Lee Patterson
ASN:34794884
307th Airborne Medical Company 82nd Airborne
Enlisted 1943, served with the 307th Airborne Medical, rank Tec 5. He was present at Wobbelin Camp in May 1945, see letter below. Reenlisted with an M.P. Platoon 82nd Airborne, October 1945, while stationed in Germany. Separated from the service September 4, 1948.
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“Inside defeated Germany, 12 May 1945
The remark that is most made now is, “I always thought those things were exaggerated propaganda, but now that I’ve seen it myself, I’ll never doubt any of the things that I read.”
I’ve just seen a sight that I thought I’d never see, a sight that I never thought was possible. The dead and the living were there together, and in most cases, there was very little difference between the two.
The camp is about four or five miles outside of the town that we are in now; it’s on the main highway and in full view of anyone who passes, places without knowing some of the horrors that went on inside of the double barbed wire enclosure. Of course, you have to go inside the camp itself to see the real filth and desolation that is there, but the groans of the dying and the stench of the dead are evident even from the highway.
As we drove up to the gate, a small boy stood there just outside the camp. He was thin and emaciated and his ragged clothes barely covered his filthy body. We smiled at him and received only a vacant stare from his completely lackluster eyes.
We drove inside and stopped the ambulance and got out. An old man trudged up to us and began speaking in English. “Will it be possible for us to leave here tonight?” he asked us. We didn’t know, but we told him we thought he would leave that night or the next day. I wished to high heaven that he could have gone from that place that very minute, but there was no telling what awful disease he carried and it would have been very dangerous to have taken any of them away until a suitable place was prepared for them all. He asked us to come with him to see where he and some of his friends lived. Again, he asked if it wasn’t possible for him and the others of his group to leave with us and big tears streamed down his cheeks. I’m not sure just why he cried; it was probably a combination of joy at being liberated and fear of having to spend another night in hell.
As we were walking with him to the building he lived in, another prisoner came and beckoned for us to follow him. We told the old man, he was a Dutch political prisoner, that we would be with him in a few minutes and followed the British guard and the other prisoner.
There we saw the sight that I’d heard and read about so many times. There was the sight that had been photographed and printed before. There was the sight that until now, even with all of the articles I had read and the pictures I had seen, I had passed off as so much propaganda. In a little alcove at the end of the long barracks was piled about 20 or 30 dead bodies. There was no way to be sure of the number, because they were stacked one on top of the other as shovelfuls of manure might be piled.
There was absolutely no attempt made to preserve any of the dignity that surely belongs to the dead. There was no cover over them and there was no attempt made to lay them in an orderly fashion. They were just thrown in and left to lay where they might drop. Each body there, I’m sure, died of starvation and malnutrition. I looked at one body lying there on the ground. The impression of the backbone was plainly visible from the front. There seemed to be no abdomen or stomach – only the skin of the front of the body covering the backbone. The eyes were open and staring, and as I looked at them, I felt mighty guilty for not having hated the Germans enough before. Well, there they were – all of those dead humans. There was nothing any of us could do about it. Hating the Germans or the people directly responsible for such an atrocity isn’t going to help them. There’s no punishment to fit the crime in this case. Only the wrath of God, himself, can ever do justice to the criminals who were responsible for such a crime. And the criminals are not only the people who had a hand in the crime itself, but it includes the others who stood by and let such a thing happen…and that probably includes just about all of the Germans in Germany.
There was still a worse sight to come. I started over towards the old Dutchman we had first met (I call him an old Dutchman—he may have been quite a young man for all I know) and they called us over into a long barracks. There, lying on the ground just where they had passed away, I think, were about 40 or 50 more of the dead. They were just the same as all of the others. They probably hadn’t been dead as long…
I’ve been trying to describe something here that defies description. I’ve seen a great many things in this war that have been filthy and hateful and depressing and I’ve been able to tell you about them, but for once I’m stopped. To see is the only way to fully comprehend…and I’m glad that none of you have had to see such a sight.
General Eisenhower has issued an order that all such people found in all such concentration camps are to have a decent burial, and that the cemeteries are to be cared for just as a military cemetery.
On last Monday, I attended such a ceremony for these dead. Two hundred of these people were laid to rest in a public park here in the center of the town that we are in now. Many of the local civilians were required to go to the camp and see for themselves the result of what their corrupt government had imposed on so many innocent people of so many innocent nations. Then a great many of them were made to dig up the bodies from the pits where they were placed, head to foot, one on top of another and they were moved into the town and into the park where they were buried.
The burial ceremony was a sight I shall never forget. It’s to the everlasting credit of Chaplain Wood, one of our Protestant Chaplains, who was in charge of the proceedings, for the fine and dignified way the whole thing was handled.
There were four rows of 50 graves each. Beside each freshly dug grave lay a body on a white sheet. All of the civilians of the town were required to be there. They were led past the graves and had to look again at the bodies lying there. After they had viewed them, a dozen or so high ranking Nazi officers, many of them Generals, had to file past and view the result of their incredible workings. Just as they started to walk past, one of our MPs, rather roughly, removed the hat of the first one, the rest of the officers had sense enough to remove theirs then. After they had seen the bodies, they were lined up facing the graves. Many of our officers were standing facing the German officers. The band played “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” and two other hymns as the bodies were lowered with ropes into the graves. It was impossible to provide boxes for so many corpses, so they were buried only in a white sheet. It was a favorite trick of our MPs to make every person remove his gloves, if he was wearing them, and to handle the dead bodies with his bare hands. Some of the civilians cried. Some of the GIs there cried, too.
Today, I had occasion to go through town. We passed the graves of the two hundred people previously mentioned. There they are, four rows of white crosses with every fourth one marked with the Jewish Star of David. Someone figured that 25% of these people were Jews, and since there was no way to know which of them was, they just marked every fourth grave with the Jewish insignia. Each grave is covered with evergreen and a few tulips and lilac…and they look infinitely better than they did when I first saw them piled up at the end of that building in that sickening pile.
I’ve noticed at least one mistake in fact in what I’ve written here. Once I mentioned something about the “stench of the dead”. There was no smell of dead flesh. There was no flesh to smell. Skin and bones has no odor. All that there was left of these bodies was skin and bones. Of course, there was a sickening smell from the filth and corruption about the camp, but the bodies themselves had no odor at all.
I’m afraid this has been very poor writing. Surely, it hasn’t done justice to the sight that was written about. Much has been written and said about these atrocities. Nothing that can ever be written or nothing that can ever be said can possibly portray accurately the scene itself.
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Well, the war in Europe is over. What will happen to me now, I have no idea. I hope that I can get home to see you all before I go to another theatre of battle.
There are lots of other fellows here who have seen and gone through much more than I have. They deserve to get home before I do.
I’ve tried to keep you posted on all of the things that I’ve done. When living was the most exciting and when the most was happening, that was when I didn’t have the time to write to you about it. When things did quiet down, I was either too lazy or too tired or having a little too much fun and much needed relaxation to write much about it. I never have written any of you much about my trip to Paris or the “Battle of the Bulge” last Christmas time, or of this last trip into Germany…all of those things will have to wait till I can get home. Then you can all prepare yourselves to be lectured and talked to till you’ll be blue in the face.
Then, too, maybe there’s much more of the story yet to happen.
STL Archive Records
Died July 24, 1967
