Joseph Ichiuji, 522nd Field Artillery Battalion

Joseph Ichiuji

522nd Field Artillery Battalion

Joseph Ichiuji talks about his experience seeing the Holocaust survivors coming out of a camp. (Run time: 3:00)

We were the only Japanese Americans fighting in Germany. And we were one of the first allied troops to liberate sub camps of Dachau, so we were given credit for that.

(Tell me that experience. Take me through that and describe the...)
About the Dachau thing? Well, I remember we were moving, and we were heading south of Augsburg and heading toward the camp area. I remember we were in a motorized truck convoy. There was a curve in front of a gate there. As we came around this way, there were a lot of Jewish inmates coming out of the camp, and I heard that the gate was opened by our advanced scouts. They took a rifle and shot it. I think it was a fellow from Hawaii that did that. I think it was a Captain Taylor, Company B was one of them, but another person from Hawaii, he passed away. They opened the gate and all these German, I mean, Jewish victims were coming out of the camp. They had their black and gray striped uniforms on, and they were coming out. By looking at these, they were living skeleton, walking skeletons. They were suffering from malnutrition, and they were very hungry. So, many of them were, I remember, as you come around this way, there were many carving away strips of meat from the carcass of a dead animal, and I saw that. I guess they were hungry. So, we moved along and we bivouacked along nearby the edge of the camp and it was cold, you know. It had snowed, it was cold, so we built a fire. We were sitting around the fire and all these Jewish prisoners came to us for food. I guess they were cold too, so they came around, and we gave them C and K rations. People were very sorry for them. We found out later that they couldn't absorb the food, and they became very ill. I guess some had died. So, that was my experience with seeing the Jewish victims.