This was sent to me by Kitty. It's from our friend Russ.

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Dear Kitty: This time I am dead serious and I know how busy you are but I want you at your first opportunity to take some time and go to goggle and type in this search request: The Day the Thunderbird Cried. That is the title of a book just out, written by my comrade in arms David Israel a West Coast Jewish soldier, historian and scholar. My copy of the book is in the mail but has not arrived as yet. I was one of five consultants for the author so he is sending me a dedicated copy which I will cherish. Anyway, you need to read the first goggle reference to the above search-----then look at the links at the bottom and read what you care to. This is why I do my lectures and why the commission is real to me. Let me know what you think of the Medford Mail articles in goggle. Russ

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Click here to read the story about the author and the book:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Dachau/Davi...vid_Israel.html

I'm sure this will bring on a lot of heated discussion.

Marion...As I wrote before to you I was at Dachau at sunrise & I swear I never saw any killings.The only dead Jerries I saw were the guards around the fence around the camp, killed in the assault and the commandant & assistant commandant at the front gate who had been kicked to death by the inmates. I think this is a BIG fabrication. AL

As I said, I thought it would be very controversial. I'm sure things like this happened in the heat of war at times. And brother if it DID happen, who the hell could blame those guys anyway. It may not be politically correct and against the Geneva Convention, but hell so is killing millions of JEWS! So if a few of them got it, well so be it! I'll probably catch some for this, but that is how I feel!

I would like to hear from others such as yourself who were really there. Did anyone see anything like see happening at Dachau or similar places of internment?

Printed with permission granted by Russell Weiskircher.

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Marion:

There will be controversy as long as there are people. However, there is some truth and some error in almost any 60 year old tale. I was there, all day, right at LTC Colonel Sparks side so to speak. The camp was approached from several directions and penetrated almost simultaneously by elements of our battalion and later by troops from the 42nd Division. Anyone with the 157th Infantry at Dachau on 29 Apr had to see deliberate killings. Prisoners, guards that had surrendered, were huddled into the the area we called the coal bin. They were shot without reason other than the insane reaction of a justifiably upset young soldier with an air cooled 30 caliber machine gun. There were guards shot as they left the watch towers. There were guards killed because they were dumb enough to run into the inner compound among the prisoners. There were dead guards and kapos in the canal, river what ever you wanted to call that foul stream. The actual camp commandant, the SS colonel was NOT killed nor did he surrender. He and most of his staff got out of there before the troops arrived.

A low life group of left overs, the sick, lame and lazy and the kapos surrendered to elments of the 45th and the 42nd. War is hell and Dachau was hell. I saw Sparks literally kick the machine gun away from the young soldier who shot 17 guards/prisoners at the wall. I saw Sparks whip out his pistol, fire into the air, command attention and one man, single handedly put a stop to the wanton killings.

I am not making any excuses for the gang. I was part of it. I personally clubbed a German captain over the head amd fractured his skull because he refused to surrender to a non com. The arrogant ass demanded to surrender to a major and to stand away from enlsted prisoners.

I have no doubt that several officers, several non coms and some grunts could have been charged with cruelty to prisoners of war and could have been convicted. Thank God Patton chose to see it differently when it became a 3rd Army concern. Left to 7th Army and SHAPE or SHEAF, who knows what would have happened.

Dave Israel's book is not one of fabrication. If anything, he is generouus to a fault trying to justify the massacre. I say don't justify it-accept it as one more aspect of war, let it go! To deny the truth is unreasonable. No one was closer to the center of the action than I on 29 April 1945, and I agree with most of the new book.

I do not write from an inspedector's point of view or a ranking officer, I was a ground pounder with combat experience and despite all that I had seen, I tossed my cookies that day, several times. And I am no bleeding heart. If it were to happen again, I would do the same thing without hesitation. Evil breeds evil. War is evil. Wake up!

Russ Weiskircher

I have spoken with 2 members of the 101st who liberated Landsberg and they were as sickend the same way you were, also they found it extremely hard to control their emotions and by the grace God, the desire to take revenge on the Germans for the hell that was a KZ.

Dachau,

On May 29th, My 3rd Division, 7th Inf Reg't was fighting the Krauts in Munich. I don't remember the dates, but that's what the Division History says.

I can't find any reference to Dachau in either the 7th Inf History, nor the 3rd Div History. For some reason, it appears to be deliberately missing.

But I vividly remember being at Dachau! It was probably shortly after the fighting was over but no one can forget what they saw there, in my case after 60 years. I saw the freight cars filled with skin and bones corpses, apparently gassed at other locations and brought to Dachau to be burned in the crematorium. But Dachau was overrun by the 42nd and 45th Divisions before the evidence could be burned.

I can't remember why I was there. We were probably close by and were taken to see the carnage that Hitler had wrought. My most vivid memory is that of a live prisoner, wandering around just outside the barbed wire in what appeared to be a daze. He was wearing a striped suit, but what I will never forget is his face! It was badly scarred and misshapen. His left eye was gone and my guess was that he had been hit in the face by a guard with a rifle butt at some time in the past. It appeared that the broken bones had never been set, and now the misshapen face was covered by taught scarred skin. Apparently he was not treated and he was left alive as an example to other prisoners of the result of not following orders!

I remember offering him a can of C rations but he was in a daze and didn't know what it was.

Memories best not dwelled upon!

Russ Cloer - 3_7_I_Recon

Couple of good links on the subject:

***WARNING - Pretty graphic pictures in here***

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapb...iersKilled.html

http://www.humanitas-international.org/arc...hau-liberation/

I stumbled across that last link a year or so ago, first I had heard of the event. I'll be interested to read this book. Thanks for the heads up.

Ron

Great sites. I was NOT familiar with those Ron. Thanks.

Well, more undisputed truth about the massacre. Notice that many of the same names and documents crop up on these sites.

Yea, I'm surprised that more people don't know the story behind it but then I just stumbled on the link by accident. It's true the victor's write the history I guess.

And even still, I don't have a huge problem with the action. Obviously I wasn't there but I can't say that I wouldn't have done the same thing under the circumstances. Tough call and a damn shame that so many people had to be exposed to that and put in a position where a decision like that was made. It's hard to believe human beings could treat one another like that (meaning the Germans & their treatment of the Jews).

God bless all of you that put a stop to it.

Ron

Yeah, I can't say that I wouldn't have done it either. I mean, no one had ever seen things like that. As I stated previously after all they (our troops) had been through and then to come up these atrocities. Like getting hit with a sledge hammer. You think you've seen and been through it all and then find out that the enemy had even dirtier things up their sleeves. Oh the humanity!