Virgil Westdale
522nd Field Artillery Battalion
Virgil Westdale talks about how he tried to help out the starving Dachau survivors. (Run time: 1:42)
I think that the philosophy of Hitler was horrible on those people. I do remember many times after we liberated Dachau that those people wearing striped clothes, those people were resentful of the German people because they had let this thing happen. They had let Hitler take over. And so, sometimes they were hungry, and they would come right up to you and they'd say, I want to get something to eat in their broken language. And, I began to learn a little bit about German, speaking German a little bit. So, we'd go up and I'd knock on the door, and the door would open a little bit. And then I'd say, he wants some food, and go like this, and then they would understand. So, sometimes I'd help the starving out that way. But, you can't blame the Germans not letting them in, you know. These guys, they'd been in horrible hardship for a long time because of Hitler. I remember looking at the ovens where they were cremated and things, and it was just terrible.
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