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One of the greatest accomplishments of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was the rescuing of the prisoners of Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany. One Nisei soldier exclaimed, "You can't imagine how really pathetic it was to see these people walking with shallow faces, their eyes sunk in. They were just beaten human beings--they were destroyed and no amount of food or anything like that was going to bring them out of it. It was going to take love and understanding to make them human being again. But they looked so gruesome. People can't imagine what it was like to see people who were actually nothing but skin and bones. You can't imagine a human being starving other human beings so badly they would get in that condition." 
One of the rooms in the krematorium On Wednesday, March 22, 1942, the first concentration camp was established, and it was called Dachau. It was named after the city it was established in. After Hitler and the National Socialist got absolute power in Germany, they began their relentless persecution and elimination of people of different religion, color and culture. Dachau was a prototype for all concentration camps. Dachau was chosen
because it was not very far from Munich. The
transfer of prisoners from Munich to Dachau could
be easily made. Heinrich Himmler, the leader who
announced the establishment of Dachau at a press
conference was made Munich's Chief of
Police. Although Dachau was built to house males, the first women were brought to the camp for medical experiments. There were many different types of people that were put into the camp. Some were Germans, Communists, Monarchists, and Social Democrats. They were taken into "protective custody" and guarded by the Bavarian police. The largest group of prisoners were the political prisoners. There were Jehovah Witnesses, gypsies, so-called racial inferiors, criminals, Catholic clergy and Jews. During the war, there
was a lot of medical experiments. In the hospital,
the doctors didn't really help the sick prisoners
but the untrained prisoners serving as male nurses
did as much as possible. Sometimes if a prisoner
walked in needing an operation on his heart he
might walk out without a leg. They would walk out
without a leg because the doctors were unconcerned
and would just randomly cut off a leg. The
prisoners usually had circulatory disease,
congestion of the lungs, hunger, edema,
tuberculosis, weakness of the heart,and malaria.
One thousand-one hundred prisoners had
malaria.
They had to help make lots of things such as cartridges and weapons. They built roads, worked in gravel pits, and drained ditches. They had to work in the armaments factories. the main camp road was lined with trees, and in the autumn the prisoners were ordered to pick up every leaf. If the guards found a single leaf the prisoners would be punished. Also, if they violated any rule they would be punished. Some of the most frequent punishments were flogging, which was when a prisoner was strapped to a specially designed block, and was given twenty-five lashes. Sometimes prisoners had to give other prisoners lashes to help break solidarity. Everything the Schutzsaffel (SS) did was to break solidarity, but they were never successful. Another punishment was tree or pole hanging which was when a prisoner was suspended for hours with his hand tied behind his back. Sometimes they were not even fed! Detention in the Bunker was another punishment. The Bunker was a prison within a prison, within a prison. The prisoners were held in chains and deprived of their rations when they were in the Bunker. The death penalty was also specified in the Order of Discipline and Punishment. There was a slaughter called the Holocaust. It was set up to kill the Jews. It is said that 18 to 26 million people were killed in them, including 6 million Jews and 400,000 gypsies. The prisoners were also used for medical experiments. Dachau had two
crematoria. The original one had only two ovens and
then later a larger one. The dead bodies of the
prisoners were burned in the crematoria. There was
also a gas chamber in Dachau. It was built too late
so they never used it. It was built in 1942, which
was nine years after Dachau was opened. They saw flatbed railroad cars on the tracks with other corpses stacked on top of each other. The exact number of deaths at Dachau will never be known. The Nazis destroyed many incriminating documents. It's believed that prisoners from 27 countries were interned at Dachau. Ichiro Imamaura, who belonged to the 522nd's medical detachment, found some large chalk-like bars with numbers stamped on them. He was going to keep them as souvenirs, but was told that they were the remains of prisoners. The numbers were for identification. At Dachau, Germany, one of the greatest ironies of World War II occurred when members of a persecuted minority, the 442nd, rescued members of another persecuted minority, the Jewish prisoners. They were victims of the most blatant disregard for civil liberties and human rights ever conducted by a government against its people. The Japanese Americans for being of Japanese ancestry, and the Jewish people for being of Jewish faith. We must make sure that these atrocities never happens again by making sure people never forget. Dachau Scrapbook: Liberators' Testimonies: |
