TO ORDER CONTACT THE WEBMASTER [3][4], On 8 January 1945, the SS-Totenkopfverbnde, which ran the concentration camp system, took over two two-storey garages of the Luftwaffe barracks to use as housing for 6,000 prisoners who were forced to work in the V-2 rocket production in nearby underground factories. United States Army Investigation and Trial Records of War Criminals, National Archives and Records Service. They dug mass graves on a prominent hill near the camp and carried the corpses Casualty figures for the 104th Infantry Division, European theater of operations: The nickname of the 104th Infantry Division, "Timberwolf," originated from the division's insignia, a gray timberwolf. Galione described the night he ventured off alone, walking for miles on a hunch, to his daughter and the following is an excerpt from her book, "The Journey of Private Galione: How America Became a Superpower": I walked and walked all night. One survivor, Franz Rosenbach was arrested in Austria because he was a gypsy and therefore deemed "racially inferior" by Hitler's Nazi Regime. Massacre was the word here, After defending the west bank of the Rhine River, the division crossed the river at Honnef on 22 March 1945, and attacked to the east of the Remagen bridgehead. Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 104th Infantry Division Artillery, 104th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop (Mechanized), Headquarters, Special Troops, 104th Infantry Division, Headquarters Company, 104th Infantry Division, 104th Counterintelligence Corps Detachment, 750th Tank Battalion (attached 16 NOV 44-23 DEC 44, 6 FEB 45-22 MAY 45), 784th Tank Battalion (attached 31 DEC 44-3 FEB 45), 692nd Tank Destroyer Battalion (attached 29 OCT 44-7 MAR 45), 817th Tank Destroyer Battalion (attached 1 APR 45-9 JUN 45), 555th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion (attached 26 OCT 44-24 MAY 45), 1st Battalion, 398th Regiment (Drill Sergeants), 2nd Battalion, 397th Regiment (Drill Sergeants), This page was last edited on 28 March 2023, at 12:20. The division insignia is a gray Timberwolf's head on a balsam green disc. You are invited to read the rest patients, set up improvised hospital wards, and feed many mouths without help. In the building bedded on straw side death had overtaken them, but some were stacked like cordwood under stairways. [16][c] Some had been dead before the air raid;[5] others were burned to death or died after the air raid from neglect. French survivor Jean Mialet is quoted as stating "This is what hell must be like" when speaking of Mittelbau Dora. bearers and medical technicians as well as any other men available from duties We appreciate your comments about this site. It was located inside a former Luftwaffe barracks complex in Nordhausen, Thuringia, Germany, adjacent to several pre-existing forced labor camps. 70th Anniversary Of WWII Concentration Camp Liberation - CBS News [5][7] Some prisoners, weakened from their ordeal at other concentration camps, never recovered from the stress of transport, often in open railway cars, with inadequate food and water. fellow infantrymen teamed up with the 3rd Armored Division beating back the Nazis and gaining a 375 mile penetration deep into the heart of Germany. Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics, Find articles, photos, maps, films, and more listed alphabetically, Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust, Explore the ID Cards to learn more about personal experiences during the Holocaust. The 104th Infantry Division discovered approximately 3,000 corpses lying around the camp and some 750 emaciated, starving and ill prisoners who had been left behind when the SS evacuated the inmates on death marches. The Article. through the years, and point out the tragedy of this minor concentration camp! Boelcke-Kaserne concentration camp - Wikipedia Sleet beat down on the troops, who went for days soaked to the skin and slimy with mud. Story. (15) The men of the 104th certainly must have agreed. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. was a captain from France's famous Saint Cyr Military Academy and had received majority of prisoners were French (mainly members of the French Resistance). SS doctor Heinrich Schmidt was largely responsible for the inhuman conditions. occurred. Every so often, the floor would be hosed down in order to clean out the excrement. causes including starvation, fatigue and execution. particularly sadistic attention from the SS Troopers. [8] By 1952, the division was turning out 1,500 new reservists per training camp. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. But few realized the evil acts that Hitler and his Nazi regime were committing against humanity. Lucherberg was held against enemy counterattacks on 3 December, and all strongholds west of the Roer River were captured by the 23rd. In June of 1945, following the Fedden Mission investigation of the Dora conditions, The United States of America versus Arthur Kurt Andrae et al. Concentration Camp, was first viewed as just another spot on the map, but (11) The U.S. Army rushed medical personnel, food, and equipment to the camp. the near skeletonized to the newly dead. of gathering at the national reunions, the final Timberwolf reunion was held in September, 2010 and the difficult decision to end the National Timberwolf Association was I often wonder if he made it back to life, and if he had ever been I followed the trains all the way down, for miles, and found a train car filled with dead captured Wehrmacht vehicles and even barnyard carts supplementing more Among these people are Rabbi Gunther Plaut,[36] paleontologist Charles Repenning, Governor of Iowa Leo Hoegh,[37] New York City mayor Ed Koch, New York governor Hugh L. Carey, judge Perry Shields, and generals John R. Deane Jr. and Bryant Moore. me he had been kicked and beaten repeatedly. was officially formed by the descendants of the Timberwolves, and is dedicated to continuing the traditions set forth by their fathers and maintaining the legacy of the 104th Infantry Timberwolf Division. The columnist regales the Timberwolves in the following manner: They had been engaged in six months and eighteen days of unceasing front-line combat, during which they had spearheaded five major offensive operations. Eibelshausen appeared and were soon overrun. Requesting help from the 104th Infantry Division, the 3rd immediately begins transporting some 250 ill and starving prisoners to nearby hospital facilities. human filth. Boelcke Barracks; also Nordhausen) was a subcamp of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp complex where prisoners were left to die after they became unable to work. than a half-century later, the memories of Nordhausen remain fixed in the minds morning of 11 April dawned with yet another strangely named town to be reckoned The media of the time described combat in far less gruesome detail. The Timberwolves travelled across France by train and debarked near the Belgian-Dutch border and waited for word to take part in a new allied offensive, Operation Pheasant, taking the place of the experienced British 49th Infantry Division on the left flank and the Polish 1st Armored Division on the right. machine was crumbling, but counter attacks and stubborn pockets of resistance, While the bulk of the division moved near Aachen, Germany, elements remained to secure Moerdijk until 7 November, when they were relieved. TTY: 202.488.0406, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, The Holocaust and World War II: Key Dates, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center. Their corpses were found by the US Army units that liberated the camp on 11 April. The division was ordered into active military service on 15 September 1942 under the command of Major General Gilbert R. Cook, and was reorganized as the 104th Infantry Division at Camp Adair, Oregon. (1) By April of 1945 the Timberwolves were nearing the town of Nordhausen. outright. With care, he was lifted upon a litter and taken to our waiting value, put an enormous strain on the British public. After World War II, this division was reorganized primarily as a training division for Reserve forces. [14], The division was reactivated on 1 December 1946 in the organized reserves in Portland, Oregon. accompanied by a horrible dead-rot stench. immediately following the war. The article recounts the heroic feats of the 104th as if recapping a college football game. Sobered and drained each of us eventually left the area, in the When the first American GI's arrived in the . By the end of the training, it had turned out 300 new reservists. Would that it was possible to take the doubters by the hand, back through the years, and point out the tragedy of this minor concentration camp! [16] The American soldiers were outraged; one wrote, "No written word can properly convey the atmosphere of such a charnel house, the unbearable stench of decomposing bodies, the sight of live human beings lying cheek by jowl with the ten-day dead"[15] A 15 April report describes the camp as "the most horrifying example of Nazi terrorism imaginable". There was also a Gestapo-run Sonderlager ("special camp"), and other forced labor camps nearby, but these were not part of the Mittelbau-Dora complex. The 104th Infantry Division participated in major WWII campaigns and is recognized for liberating the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in 1945. [20], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}512930.1N 104831.0E / 51.491694N 10.808611E / 51.491694; 10.808611, "Nordhausen concentration camp" redirects here. Men lay as they starved, discolored, and lying in indescribable In December, the 104th was forced into defensive positions by German counterattacks, but in March 1945, the division entered the Rhineland and captured the city of Cologne. 104thInfantry Division. villages like Holzhausen, Niederingelbach, Dalwigsthal, Strasseberbach & National Timberwolf Association. But, the photos that follow responsible for the operation of Mittelbau Dora Camp. 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW there were no living beings; only the distorted dead. risk their lives in order to protect the world from tyranny. history of the 104th Infantry Division, Timberwolf Tracks , relates [5][b] The SS evacuated from the barracks after the raid, leaving the dead and leaving dying prisoners to fend for themselves. TTY: 202.488.0406, The Holocaust and World War II: Key Dates, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center. [26] Meanwhile, the 3rd Brigade, 104th Division,[27] as well as the 4th Brigade, 104th Division both activated at Fort Lawton, Washington. and there were about thirty corpses piled on the ground awaiting such treatment I was exhausted because we had just gotten in from all those miles. In November, the unit was already approaching the German city of Aachen. In the stress of one of the great, decisive battles in world history, many of these acts failed of proper recognition. (6) Richard Murphy, "Survivors of V2 Nazi Slave Camp Mark Liberation," Reuters, April 10, 1995, under "The Nizkor Project," http://nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/buchenwald/press/reuters.040395 (Oct. 24, 2009). Otherwise, please send us your comments, stories, or any other information you wish to share.Please do not send anything obscene or offensive. The 104th began combat operations on 25 and 26 October and began to attack the Germans, who offered varying levels of resistance. emaciated frames. Post on August 17, 1946. This camp was created by the SS for prisoners too weak or too ill to work in the tunnels of Dora on the fabrication of the German V1 and V2 rockets. Laboring in the dark, unventilated caverns; the prisoners endured back-breaking labor, malnutrition and disease, as well as the random brutality of the guards. quite understand how and why war could do these things. [15] The division then organized and assembled at Manche, France before heading into combat.[16]. I heard supplementing more conventional means of transport for the relentless push East. He told me that many of the 3,000 dead [1] The division was the first U.S. Army division to be trained to fight in nighttime conditions. Speed would save lives, so we fell into a day of evacuation, For other concentration camps near, Location of Boelcke-Kaserne within Germany, Boelcke-Kaserne concentration camp (Thuringia), SS files list 1,662 deaths between 8 January and 2 April 1945, but this is believed to be incomplete, and does not include those who died in the bombing or around the time of liberation. all present. Visit . Explore a timeline of events that occurred before, during, and after the Holocaust. (14) Kenneth T. Downs, "Nothing Stopped the Timberwolves," The Saturday Evening Post (August 17, 1946): 20-43. Info@104InfDiv.org. Stanley Dunn," National Timberwolf Association, www.104infdiv.org (accessed Oct. 22, 2009). The It is primarily responsible for Combat Service Support training for soldiers entering the Ordnance Corps and other related fields. . 'Concentration Camp.'. [5] Additional prisoners arrived in June 1944 for forced labor with Junkers and in the Mittelwerk tunnel system, mostly for the production of V-1 and V-2 rockets. Certainly, the Nazi's saw the labor camp as an opportunity to "kill two birds with one stone". have the gas chambers of Dachau or Buchenwald, a refinement apparently reserved According to some accounts, soldiers of the 104th Infantry Division killed German civilians in Nordhausen who denied knowledge of the atrocities, believing that they were partially responsible. US Army 104th Infantry Division shoulder sleeve patch with a howling The 104th Infantry Division was first constituted on 24 June 1921 as the 104th Division, before being organized and activated in October of that year in Salt Lake City, Utah. The sanitation was totally inhumane. Activated in 1942, the 104th Infantry Division landed in France in September 1944, a few months after the Allied invasion of western Europe on D-Day (June 6, 1944).
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