
capture the capital.

Eisenhower did not send them
to Berlin, but ordered them to

shift course and come straight
toward Bavaria from there on.

Now as they took this particular
turn, instead of marching

into Berlin going
South, at that corner,

the first very large
concentration camp on

German soil was discovered.

[fast-paced piano music]

- [Voiceover] Before the war,
the German town of Ohrdruf

was best known for music.

Beethoven had lived there,
and Johann Sebastian Bach

had composed some of his best
known pieces in the city.

But music wasn't on the
minds of the men of a small

recognizance platoon, as
they moved into the town.

- The fourth army division
was spearheading that effort,

crossing Germany
and ending up there,

along with the 89th
Infantry Division.

- It was early in the morning

when we looked up, and
on the top of this hill,

there was a guard tower,
the first thing I spotted,

'cause I was out front.

Then compound, obviously,
of some distance.

And we got up a little closer,
and there were a few shots

thrown at us, and
we threw a few shots

back with the 50 caliber.

There weren't any
more shots then.

So we continued on, climbed
the side of the hill and up to

this compound, and we opened
it, being very careful because

we had, had a few
shots thrown at us.

And here, laying on the ground
in a circle in front of us,

10 or 12 soldiers,
either allied, British--

- [Voiceover] And there's
one American in the bunch,

and he was from Gardner, Mass--

Says, "American flyer from
Garnder, Massachusetts,"

and I believe that I--

I believe his last
name was Wagner.

Somebody was trying to
make a statement, I think.

Each had been shot behind
the ear and were dead.

There's no--

None of them were alive.

That made us mad as hell.

And then we saw the
poor, bedraggled,

guys that had been the
inmates of the camp.

We realized we
discovered something that

was different than usual.

- [Voiceover] There had
been rumors of camps,

but what Ralph and his
platoon discovered,

was something that no allied
soldier had ever expected.

Ohrdruf was the first camp
liberated by the allies.

- I did not go to Ohrdruf,
I did not have the

opportunity to go to Ohrdruf.

I had to stay in
battalion quarters,

so all the rest of them
could go to Ohrdruf.

But they came back and
told me all about it,

and all the things
that they saw there.

- I don't imagine that the
people who actually liberated

them realized that there
was anything like that,

until they actually got there.

That's my own thoughts on it.

They knew that it might be
bad, but maybe not anywhere

near as bad as it was.

- [Voiceover] As I
remember it when I went in,

there were a few people
staggering around,
and how they were

able to stand up, I don't
know, because it looked like

the skin was just
stretched over their bones.

- [Voiceover] Now those bodies
that you saw lying there,

I was looking at, I walked
right over those bodies.

And that building
wasn't over 50 feet.

The building stored--

Where they had bodies stack
about five high, six high.

It wasn't over 50 feet
from where those bodies

were lyin' on the ground.

- The bodies were being
taken from the live shed,

or the dead shed.

There was a large pit with
steel railroad tracks.

- [Voiceover] On the
North side of the camp,

going down the hill a
little bit, they had rail--

They had looked like
small railroad railings,

up about two and a half,
three feet off the ground,

close together, and
there was all kinds of

burned body parts around there.

There'd be an arm
laying over at the side,

that's hardly burn, that
are just charcoal, you know.

And a head with the
hair still on it,

and all that kind of stuff.

- We couldn't believe man's
inhumanity to man, it just...

Just shocked us, literally
shocked us to the point

we couldn't believe what we saw.

- [Voiceover] The
commanding officer of--

I don't know who was
our regiment or company,

but anyway, I don't
recall his name,

went into town and got
a hold of the mayor,

and brought him out
to the Ohrdruf camp.

And when he saw
it, he was just--

I could tell that he
wasn't puttin' anything on,

he was just completely shocked.

And from what I
understand Matthew,

when he went back to his home,
which was down a ways from

the camp, he committed suicide.

- I had one chap come up to
me, asking me to provide him

with my gun, and of
course I couldn't do that,

and I told him no.

The German SS who were running
the camp had taken a lot of

the clothing of the inmates,
and changed clothes with them.

He would know who they were,

and I would not.

And he said, again,
"Will you give me a gun?"

You have to take a chance, you
have to make a decision that

balance what you think is
right, and what's wrong.

And I came to the conclusion
that he was telling the truth.

- [Voiceover] As the Americans
searched the compound,

they found a number of dead
SS guards dressed in the

same clothes as the prisoners.

- Actually there were
two orders of sub camps,

but the big order sub camp,
which would be the one that

was liberated by the
Americans in April 1945,

was set up in November '44.

It was called S3, that
was its code name,

and what it was intended
for, was a huge labor camp

for outfitting the basement
of the Millburn Castle,

purpose of which was to create
a massive communications

center for the Nazi regime,
in the event of the relocation

out of Berlin.

It was particularly for the--

Kind of a high command
communications center.

- [Voiceover] What the
soldiers found at Ohrdruf,

was a camp that
was nearly empty.

As the allied troops
moved into Germany,

the Nazis had evacuated
many of the camps,

and forced the prisoners
onto death marches,

to the center of the
camp at Buchenwald.

At Neter Rochelle, that was
the fate of Steven Fenves.

- On first of April,
1945, we were marched out,

and 10 days later, we
arrived in Buchenwald.

I knew that things were
different, the chimney was

not smoking, the
inner gate was open,

a quarantine area.

And so they marched us in, and
pointed us to the barracks,

and I collapsed.

Late the following day,

I think it was early
afternoon, I'm not sure of the

exact time, people shook
me awake to tell me that

the Americans had arrived,
and we ran up the steep slope.

We were yelling, screaming,
waving to the armored carriers,

and jeeps, and tanks.

- This was something of
tremendous importance for,

I think, especially,
the American army.

We may not have known
what we were fighting for,

but once we saw the camps,

we knew what we were
fighting against.

- [Voiceover] On
the wall outside the

Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington, DC,

is a block of text.

Of the millions of words
written about the Holocaust,

they've chosen those
of Dwight Eisenhower.

- [Dwight] The things I
saw beg a description.

The visual evidence and the
verbal testimony of starvation,

cruelty, and bestiality
were so overpowering.

I made the visit deliberately,
in order to be in

a position to give first hand
evidence of these things,

if ever in the future there
develops a tendency to

charge these allegations
to propaganda.

- Because it was the first
major concentration camp

in Germany,
Eisenhower was there.

He seized, very wisely,
that opportunity.

Sent all the men available to
take a look at the atrocities,

to witness what has happened,
and to get a mental image

what they are fighting against.

- [Voiceover] The
murder mill at Ohrdruf

brings out the full horror and
bestiality of the Nazi scum.

And General Eisenhower, a
man hardened by the blood

and shock of war,
seems appalled at

these unbelievable sights.

Accompanied by General Bradley
on his revolting mission,

and also by General Patton,
hard boiled yet visibly moved,

the supreme commander
sees demonstrations

of the torture racks.

- General Patton,
when he arrived there,

the odors and such were so
horrible, that he went behind

the barracks and upchucked.

And he was embarrassed
that he couldn't handle it.

- [Voiceover] In the week
after Ohrdruf was liberated,

the American soldiers
uncovered several more camps.

On April 11th, they
liberated the infamous

Dora- Mittelbau at Nordhausen.

And later that same
day, they uncovered the

huge camp at Buchenwald.

- Many of the men in the
65th Infantry Division who

were available, not
immediately on frontline duty,

did go to one of these
concentration camps.

Most did go to Dora-Mittlebau.

Some may have ended
up in Ohrdruf.

[ominous music]

[camera clicking]

[muffled voices over radio]

- God, yes.

Some of these pictures that your

grandfather had are remarkable.

They show some evidence
that I didn't show.

Can't believe it,
still can't believe it.

- The ones that are
most upsetting are

the ones where they're--

Not the corpses, but the
ones that are still alive.

The walking corpses.

- Some of these pictures
I have never seen before.

Your grandfather was very
good at taking these pictures.

- [Voiceover] Judy Cohen
is the director of the

Holocost Museum's
photo archives.

And Jacek Nowakowski
is the Senior Curator,

who created the
permanent exhibit.

I've arranged to talk with
them about Don's photos,

before I donate them
to their collection.

- This is definitely Ohrdruf--

- [Jacek] Ohrdruf, right.

- [Judy] Because
we have the tracks,

and this is what you
saw when you were

in the exhibition today.

- [Jacek] When you enter this.

- You were looking at
it from the other angle,

but it's the same tracks
with the bodies stacked

as cord wood and then burned.

- [Jacek] It's a
small stack of bodies.

- Um.

- [Jacek] That also
could be Ohrdruf.

- Yeah.

- [Jacek] Yeah, it's...

- Hard to tell.

- [Jacek] It says, "survivors,"
that's really difficult

to say where it is.

- Look at this little girl,

I just noticed her
for the first time.

- [Jacek] Yeah.

- I wonder how she got
there, and what she's doing.

- [Jacek] Here's the
survivor camp doctors, in 16.

- This is the same person but

without the doctors.

- [Jacek] "A survivor
still fit for some work."

Huh.

- Okay, here we're
moving into the ones

we talked about before.

- [Jacek] It says,
"New inmates at a camp,

"still in some kind of shape."

- And these are the
ones that we think look

more like Mount Hausen.

As you can see, the
quarry in the background.

- The men, usually, can not
distinguish to this day,

which one of those
concentration camps

that they actually were at.

Many, of course, did
not have a lot of time,

so it was a matter of
minutes, maybe an hour,

that they took out of
their busy frontline duty,

to take a look at
the atrocities.

These pictures, none the
less, haunt these men.

Many of them talk about
Buchenwald or Ohrdruf,

whether it actually
is that camp,

or a neighboring
concentration camp.

- [Voiceover] I wish
I could claim some

greater share of actually
liberating these camps.

I was rather small
potatoes at the time.

I did see two more camps
before I came home.

One prior to clean
up, and Dachau after.

The memory of
Ohrdruf, particularly,

is engraved upon my memory.

I keep the pictures close at
hand, and have made a point

of looking at them frequently.

- We were liberating,
there was two, three, four

or five of 'em a day,
running into 'em,

and different people
running into different camps

and everything, as
far as that goes.

As we approached the
building at Mauthausen,

there was this great wall that
surrounded it with the gates.

We were aware of something
that was different,

and that was the odor,
that was, oh miles,

several miles from
the camp itself.

And that odor was the odor of
death, it was an unusual odor

that once you smell it,
you won't forget it.

- It's stuck in my mind,
I can see them now,

as I look back there.

- Oh, when I came
back from the war,

I was tired, tired of war,

tired of the things
that we had seen.

Washed it pretty
well, the war and my

experiences out of my...

Well, couldn't get
it out of my mind,

but out of my thinking.

- This is so horrible, that
you get your mind on this

and sometimes you wake up at
four o' clock in the morning,

or two o'clock in the
morning, with this thing

on your mind, you
can't get it off.

- I didn't talk, not
even to my family,

until the early 70s,

when I did have some serious
psychological problems.

- [Voiceover] After all this,

what do I know about
my grandfather?

All of this work and research
has let me walk in his shoes

for just one day, the
day he visited the

concentration camp at Ohrdruf.

I can see now the
fear, the horror,

and the guilt that the
soldiers must have felt.

How do you tell your
wife or your daughter

about these terrible things?

I can see why he kept
them from the family.

And after a while, how
that silence became easy,

easier than digging up the past.

- I was convinced the
first photo that you see,

when you go to the fourth
floor, you start at Ohrdruf,

because that's the first
one that was found.

I was just convinced that
one of the people in it was

my father, because it--

I could name a whole bunch
of different characteristics,

that made it think
like my father.

- You know, we start the
story with those photographs.

This is how the United States
learned about the atrocities.

So our story goes this way,
this is how you learn about

the atrocities, and then
we try to explain how did

it happen, what happened,

and what were the
aftermath of this.

- [Voiceover] So you begin
your story with Ohrdruf,

the first camp liberated.

- Yes.

- [Voiceover] Touring the
Holocaust Memorial Museum,

I'm reminded of the
power of images.

We take pictures to
remember times of meaning,

whether they're
birthdays, or weddings,

or maybe an
indescribable horror.

Don took his pictures as a way
of remembering what he saw.

And even if he never told
their story to the family,

he wanted them shared
with the world.

Their memory might
have died with him,

but instead, I found them.

It took me a long time to
meet the people who could

help me understand, and
to collect the stories of

Ralph Rush and Bud Waite,

of Steven Fenvas,
and Anna Rosmus,

of my family and all of
us who've come later,

looking for answers.

I could have put
Don's photos in a box,

and forgotten about them,
like I did for 16 years.

But I now know that it's
been my responsibility

to bring them to this museum,

so others can know what he saw.

It's been my duty to
keep his story alive,

since the first day I heard
of these 16 photographs.

[solemn instrumental music]

[projector reel clicking]