19. A 70-Year Memory: Liberation

While the 10th Armored was regrouping in the west, the Red Army was moving westward. What they discovered in Poland has defined the depths of what humans can do to each other. Later in the spring the 10th Armored would be involved in liberating one of the camps. But this day is to be remembered as well. It is still, 70 years later, the symbol of incredibly inhuman actions. Around 1.1 million people died there. It's name should still bring chills to anyone with a conscience.

Auschwitz.

From Wikipedia:

As Soviet troops approached Auschwitz in January 1945, most of its population was evacuated and sent on a death march. The prisoners remaining at the camp were liberated on January 27, 1945, a day now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the following decades, survivors such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel wrote memoirs of their experiences in Auschwitz, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust.

Never again!

Commemorative flowers on the rail track in Auschwitz II-Birkenau

"KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bahngleise der Entladerampe, Blumen zum Gedenken" by Dnalor 01 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

11. Homefront and Battlefront- Christmas 1944

With all the work I've been doing on following the 10th Armored Division through their European campaign on 1944-45 the situation at home hasn't been far from my thoughts. My Dad had just been married in May of 1944 and then shipped out in September. The American homefront was clearly invested in the war- rationing, recycling, extreme and extraordinary commitments and sacrifice were all over the country.

As 1944 was coming to a close there was at first a sense of hope. D-Day had been successful. But by Christmas, as the news began to be reported, a number of days late, of the German counter-offensive in the Ardennes, tensions, fears and uncertainty became very real.  I did a quick search on Christmas 1944 and found a few postcards and posters that were from that era.

 While in the Ardennes, the picture was very, very different. They tried to make the best of the situation, but it was often more of a short break from the constant fighting of the Battle of the Bulge.