I cannot really "like" this. It represents one of the ugliest moments of man (small capps on purpose) history.
But I also agree, that it should never be forgotten or whitewashed.
In the late 90's, my Dad took me to have lunch with a golf buddy of his and his wife. I'd met George before, but never got to talk to him much, and while we were talking this time, my Dad said "George was an infantryman in WW2 in Europe, got a battlefield promotion to Lieutenant. Then Korea came along, and the Army recalled him to active duty and he did a bunch of time in Korea."
George commented about what a raw deal that was, then a pall came over his face. He paused, then told us he was one of the guys who liberated a concentration camp near the end of WW2. He said he and the guys with him were battle hardened, thought they'd seen all the horrors they could ever imagine. When they went into the camp, saw the piles of emaciated bodies waiting to be burned, smelled the overwhelming stench, wondered what kind of place this was, then saw the breathing skeletons, they lost it in a rage. He said some men rounded up the camp guards, others set up machine guns and they started shooting the guards against a wall until officers stopped it.
When he finished, tears were streaming down his face right there in the restaurant as he remembered. For a bit, none of the other three of us said anything, then in a small, quiet voice, his wife said "We've been married more than 50 years, and I never heard that before."
I'm glad for George, that finally, in his eighties, he could let it out what he saw.
Never forget. Never again.
