For many Holocaust survivors, their torment didn’t end after the Allies defeated Nazi forces in May, 1945 and liberated the camps. Shockingly, it took two Jewish privates in the U.S. Army to make sure the United States lived up to its obligations and save the lives of thousands of concentration camp survivors.
In many sectors, American troops overseeing the concentration camps continued to imprison starving Jewish inmates. “What’s the difference between you and Americans and the Nazis” a concentration camp survivor asked a young soldier named Robert L. Hilliard, a few months after the Allies’ victory “except that you don’t have gas chambers?”
Robert Hilliard wrote about his experiences in his memoir Surviving the Americans: The Continued Struggle of the Jews After Liberation and has spoken about his struggle to help Jewish survivors publicly.
In 1945 Pvt. Robert Hilliard and his friend Pvt. Ed Herman were two low-ranking young recruits who were stationed with the American Army in Bavaria. Hilliard was tasked with editing an army newspaper and on May 27, weeks after American troops had liberated Nazi concentration camps and death camps throughout Germany, he went to cover a “liberation concert” being given by concentration camp survivors in a hospital being operated on the grounds of a monastery called St. Ottilien, near Munich.
St. Ottilien, photo Dr. Alec Savicky
The hospital housed 400 concentration camp survivors, as well as some German soldiers who’d ostensibly been wounded. In reality Pvt. Hilliard found some of the German soldiers were using the hospital as cover to evade reprisals for their role in the war, and the Jews were occupying part of the hospital grounds unofficially. They were denied any medical care and both the German hospital staff and American troops governing the area turned a blind eye to these emaciated survivors, ignoring them and refusing to help them in any way.
Dr. Zalman Grinberg, a recently liberated concentration camp survivor himself, organized the unofficial hospital at St. Ottilien with no help from Allied forces.
In fact, Hilliard described, the “hospital” he ran - with no supplies - was the only hospital in all of Germany devoted to caring for concentration camp survivors in those crucial weeks after liberation.
When Pvt. Hilliard arrived at the hospital complex for the “concert”, he could scarcely believe his eyes. “Rows of wooden chairs were set in front of the stage. In the aisles, on the chairs and on the grass, standing, sitting, walking, leaning, lying, were hundreds of stick figures, emaciated, pale, skeletal, expressionless, all dressed in the black and white striped uniforms of the concentration camps.” The sight made Pvt. Hilliard think of Dante’s Inferno. “Then, off to the side, I saw other people. In an area separated from the survivors’ quarters were dozens of men wearing the green-gray military uniforms of the German armed forces, walking about in the careless manner of the privileged, smoking cigarettes, some with bandaged limbs, some leaning on white-uniformed female nurses, the hands and arms of enlisted men shooting out and up in prompt salutes to the German officers and doctors who passed by.” Despite the area being under the control of the U.S. Army, nothing was being done to help the concentration camp victims. “They were without food, without clothing, without medical aid”. Those amenities were being given freely to German soldiers exclusively.
Gen. George S. Patton
Pvt. Hilliard was one of very few U.S. soldiers outraged by the situation. In his memoirs, he described how, in town after town under American control, Jewish prisoners continued to be confined to the concentration camps, watched over and sometimes brutalized by their new American captors. Some soldiers harbored anti-Jewish hatred. Even General George Patton denigrated the Jews under the U.S. military’s care, writing in his personal diary: some people “believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are lower than animals.” Patton wrote, “We entered the synagogue, which was packed with the greatest stinking mass of humanity I have ever seen. Of course, I have seen them since the beginning and marveled that beings alleged to be made in the form of God can look the way they do or act the way they act.”
On July 25, two and a half months after VE Day, representatives from concentration camps throughout the British and American occupation zones of Germany gathered at St. Ottilien to discuss the dire situation facing their communities. Jews from the French zone faced such intense anti-Semitism that they were not able to travel freely and could not send representatives to Munich. Those who could attend this grim meeting issued similar reports: in all concentration camps represented at the meeting, Jews continued to die each week due to illness, malnutrition, and in some instances the brutality of their new Allied oppressors.
Robert Hilliard as a young man in the 9th AF, 2nd disarm wing, Kaufburen Germany, 1945.
Hilliard recalled one representative named Mr. Roisen who came from the infamous concentration camp Mauthausen. There, he reported, American troops in charge of the area provided the dying inmates no medicine, no doctors and no nurses. After Jewish survivors begged for better housing, American troops gave them permission to move into other buildings within the camp, but these were so infested with lice and other insects that the survivors refused to move. Angered at being defied, local American officials ordered no more food to be allowed into Mauthausen. Individual American soldiers who defied the ban and smuggled in food were their only source of rations.
A survivor named Mr. Reichhardt represented Austria. Local American officials ordered that concentration camp survivors be allowed 1,200 calories a day, though they only delivered 700 calories, selling the rest on the black market. Even these meagre rations were often withheld unless women in the camp agreed to do the bidding of the soldiers in charge. Hilliard recalled that Mr. Reichhardt also recounted an instance of a Jewish survivor being shot by an American Military Police officer, who later excused his actions saying he’d merely been “playing” with his gun.
After hearing a catalogue of horrors for much of a whole day, the Jewish survivors decided to draft a list of resolutions. Since help was not forthcoming from any quarter, Dr. Grinberg, the survivor in charge of the hospital at St. Ottilien, said, “We resolved to build our future with our own means.” The group agreed on a number of goals, first of which was to work to create a Jewish state to which they could emigrate.
In the immediate aftermath of this meeting, Hilliard recalled, little changed. In fact, he wrote, conditions at St. Ottilien deteriorated. Denied adequate food, a Jewish survivor snuck out of the hospital and was shot by an American guard, resulting in the survivor losing his leg. A few weeks later, Hilliard wrote, another survivor was shot in similar circumstances. Seeking to keep the Jewish survivors inside the hospital complex, American authorities ordered a barbed wire fence erected around the area, and American soldiers patrolled, making sure no Jewish survivors escaped. After the first survivor was shot, a local American lieutenant confronted the Military Policeman (MP) who’d shot him. “He’s only a %#&* Jew,” Hilliard recalls the MP explaining; “That’s what all Jews deserve!” The lieutenant stared at the MP for a moment, then turned and simply walked away.
These odious incidents weren’t isolated. Author Rob Morris describes a Jewish survivor at Feldafing being shot by American troops as he tried to sneak back into a DP camp after leaving it in order to look for food. (Untold Valor: Forgotten Stories of American Bomber Crews Over Europe in World War II by Rob Morris, Potomac Books: 2006).
The two privates became horrified at the conditions their own commanding officers were forcing on Jewish survivors.
In these first chaotic months after VE Day, another Jewish private joined Hilliard’s company: Ed Herman, a 25 year old from Philadelphia who’d dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania to fight in World War II. Pvt. Herman and Hilliard became fast friends. As the weeks passed, both became horrified at the conditions their own commanding officers were forcing on Jewish survivors. Both began smuggling food into St. Ottolien and encouraged other soldiers to do the same. Ed Herman, in particular, became adept at trading goods on the black market and spending his profits on supplies for the survivors.
One day Pvt. Herman made an audacious proposal: the Post Exchange (PX), or supplies store, at a local American air force base was being shut down while the base was relocated. Ed wondered if the PX would be willing to sell its entire inventory to him so that he could deliver its contents to St. Ottilien. His fellow soldiers thought the idea was crazy but Pvt. Herman was determined to do what he could. He found a sympathetic officer, Lt. Albert L. Cusick, who was one of the soldiers active in donating supplies to the survivors, and somehow managed to buy the entire PX for the then-large sum of $450. Immediately, the survivors who were still imprisoned in St. Ottilien had cans of juice, candy bars, boxes of snacks, and toiletries.
It still wasn’t enough. Even the 1,200 calories a day that General Eisenhower had demanded American troops to supply survivors was too low to nurse them back to health. And in much of that paltry amount of food was sold on the black market and didn’t even reach Holocaust survivors.
“The only way we’re going to get what we need for St. Ottilien is directly from the States,” Herman said to Hilliard in frustration; going through the American military clearly wasn’t working.
Hilliard was skeptical. “That means getting to every synagogue, every YMHA, every B’nai B’rith Golden Chain chapter in the country. That means setting up a new JDC of our own,” referring to the Joint Distribution Committee, a major charity. “How...can we do that?”
But the more they discussed the idea, the less far-fetched it began to seem. “My brother Lennie is back in the States after a tour with air force and is traveling around the country. I think he’s involved in War Bond drives,” Herman mused. “He’ll get the letters to important people, people who can get something done.”
The two privates drafted an emotional letter many pages long. It was an incredibly powerful cri de coeur, raging against the horrific situation Holocaust survivors faced every day. “The Jews of Europe are a dying race. Even now, even after the defeat of Hitler and Nazism, they are slowly being exterminated from the face of the earth. YOU ARE TO BLAME!”
The letter laid out the horrible neglect being perpetrated by Allied soldiers, telling the American people: “By your unconcerned neglect, you are just as responsible for the present death of the European Jews as the most diabolical of Nazis was in the past.” Herman and Hilliard headed to the camp’s newspaper printing office to run off enough copies to send to every person and institution they could think of back home in the U.S.
Robert Hilliard
The initiative caught on. GIs in the company helped print and send the letters to everyone they could think of. “We mailed them out by the hundreds,” Hilliard later recalled. “To wives, friends, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and neighbors, to synagogues, clubs, organizations, fraternities and sororities, to Jewish community groups, to YMHAs and YWHAs, to everybody and anybody who might care enough to send a package, to organize support within their organization, to contact a senator or congressman or any other politician who might by conscience or constituent pressure be goaded into asking questions and getting action.”
Pvt. Herman’s brother, Leonard, made it his personal mission to spread the letters in the United States, distributing them far and wide. In 2007 he was publicly commended and praised as a “true hero” for his role in spreading the letter on the floor of the US Congress.
For weeks after the first letters went out, the soldiers back in Munich wondered why they were getting no response. They’d pleaded for supplies, yet not one single package had arrived. Were the American people really so heartless as to ignore this plea to help the ill and malnourished survivors of Nazi genocide?
Unbeknownst to Herman and Hilliard, donations were pouring in, but they were being held up in New York. The pair was disappointed but undeterred. Each week, more letters went out. Soon, a representative from Gen. Eisenhower visited Pvts. Hilliard and Herman, ordering them to stop sending out the letters. The pair spoke with the officer, then ignored his order, continuing to surreptitiously send their potent letter to every contact in the US they could think of.
“We appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them, except that we do not exterminate them.”
After weeks, Hilliard believes one of the letters finally fell into the right hands and was shown to President Harry Truman himself. The President asked Dean Earl Harrison, the U.S. Representative on the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees, to look into the matter and find out what was going on and who these two unknown privates were. He also authorized the release of the shipment of the packages addressed to St. Ottilien. Harrison’s report was damning: “...we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them, except that we do not exterminate them.” He personally delivered his report to Pres. Truman, saying they made him physically ill.
Pres. Truman swiftly ordered Gen. Eisenhower to make sweeping changes to the way survivors were treated. On Sunday, September 30, 1945, the New York Times ran a front page headline “PRESIDENT ORDERS EISENHOWER TO END NEW ABUSE OF JEWS”. Other headlines included “Acting on Harrison Report, He Likens Our Treatment to That of the Nazis” and “Conditions for Displaced in Reich Called Shocking”.
Eisenhower had already expressed his disgust with the horrors he uncovered in Nazi camps. "I think I never was so angry in my life," he told reporters on June 18, 1945 about what had gone on in the concentration camps. Eisenhower ordered his own fact-finding mission and quickly increased the rations given to camp survivors, removed barbed wire around camps, replaced military guards with unarmed civilians, and provided better housing and medical care.
In St. Ottilien, conditions changed quickly. Within days, packages from all over the United States started pouring in. Within a few weeks over 1,500 packages had been delivered to the survivors. Hilliard later recalled the scene when the first supplies arrived for the survivors: “Laughing, crying, dancing, hugging and kissing each other, it was as if they were showering in the first rain after years of drought.” At long last, food, medical supplies and clothes had eased the survivors’ plight, months after their liberation. Throughout the American zones, conditions for survivors began to ease.
Following the war, Pvt. Herman stayed in Europe for a few years, working to help smuggle Holocaust survivors to the Land of Israel. He died in 2007 after being honored by the State of Israel for his role in helping Holocaust survivors. Robert Hilliard became a professor of Communications at Emerson College near Boston, and has spoken about his experiences after the Holocaust extensively. Today, untold hundreds or even thousands of Jews around the world owe their existence to the tenacity of these two men who, though they were only young lowly privates, managed to change U.S. government policy to aid survivors.
(40) Sandi Handler, July 9, 2019 10:51 PM
Why did G-d let the survivors continue to be mistreated after the camps were "liberated"?
It is amazing that the Jewish people have made amazing strides since the Holocaust given that antisemitism continues to prevail. NEVER AGAIN!
(39) LINDA Contract Edey, July 1, 2019 1:09 PM
Conditions of Concentration Camp Survivors after Liberation WWII
This article hurt. We know that rail lines to concentration camps probably could have been bombed so that more could have been saved. Somehow even with horrible conditions after WWII in Europe, although the conditons of concentration camp inmates were declared abominable and the suffering abominable, they were not fully taken care of after liberation. Jews can't win no matter what. Trump has decided that concentration camps now for babies is a good thing for his political purposes. Our planet is deteriorating for more than one reason..
(38) Patricia J Deneen, June 21, 2019 6:38 PM
Fighting "City Hall"
I am shocked by this article; had no idea that Americans treated Jewish survivors so horribly. We are seeing a rise in anti-Jewish sentiment in this country, and we must all do what we can to counter it. The two young soldiers in the article fought public policy and won! They are an example for all of us to fight for the Jews among us and not let the bigots win!
(37) Joan Schneider, June 11, 2019 11:58 AM
Honesty
I’m overwhelmed and shocked about this part of the story of the treatment of the Jews after the war had ended. Also that after 70 year, that this part of history is being revealed. Another secret that needs to be revealed is the repeated raping and sexually assaults that occurred! ☮️???
(36) Judy Heinricher, June 11, 2019 12:27 AM
American exceptionalism
What we don’t know is the particulars of the Status of Forces Agreement between the USA & Germany after the war. Quite possibly, American soldiers could get away with crimes and remain immune from prosecution. Can anyone assist in this question?
(35) E Wilson Leeds, June 7, 2019 6:32 AM
Camp Kapos, Nazi Helpers - What To do With them.
The answer to this question is: Do nothing, do nothing to them. This was the wise view adopted by the Israeli Supreme Court, when the case of a former Nazi aid was discussed and deliberated. They said men and women in the camps underwent severe personality changes caused by fear, torture, brutality and human weakness, which the Germans relied on to enlist their aid. The fear of instant death by refusing to obey an order, the fear of your body joining hundreds of other bodies that day, that week, meant no Court could impose a punishment that was just, deserved or reliable.
(34) Dr. Benjamin W. Owens, June 6, 2019 2:00 PM
"How long, O Lord . . .?"
The appalling neglect and abuse of the survivors by the "liberators" calls for increased attention and understanding of the depths of antisemitism which has been so pervasive and lethal.
(33) AnnanAnnanaAAAnna, June 6, 2019 1:37 PM
My father was liberated at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He shared his experiences and outlook during this unimaginable horrific time. He was liberated by the Americans and continually related to me how kind and how well treated hes was by the Americans. When liberated, he was instructed to eat very little and slowly, otherwise, he would die, as he weighed 79 lb, difficult to even imagine his will to live and survival. As an adult, he was a large man, 6'11" and his normal weight approx. 190 lb. Imagine weighing only 79 lb! Man's inhumanity to man is beyond understanding! Anna
(32) Anonymous, June 6, 2019 10:27 AM
Wow just wow
Amazing how most of us get our history from Hollywood. Institutions don't help people, people help people. The older I get the more I realise the words of Sir Edmund Burke to be true: All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. So many hidden dark chapters in America's young history! ??
(31) Anonymous, June 6, 2019 5:33 AM
Too hard to read and comprehend how humanity could be so cruel
(30) Robert & Mary Gluck, June 6, 2019 1:46 AM
The two USA Boys were Blessed by the ALL MIGHTY with Blessed Hart.
Thanks for the Human Article. I am a constant reader of Aish. Thank you. RG
(29) Sheila Kay, June 5, 2019 11:23 PM
What a Horror!
I read this article and couldn't believe my eyes. I continued ready through tears that pooled around and then ran down my cheeks. I am Jewish, not a practicing Jew, but I AM Jewish and was raised around my orthodox grandparents who had immigrated to Ellis Island in around 1917 to avoid the Russian pogroms. My father served in WWII and was in the European theater serving in the artillery. This story about the neglect, abuse, starvation , and outright killings makes me sick to my stomach. To think that these survivors came through the degradation that they received in the Nazi camps only to be victimized again my the "allies" points out the rampant anti-antisemitism which permeates to this day. Why? I have no understanding of how this continuation of being hateful of a people who are basically peace loving pacifists. Thank G-d for the two privates who came to the rescue so that those fractured of mind, soul, and body survivors could feel human again. I could go on and on because at the age of 74 I know all about antisemitism.. However to have read this article which I had no knowledge of the treatment of the survivors makes me so angry I could scream.
(28) Klaudya, June 5, 2019 8:51 PM
heart broken
I am shocked to learn this inhumanity . I have read, I think about 23 Holocaust survivors memoirs, many of the books through the program from The Azrieli Foundation, and didn't come across to this deplorable treatment from the allies towards the survivors. heart broken. Thanks for the article.
(27) Aviel, June 5, 2019 6:26 PM
the galut in USA is still galut Jews need to learn
Jews need to understand that they are guests in the USA even as they have have been loyal citizens and done well it's not home, even when they feel it is. Today is not different than 1945 except that the oppty to live as Jew in Israel is a reality. It's still hard but that is the challenge for Jews today. Don't tell the nations it's our land and that we have a right to it but choose to remain in galut. Come home instead
(26) E Wilson, June 5, 2019 2:53 PM
The Jewish Agency Did the Same Thing?
in 1945 the Jewish Agency sent men into Europe to rescue Holocaust Survivors, they were appalled with the quality of some of the people who needed aid, so much so they refused to help them. This refusal is well documented. We need to accept that quite a number of Jews collaborated with the Germans as camp Kapos and aids. When the camps were liberated nearly all these men were quietly murdered. For instance the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Policemen just about all died. Which reminds me I have never seen a book written by a former Warsaw Ghetto Police officer. The most notorious character was Chaim Rumkowski, leader of the Llodz Ghetto, the Germans murdered him themselves. What needs to be said is these people deserve our silent sympathy and sorrow. What would I have done in their shoes is an unanswerable question.
(25) Meir Stone, June 5, 2019 1:32 PM
Sad
This made me sad but it shows what happens when good people have courage and act .
(24) Oscar Hall II, June 5, 2019 11:25 AM
Finally the truth of still more disdain toward the Jews by supposedly friendly forces. It makes on sick to see how supposedly good human beings treat other down and out human beings. It breaks ones heart!!!!
(23) K.G., June 5, 2019 6:03 AM
Unbeleiveable-shocking
This has made me remember at the end of the Movie, Shindlers List. A Russian officer on horseback told the Jewish workers of Shindlers factory that they had been liberated-free to go. The Jewish People asked him where they should go? He said something to the effect of, 'don't go East they won't want you. Don't go West they don't want you either. I am thinking that there were no real plans on dealing with the survivors? Or the outside world had no idea of the scope of what was to be properly called 'The Holocaust'? General 'Ike' told the press and others to take as many pictures and film as possible, so there could be no dening the unbeleivable things they were witnessing- proof for all time that this really DID HAPPEN!! I didn't know he was also Antisemetic as we're others. I can't understand how people can be so brutal and unfeeling. If the same were to happen to them they would scream loudest of all-the way of true cowards!! G-D says,'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.' I know this is true. Thanks Aish for truthful great articles. Shalom!
Rachel, June 5, 2019 7:58 PM
Patton, not Eisenhower
The story attributes anyi-semitic attitudes to Patton (who was a very unpleasant person generally.)
Re treatment of German prisoners in the early days, please remember that they were POWs and thus the Geneva Conventions mandated how their captors were required to treat them.
To my knowledge, at that time there was no law governing how an occupying force was obligated to treat those imprisoned by the defeated regime. That’s hardly surprising, as extermination camps for a subset of civilians had never before been established. The military is a giant bureaucracy run through a chain of command, and its not terribly surprising that it was unprepared to appropriately deal with concentration camp survivors.
Bravo to Hilliard and Herman for cutting the red tape and saving lives.
(22) VALERIE BARTLEY, June 5, 2019 4:41 AM
MAY THE HOLY NAME OF G-D BE PRAISED FOR SUCH VALIANT YOUNG MEN, WHO LIKE MOSHE SAW THE HORRIFYING TREATMENT OF THEIR PEOPLE, AND DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT! MAY HA'SHEM BLESS THEM & ALL THEIR HOUSE ETERNALLY! SHALOM TOV!
(21) Judy R., June 5, 2019 4:07 AM
Torment After Liberation
First of all why put former Nazis with Jews when I read this it is very appalling to me also hearing that non Jewish soldiers and general Patton were anti-semitic made the situation worst for survivors thank G-d there were 2 Jewish Soldiers Pvt. Hillard and Pvt. Herman that saw what was happening and helped a lot (how cruel and nasty the non Jewish Soldiers were to the Survivors I am glad both of the Jewish Soldiers wrote letters and then it went to President at that time these two Jewish Soldiers Hillard and Herman should be honored by Yad Vashem for righting a wrong what was happening after the survivors got liberated I am happy they solved the problems of the Survivors by acting like true menschen and like a Jewish person should act they did a big mitzvah and helped keep alive the Survivors that were left and no harm came to them anymore plus afterwards they could create new lives for them selves after they got medical, food, supplies that they needed I am happy in the end of their ordeal they got showered with things from compassionate and thoughtful people I am just sorry it did not happen sooner and they suffered more it was very unfair also cruel and evil happening to them again just for being Jewish(so the non Jews in the armed forces some of them had very anti-semitic feelings so it was a miracle among these non Jewish there was 2 Jewish soldiers that done what had to be done) I am very proud that they stood up and took the bull by the horn so to speak and resolved such a horrible and despicable thing that was happening to me Hillard and Hammer are true heros I am very sorry this happened to Survivors after the war I wonder if these Survivors told their spouses, children(etc)what happened to them when people write about the Holocaust this should be included how low down and vile people were to sell the food which should of gone to Survivors on the black market I hope what these soldiers did to the Jews (in the end I hope bad karma came back to them)
(20) DALLAS BLACK, June 5, 2019 3:49 AM
Holocaust survivors
I've studied this area of history for many years. I find this story hard to swallow. I don't doubt there was anti--Semitism, it's always present, but there were too many well known people involved in clearing the dead and taking care of the survivors. Gen. Patton had a commanding officer named Gen. Eisenhower. His actions were in direct opposition to the actions presented as "typical",in this artical.As a Jew I am very offended by this article.
(19) Anonymous, June 5, 2019 2:30 AM
Terrific
These 2 Pvt.s were real heroes but the circumstances were plain unbelievable. I know about a Jewish soldier there, lieutenant Birnbaum, where was he? He helped many survivors. He must have been in a different place, I think in Austria. I met him in Jerusalem about 5 years ago.
(18) Linda Rivera, June 5, 2019 2:22 AM
Horrifying Abuse
I could hardly believe what I was reading. I was deeply shocked that the precious Jewish survivors were treated with such cruelty. So inhuman. I hope that the dear Jewish survivors all went on to have a LOT of children. That is victory.
(17) Bernie Lubran, June 5, 2019 2:05 AM
Robert Hilliard was interviewed by WGCU on May 24, 2015. Here is a link to the clip.
https://watch.montanapbs.org/video/wgcu-presents-wwii-vets-robert-hilliard/
https://news.wgcu.org/post/dr-robert-hilliard-talks-about-saving-displaced-persons-after-wwii
Here is a more recent article about him - https://oceansreach.com/robert-hilliard/
chaya, June 5, 2019 6:30 AM
Appreciate the Links !
https://oceansreach.com/robert-hilliard/
Here is another, from 2017; it has an interview, also and is excellent. Thank you for providing the links, to Yvette Miller for educating so many of us, about this and to Mr. Hilliard, total respect and honor.
(16) Anonymous, June 4, 2019 10:23 PM
horrified to read this account
I am so shocked to hear of the Americans mistreatment and actual hate for the survivors of the worst atrocity in history. I am disgusted and horrified.
At least two soldiers did what was right and tried to help. It shows how people that are determined can change a very bad situation. They certainly deserve high praise, while Generals Eisenhower and Patton showed their true colors.
(15) Ed Hirsch, June 4, 2019 9:03 PM
I had heard
I had heard about the Concentration Camps the British were using to detain Jewish survivors who were attempting to go to Palestine and were being turned back. But this is the first I've heard of US soldiers and their commanders treating them so horribly in Europe. I served in the US Navy as did my father in WW2. I feel ashamed.
(14) Esther Bartels, June 4, 2019 8:02 PM
This story should be made into a movie by Spielberg, to show the world.
Shocking news that I was never aware of in the past. Thank you!
(13) Mario Zamora, June 4, 2019 7:16 PM
The more they change the more they stay the same
I still hear Americans even highly educated ones speak in such denigrating terms of Jews. There was no difference back then among nazis and many Americans including soldiers. Cultures and prejudices change slower than a snail’s pace if they change at all.
(12) Gabriela E. Litov, June 4, 2019 6:38 PM
Shocking! I have never heard of this shameful occurrence even though I pride myself on knowing about the history of the Holocaust and have visited several concentration camps
(11) Robert Hilliard, June 4, 2019 6:01 PM
As the subject of Dr. Miller's article, I'd like to communicate with her. Please send me her email address or mine to her.
Ed Hirsch, June 4, 2019 9:07 PM
Thank you so much!!
If you really are the Pvt. Hilliard of this tremendous feat, Thank You!!. If no one has responded to your request, you should go to the bottom of the Page and find the Contact Aish or Aish.com, and go that route.
Robin, June 5, 2019 6:46 PM
Thank you!
Thank you for doing all that you did to help survivors! May you & all your descendants be blessed for all time.
(10) Anonymous, June 4, 2019 4:14 PM
I'm appalled!
I'm ashamed to say I have never heard of this aspect of the war. It's appalling to think that Americans did not act with more humanity immediately on the camps liberation. Kol Hakavod to Hillard and Herman for their work on behalf of our people. Thank you for posting a very important article.
(9) Anonymous, June 4, 2019 4:05 PM
Disgusting to learn Holocaust survivors were further abused and by the U.S doldiers
A truly interesting And upsetting article as a child of Holocaust survivors I have read and learned extensively about the holocaust but this was totally surprising I know that my father was cursed out by a soldier but I did not realize many survivors were still placed in American concentration camps under the guise of protection for them. But also surprised me was Patton feeling about Jews and those tragic barely human Holocaust survivors who he disparaged. And of course it wasn’t only him it was a great many of the soldier saviors. Disgusting
(8) Marsha Toma, June 4, 2019 3:43 PM
Outrageous facts I was never aware of
I almost started crying while reading this in a public place. Just goes to show that you can always learn new things about this horror. This was just about the most depressing thing I’ve read about the Holocaust. One bright spot is the heroic deeds of these two American Private’s. The rose to the level of sainthood in my opinion. They are among the most special heroes ever to have existed.
(7) Joseph King, June 4, 2019 3:43 PM
75 years after D Day and we are just learning this.
I am 84, have studied at a Brooklyn high-school, graduated from a top university, read widely and had never heard of this horrifying story. As a child, both before and after my Bar Mitzvah in 1948, I subscribed to and read a Zionist journal and today was shocked and amazed to hear this story. I am shocked that my education and my own awareness was so lacking. And yet, deep down in my soul, I am not surprised.
(6) Anonymous, June 4, 2019 3:40 PM
different conditions at different places
The survivors who made it to Wiesbaden were helped by the US military quite frequently. Because there was the Military Rabbi Dalin nearby, the support also enabled a new Jewish Community and services, even weddings - there are a number of photos supporting my impression - decades later.
(5) Jon Joyce, June 4, 2019 3:30 PM
How can this be!
Thank you once again, Dr. Miller, for making this known, as you have other incidents of which we are ignorant. This was unconscionable! I continue to be amazed at the cruelty of man, but as the prophet Jeremiah said, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds. Jeremiah 17: 9-10. How could any human being see what they saw and not be moved with compassion and a desperate desire to help alleviate the pain and suffering? God help us!
(4) bill morgenstein, June 4, 2019 3:25 PM
Too shocking for words
You just have to ask yourself: When is enough, enough? I knew about the survivors being confined after the so called liberation but to continue to withhold food and medicine is inhuman. When people demonize their fellow man they are themselves becoming less than human. My qauestion is, was anyone punished for their inhumanity and evil behavior?
(3) Gisele Cott, June 4, 2019 3:23 PM
wow
I have never heard this before. and what a miracle. there is so much anti-semitism out there but I am surprised at the initial American involvement after liberation. I wonder how many died as a result of this neglect. an old saying is you maybe not helping me (the survivor) but why help them (Nazi soldiers)???. how two young men triumphed. I knew about Patton's feelings (later on of course) but I also knew about Truman's.
(2) Anonymous, June 4, 2019 3:17 PM
Survival after the war
This is the first I have heard of this mistreatment by the American soldiers. I think there should be an open investigation now before we don’t have any survivors left to document this travesty. Even though the Americans were our allies, these atrocities must be openly documented and put in yad v’shem.
(1) MESA, June 4, 2019 1:58 PM
The US knew about the Shoah and did almost nothing to make it stop. When it was over, they still didn't care. B"H for good guys like these.
Anonymous, June 5, 2019 1:16 AM
I read an appalling book about the founder of IBM and his involvement, He was even knighted by Hitler ! People KNEW about the Holocaust, I have seen old NY newspapers from the era. Two men escaped from a camp early on and told what was happening there and there were others who told.
Our last New Zealand Prime Minister is the son of a girl who escaped the Holocaust .