Harold Heins Holocaust Liberator Testimony (Tape 2)

Harold Heins Author

10/31/2024 Added

5 Plays

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Oral testimony of Harold "Shorty" Heins, liberator of the Ohrdruf concentration camp.

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[00:00:00.620]I'd like to touch on the ring that I have here.
[00:00:03.700]This ring was given to me by my first sergeant.
[00:00:09.100]He passed away
[00:00:11.480]three years ago and
[00:00:15.520]his wife and daughter
[00:00:17.060]felt that I would, I should have it. So that's why I have this ring. It's probably one of the only rings...
[00:00:24.340]that I know of in the country and it
[00:00:32.260]shows the map of
[00:00:34.840]where we all were,
[00:00:37.140]the date the war ended, and
[00:00:41.680]all the battles we were in there were six of them. And I start with Omaha Beach because
[00:00:48.260]we were the anti-aircraft protection for the paratroopers,
[00:00:54.100]and then our next battle was St. Lo and
[00:00:59.940]then Metz.
[00:01:02.000]M-E-T-Z, and
[00:01:04.700]then Saarlautern, and
[00:01:08.080]the Rhineland, and
[00:01:10.280]then Linz, Austria. That was the last one we were in where there were six battle total.
[00:01:14.780]This ring
[00:01:19.440]was made by a
[00:01:23.200]Frenchman, as I recall Bob telling me,
[00:01:31.570]he designed this and
[00:01:33.910]asked him if he could make this and
[00:01:37.950]in the broken
[00:01:39.690]communications they had he shook his head that,
[00:01:43.270]that's how
[00:01:44.910]Bob knew that it would be made, and i-it's a silver ring and
[00:01:52.300]it's a treasured gift.
[00:01:54.280]Because
[00:01:56.520]Bob wouldn't need to have given that to me. But anyway, I have his ring now
[00:02:04.590]gratefully to his wife and daughter. And
[00:02:08.690]we pay honor to Bob because
[00:02:12.170]he was recognized by the California legislature
[00:02:17.050]for
[00:02:19.410]doing work of going around, California.
[00:02:25.090]And other places and explaining about the war.
[00:02:31.450]He
[00:02:32.110]done this for...
[00:02:33.030]I'm not sure how many years but it was a number of years, that's why the legislature
[00:02:42.380]bestowed an honor on him.
[00:02:48.470]He would- Bob was a gifted speaker, and
[00:02:54.360]he could impress on you how serious all these
[00:03:01.240]wars were, or battles were. I-
[00:03:06.400]I'll hold up and show you what, this is Bob Hassen.
[00:03:16.000]He and his wife lived at Camarillo, California.
[00:03:20.960]His wife is still living.
[00:03:32.510]Another one of the pictures this is his wife there, also.
[00:03:43.000]This one here,
[00:03:44.510]this one shows
[00:03:46.470]Bob being
[00:03:48.530]congratulated by the legislature.
[00:03:50.870]They all stood at attention for him.
[00:04:01.469]I'd like to, uh,
[00:04:03.400]show this picture of all the guards that were at
[00:04:11.130]Ohrdruf. Where the prisoners found out that we were coming they attacked the guards and killed them.
[00:04:18.470]There, the blood was still, it wasn't
[00:04:22.150]coagulated yet. There was still running off when these, when we got there.
[00:04:26.910]They were so overjoyed
[00:04:31.050]that,
[00:04:31.330]you can't describe this,
[00:04:38.410]really. I
[00:04:39.090]was standing just to the left of this picture,
[00:04:41.890]when it was taken so I know this was right.
[00:04:48.200]The people
[00:04:52.350]were not aware that this camp was there.
[00:04:56.010]They couldn't believe it. I want to show you another picture,
[00:05:02.920]this shows
[00:05:05.120]the gallow, or the
[00:05:09.340]framework that the people were hung on here.
[00:05:15.000]And...
[00:05:18.000]Emphasize it more yet, here is General Eisenhower,
[00:05:21.780]General Patton, General Bradley, and then
[00:05:30.910]in there, in the group is Bob Hassen.
[00:05:34.310]And this was being explained by one of the men that was
[00:05:39.110]at a prison there. So this was one of the first camps,
[00:05:50.270]that was
[00:05:50.910]released and the picture of the president being there is,
[00:05:58.940]adds emphasis to it.
[00:06:08.630]Anything else that you can think of about that day of liberation or the day that you were there at Ohrdruf that you haven't told
[00:06:15.650]us about?
[00:06:21.000]What were your comrades reactions to what they saw?
[00:06:24.223]Just dumbfounded.
[00:06:26.050]Dumbfounded to think that
[00:06:27.530]people,
[00:06:31.070]people could,
[00:06:33.150]have something, a death camp right beside them and not realize it.
[00:06:39.110]It's,
[00:06:40.290]it's beyond words.
[00:06:44.312]When you shared this information with people back home, what was their reaction?
[00:06:51.090]Well, they can't believe it, they can't believe it.
[00:06:56.010]People can't understand,
[00:06:56.890]we're on it- we're not used to something like that. They can't understand that people
[00:07:02.750]can be so low, that humanity can get that low.
[00:07:08.310]These people were, well, we know in the other camps where they were gassed to death,
[00:07:15.590]horrible things.
[00:07:18.990]Oh
[00:07:21.070]I'd have another place that I saw-
[00:07:23.170]but the more I talk about that- I've saw
[00:07:26.970]in the Midwest where we used to a trench silos and
[00:07:34.110]that was one of the first ones I saw is a trench silo,
[00:07:38.750]all dug out, oh, it was at least
[00:07:41.730]oh
[00:07:43.690]oh, I bet it was, I bet it was six, I bet was at least seven or eight feet deep and
[00:07:51.150]they had a
[00:07:52.010]two railroads
[00:07:53.870]right on, I mean they took the rails off of the railroad track and laid it down in the center of it,
[00:08:00.890]and they had prisoners
[00:08:04.930]put
[00:08:05.490]wooden tree limbs on them tracks. They marched prisoners on that and shot them.
[00:08:10.510]They had another group put tree limbs on the top of those dead bodies,
[00:08:16.750]march more prisoners on them and shot them.
[00:08:19.730]They'd done that three times and I know I saw it I was right on top of that.
[00:08:25.000]And where was this?
[00:08:27.000]Now I can't tell you, I've forgotten but that was right away when we first got there.
[00:08:32.018]At Ohrdruf?
[00:08:34.000]This wasn't at Ohrdruf. Okay. It was...
[00:08:36.170]sorry, I can't tell you what that was.
[00:08:43.995]But when you first arrived in Europe?
[00:08:45.003]Yes, yes, yes.
[00:08:49.120]You can't believe somebody can be that horrible,
[00:08:52.820]but that was done and I saw I was right on top of that. I...
[00:08:57.440]Can you imagine if that happened to your
[00:09:10.000]family?
[00:09:11.460]Or your neighbor, or say your father or mother or one of your children. Do you think you should fight for freedom?
[00:09:39.160]I don't know what to say.
[00:09:41.640]I, I want to go back just a little bit. I'm amazed at the compassion you showed for that German soldier,
[00:09:47.900]having known what happened, can you explain a little bit what went through your head?
[00:09:53.460]Well, I sympathized with him because I had a child and well had two children then already.
[00:10:03.380]My, my mother of course is gone, my dad was
[00:10:07.770]living here alone,
[00:10:09.530]and our other place alone. And,
[00:10:16.530]you can get pretty emotional.
[00:10:18.390]Really emotional, and you can feel for them people because you know that they,
[00:10:23.550]they,
[00:10:24.830]they're not driven by anything of hate, that's it.
[00:10:30.880]No, a lot of the words they said, Deutschland kaputt,
[00:10:34.620]Deutschland kaputt. In other words, Deutschland was done.
[00:10:39.380]They were over,
[00:10:41.500]they didn't really bear any malice toward us. I
[00:10:46.040]didn't I didn't measure that, I didn't measure any malice toward us
[00:10:49.680]it was
[00:10:51.800]more of relief.
[00:10:55.700]Grateful that we have been there to stop that. That's,
[00:10:59.120]that's what I measure more than anything else, that they were
[00:11:02.660]relieved that it was over with. And I'm supposed I'm supposing that it would be just like we felt now
[00:11:10.910]we can go back home. But they didn't have places to go, I swear they didn't have places to go.
[00:11:16.450]They just didn't. And it
[00:11:22.800]takes me back to,
[00:11:26.210]I'd have four or five
[00:11:28.990]boys come up and want me to shoot rabbits for them, and
[00:11:33.050]you can't measure the glee you can't understand the glee that that just to get a rabbit so they'd have something to eat.
[00:11:42.200]Because I'm sure that the only thing they had was potatoes and maybe eggs from chickens.
[00:11:48.260]Maybe, I don't know where they got the grain to feed the chickens, but their substance was very small, very small.
[00:12:05.480]Well,
[00:12:07.360]only thing I can say we're just grateful that we live in our country.
[00:12:10.600]When did you return to the United States?
[00:12:14.715]In 1945.
[00:12:17.000]1945.
[00:12:18.000]October of 1945, 22nd of October '45.
[00:12:30.000]That was, I can't describe it.
[00:12:33.160]Where was your port of, point of entry back into United States?
[00:12:38.066]It was in New York.
[00:12:39.371]In New York.
[00:12:41.000]Yes. And we can't, I was discharged at Camp Crowder
[00:12:44.180]Kansas.
[00:12:45.200]And then from Camp Crowder I came to Lincoln, Nebraska, and that's where my dad and wife picked me up.
[00:12:53.460]So that was,
[00:12:54.240]Beverly was just,
[00:12:56.640]well, I think it was two.
[00:12:59.080]She could stand in the front seat and she looked back and see who that guy was back there.
[00:13:05.980]She'd look at me she didn't know me. It, and well it was Christmas before she, we started to make up.
[00:13:11.820]So that was three months, and that was...
[00:13:21.000]We played you know make a circle in the snow like we call it Fox and Goose
[00:13:27.040]so that's,
[00:13:29.860]we were out playing and
[00:13:32.720]that's when she made up.
[00:13:36.060]And it's quite a thing, really quite a thing.

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Harold Heins Holocaust Liberator Testimony (Tape 2)

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