Interview with family of Holocaust liberator Norman Smith

Ethan Clinchard Author

12/11/2024 Added

11 Plays

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Interview with Jill Anderson, niece of Landsberg concentration camp liberator Norman Smith, and Barb Anderson, Smith's sister-in-law. Smith served in the 101st Airborne Division, also known as the "Screaming Eagles".

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[00:00:00.020]He taught in Alaska, and when he married, he met my aunt
[00:00:04.480]Donna Smith, Donna Wilson at
[00:00:08.940]the time, who is the oldest sibling of mom.
[00:00:14.220]She just passed in last December, and they married.
[00:00:18.100]They were both teachers, and they met at a teacher's conference in
[00:00:21.520]Alaska, and then he
[00:00:23.240]ended up moving back to Nebraska and living with Donna in
[00:00:27.360]a farmhouse in Nebraska. Yeah, for the rest...
[00:00:29.740]That's right, so when he was living in Nebraska, he would regularly
[00:00:35.840]go and do Holocaust education, you know,
[00:00:39.600]visits to public schools, to the public schools, teaching the basics of what he lived through.
[00:00:51.800]He was a liberator involved in the liberation of Landsberg concentration
[00:00:58.200]camp, which I understand
[00:01:00.800]was near the area where Hitler was imprisoned,
[00:01:05.260]where he wrote Mein Kampf. And so Norm was
[00:01:10.200]19 years old when he went over as a late replacement at the very end
[00:01:14.400]of the war, and when they
[00:01:16.740]came upon Landsberg, it was inhabited only by
[00:01:23.660]the dead and the dying. And the Nazis had...
[00:01:30.020]They had fled. They fled.
[00:01:30.820]The gates were swinging open, but of course
[00:01:33.200]the people inside were, most of them, too
[00:01:39.060]far gone to understand that they were free now.
[00:01:44.920]So, he, Norm, among the writings, his writings, he was a prolific writer.
[00:01:50.620]He enjoyed writing a lot.
[00:01:52.920]Among those writings, he gives an account of details of going into that camp.
[00:02:01.960]One of the things that was particularly interesting
[00:02:04.040]was that they rounded up people in the nearby
[00:02:07.260]village, Germans, and at gunpoint marched them into the camp to show them.
[00:02:14.340]It was bodies stacked like cordwood, dead people throughout the camp, and people who
[00:02:24.140]had wandered into the nearby woods and the road exiting the camp
[00:02:28.880]and just died, fallen,
[00:02:32.940]and were where they, lying where they had died.
[00:02:40.040]One thing he said was that many of the German villagers who were
[00:02:49.420]in the camp were horrified
[00:02:53.660]but also claimed that they didn't know that
[00:02:56.020]it was going on, which could not have been
[00:02:58.180]possible because of the smell. Which Norm says that's the abiding memory that will
[00:03:05.120]never leave him, and his other people he served with say the same thing about it.
[00:03:13.060]And the second day when they went to round up the villagers to
[00:03:18.860]come back and help digging
[00:03:21.380]trenches, disposing bodies, both the mayor and
[00:03:25.220]his wife had committed suicide and shot
[00:03:29.320]themselves in the head.
[00:03:31.920]There was another sort of vivid story he told
[00:03:35.060]about that, which was that there was a teenage
[00:03:38.180]boy that was among the Germans who in the camp, he, um, at one point he
[00:03:46.940]did the Sieg Heil and
[00:03:49.100]my uncle's commander pitched him into a trench with
[00:03:53.000]dead bodies and he had to climb his way
[00:03:55.760]back out.
[00:03:56.960]I guess he learned his lesson in a rather vivid way there.
[00:04:04.680]He said that he and his fellow soldiers made the mistake of
[00:04:11.800]giving food to the starving . . . Survivors.
[00:04:17.380]Survivors, but that it killed them. Well, or it sickened them, certainly.
[00:04:24.160]Yeah, Al Hassenzahl says four people died that
[00:04:27.480]way. Really. So I guess they could not process
[00:04:29.980]the food at all and they were probably very much on the brink of death already.
[00:04:35.380]Who did you mention who said that? Al?
[00:04:40.420]Al Hassenzahl was the commander of my uncle's group of men.
[00:04:46.820]Among the papers in here, his story is outlined, and then I
[00:04:54.160]believe there are some writings
[00:04:55.580]of his in there as well, so among the stuff
[00:05:00.080]that we found, and we still have more to go through,
[00:05:03.000]it seems to be sort of never ending.
[00:05:06.260]There are lots of handwritten accounts.
[00:05:12.640]My uncle wrote letters home to his family that are still in existence, and we hoped
[00:05:21.640]that you would photocopy all that stuff, and I
[00:05:24.140]mean that would be a good resource, I'm sure.
[00:05:29.320]So the big things that my uncle did, notable things were
[00:05:34.900]this liberation of Landsberg,
[00:05:38.160]and then the standing on guard at the Eagle's Nest, Berghoff, Hitler's
[00:05:48.220]home, one of his... his mountain
[00:05:50.480]hideaway. And he my uncle received, well of course, they were
[00:05:56.180]all pillaging, all looting.
[00:05:59.800]He and the guys. The soldiers. Soldiers were getting down into... there was
[00:06:04.000]underground tunnels of Hitler's
[00:06:06.100]home, there in the mountains. And there were some
[00:06:11.400]things, you know, it was like King Tut's tomb,
[00:06:14.920]they were breaking into safes, and he got a sterling silver
[00:06:22.920]framed photographic portrait of
[00:06:25.380]Hitler that he gave to his top SS officers as an award for
[00:06:31.480]achievements, so my uncle Norm
[00:06:34.040]got his hands on one, shipped it back to the United States, it
[00:06:38.460]now exists, he donated that
[00:06:40.420]to the Eisenhower Museum. In Abilene. In Abilene, Kansas, and then
[00:06:47.240]another story that he told was that one of
[00:06:53.400]the guys in his troop got his hands on a metal bust of Hitler that
[00:07:00.420]had been one of many along
[00:07:02.300]a fence, fence line, these metal busts, and he brought it
[00:07:07.200]home. The weird story is that he bolted it to
[00:07:11.420]the front of his car, and other farmers were
[00:07:18.920]allowed to like hit it with pitchforks and stab it.
[00:07:23.140]So that bust of Hitler is also in the Eisenhower Museum, and shows the
[00:07:30.920]dings and wounds of the
[00:07:35.280]farmers. That's a colorful story. What else is pertinent? Norm lived...
[00:07:48.080]he was born in Seattle, he ended up living in Alaska, he
[00:07:54.100]got polio, he had polio,
[00:07:58.560]and he was married to a woman before my aunt. She
[00:08:04.860]was part native Alaskan.
[00:08:10.210]She had mental illness and was institutionalized. Not
[00:08:16.050]permanently, off and on.
[00:08:18.110]Intermittently. Yeah. And then Norm... there was a divorce,
[00:08:25.350]and then Norm met my aunt Donna Smith,
[00:08:27.470]who was teaching in Alaska, and the rest is history. They moved back to
[00:08:36.710]Albion, and I spent a lot of time in their home
[00:08:40.289]with, you know, when I was a kid, when I was
[00:08:43.870]younger, and I mean all through my life I was very close with
[00:08:46.930]aunt Donna and uncle Norm.
[00:08:49.870]And I learned what I know, you know, I got my foundation
[00:08:54.870]in Holocaust history through his
[00:08:57.850]stories and recounting of his experiences in
[00:09:02.210]the war. Someone interviewed him, and the interview
[00:09:05.790]does exist out on YouTube, but I'm not sure what
[00:09:09.870]it's called. I found part two. Did you? Yeah. Oh,
[00:09:13.810]good. Jason, uh, John sent it to me, um, just yesterday, um, and
[00:09:20.290]so that we're, we've got,
[00:09:22.430]it is on YouTube. That's correct. It's from 2010.
[00:09:25.630]Yes. Um, and so we're gonna keep trying to track
[00:09:29.550]down, at least, part one, I don't know if there's
[00:09:32.070]a part three, but we'll see what we can find.
[00:09:34.670]That is great. We've got that one. It looks like
[00:09:37.030]it's maybe taken in his kitchen. Yep, it is. Yeah.
[00:09:41.370]So, um, uh, that's, that's a fantastic resource,
[00:09:44.950]of course. Yeah. And then, um, we'll, we'll see
[00:09:49.170]what else we can find. Norm was sort of immortalized
[00:09:52.650]when he was invited to a ceremony in the rotunda
[00:09:59.050]of the Capitol building that the Holocaust Museum was doing to honor the liberators.
[00:10:05.690]And there, he was photographed with, um, Petraeus.
[00:10:12.190]General Petraeus, who took a special interest in
[00:10:15.670]him. Um, I guess. Because of the Screaming Eagles, he... He was Screaming... I
[00:10:22.830]guess he had also been. I guess so, I don't know.
[00:10:24.310]In the 101st Airborne or something. There was a connection. There was
[00:10:27.890]a military connection. And Norm had, um, had noted,
[00:10:34.490]had told, described to him how when there was a Nebraska's ceremony
[00:10:39.790]to honor veterans, that his,
[00:10:46.960]his group was overlooked. They were not honored
[00:10:52.520]in the formal ceremony. And Petraeus thought that
[00:10:56.720]was so, so important that he then prioritized
[00:11:01.960]my uncle's battalion. Like he was the, the person
[00:11:06.880]carrying the flag of his, you know, group was
[00:11:11.560]allowed to lead a processional in response to my
[00:11:16.360]uncle telling him that story. And there is a picture of Petraeus
[00:11:20.800]leaning down with his hand
[00:11:22.220]on my uncle's shoulder, speaking to him. My aunt
[00:11:25.420]is behind him in the background. And that photo
[00:11:28.620]went on the Associated Press coast to coast and
[00:11:32.140]was sort of one of the signature photos of the
[00:11:36.680]event. So that was sort of a distinction. Um, he's received a
[00:11:42.420]million different plaques and honors
[00:11:45.160]and certificates through his life, which like now
[00:11:48.900]we're sort of liquidating the home because my aunt
[00:11:53.840]has passed away. And there was just a stack
[00:11:57.580]that high of framed, you know, honors and things.
[00:12:02.760]He was a humble man and fairly liberal minded politically and was
[00:12:11.340]very appalled at "W" doing
[00:12:16.080]preemptive things. He said, "There is no such thing
[00:12:18.960]as 'preemptive.'" He was opinionated and he would write
[00:12:23.080]into the paper. He sort of took on some white supremacists that
[00:12:26.940]were doing their thing here
[00:12:28.160]in Nebraska at one point. Do you know who? The name was Curry.
[00:12:33.680]C-U-R-R-Y, Curry. It might have
[00:12:36.340]been in the eighties or nineties. I'm not sure
[00:12:38.280]when it was, but there are letters that he wrote
[00:12:41.960]into the newspaper, uh, and things that letters
[00:12:46.740]this Curry wrote into the newspaper. The man was
[00:12:50.020]attempting to pay different, um, universities to
[00:12:55.600]allow an anti-Semitic spokesperson to do a debate
[00:13:02.560]with someone. He was trying to buy platforms for this
[00:13:08.160]anti-Semitic, uh, agenda, anti-Zionist
[00:13:12.080]specifically. And was it denying the Holocaust? It
[00:13:14.920]was denying the Holocaust. Yeah. And my... Did ADL
[00:13:18.900]get involved, do you know? What's that? Did the anti-defamation league get involved? I think that
[00:13:22.020]they did. I think they
[00:13:23.540]did. But there's a folder about that situation among
[00:13:30.060]the stuff here. I want to break just for a
[00:13:33.520]second. Can you give us a little bit of your background and
[00:13:39.140]how, how hearing these stories,
[00:13:43.440]like what, what are you doing now? And are you connected
[00:13:46.560]directly with Holocaust education?
[00:13:48.200]Well, that's an interesting concept. Come sit, come sit, please.
[00:13:54.900]Oh, it's so important. Um, I was, uh, let's
[00:14:00.620]see. So I'm Jill Anderson. I am a theater artist,
[00:14:05.840]a storyteller, a musician by trade, also a theater
[00:14:10.960]director and a writer, a theater writer and a
[00:14:15.000]composer of music. So a lot of different things,
[00:14:18.980]uh, involved in, um, performing arts. And my aunt
[00:14:23.380]Donna and uncle Norm, Norm Smith is who we're talking about here,
[00:14:28.360]uh, what were, you know,
[00:14:31.060]very, um, involved in my life through my formative
[00:14:36.440]years and beyond, and great supporters of what I
[00:14:40.300]do, always encouraging and supporting what I do.
[00:14:44.940]Uh, I learned, you know, about Norm's story.
[00:14:49.660]He told me the details of what he had lived
[00:14:53.400]through in the war. And that was sort of the
[00:14:58.440]foundation of my understanding of the Holocaust. And
[00:15:03.360]then of course, Diary of Anne Frank. And then
[00:15:07.520]I played Anne Frank in college, in a production in college. Um, and then, um,
[00:15:16.960]I don't even, I think that Nebraska schools do
[00:15:20.880]such a poor and insufficient job of telling the
[00:15:25.200]story of the Holocaust that I don't even honestly
[00:15:28.480]remember any details of what I learned in junior
[00:15:31.680]high or high school. And that changed drastically.
[00:15:36.780]Good. Yeah. Where, so you grew up in Omaha,
[00:15:40.100]you grew up here. I did grow up here. Yeah, I
[00:15:43.600]did. Um, and where did you go to junior high in high
[00:15:47.740]school? I went to Norris junior high and then Central. Okay. So
[00:15:53.840]if it's any comfort, Central
[00:15:55.820]has had a year long Holocaust course for the
[00:15:59.740]last 20 years. Yes. 18 years. Yes. With Jen Stastny. And then
[00:16:06.020]there are two other teachers who teach this
[00:16:08.360]course, either semester course or through the English
[00:16:11.420]language course. Very good. So, and that's just
[00:16:14.340]an example of the things that have happened with
[00:16:17.980]Nebraska. Oh my goodness. It's good to know.
[00:16:20.320]We've got many, many educators who are very committed.
[00:16:23.940]They're fellows of the Holocaust museum. They're doing
[00:16:26.280]other programs. Um, so Jill was just saying
[00:16:30.780]that we didn't get a very good education and Holocaust studies as
[00:16:36.380]students. I went to West
[00:16:38.100]Side and had very little as well. Wow. And while
[00:16:43.040]I'm glad it's being rectified, I hope it is across
[00:16:46.220]the public school system. Central is a very liberal school. Oh,
[00:16:50.860]across all schools and
[00:16:52.600]private Catholic. Yes. Really? Duchesne, we have a project going.
[00:16:56.660]Yeah. Thank goodness. I see you're right next to
[00:16:58.480]the Our Lady of Lords. I don't know if they
[00:17:00.900]have programs. Oh, I don't know, Our Lady of Lords is very, very,
[00:17:07.630]very conservative. Yes. Anti-abortion. But the
[00:17:13.030]Catholic schools in Nebraska and specifically in Lincoln
[00:17:18.290]have Holocaust studies and it's very, it's
[00:17:21.190]very much on their radar. It is? Good. Does it
[00:17:25.089]follow all of the protocol that we would like?
[00:17:27.869]Not always, but they, we have, we've had trainings for
[00:17:31.970]Catholic educators over the years. Oh, good. Specifically through
[00:17:34.970]the Anti-Defamation League,
[00:17:36.110]the Holocaust museum. And Central had a program
[00:17:40.930]a couple of years ago, right, when they honored,
[00:17:44.150]was it, when he gave his last name from the War Refugee Board, John
[00:17:49.130]Peely? Peely, yes. Yeah. So,
[00:17:52.870]was that two, three years ago now? Yes. He's
[00:17:56.270]a Central High grad and ended up as the director
[00:18:00.310]of the War Refugee Board for the Roosevelt administration. Yeah. And it
[00:18:05.490]was not a story,
[00:18:06.290]I think, that people really spent a lot of time talking about. I
[00:18:11.350]don't think they knew because
[00:18:12.950]the archive had been closed for so long. Yeah.
[00:18:16.970]But one of the things I'd like to do,
[00:18:18.510]if it's okay with you, is have Ethan. Ethan actually
[00:18:21.110]prepared some questions. Okay.
[00:18:24.250]Very good. Ethan, fire away. So I'm a little curious about
[00:18:30.330]Norman's return from service.
[00:18:33.450]So when did he return home from service? Well,
[00:18:37.110]he went in 1945, so I'm sure he came back,
[00:18:40.790]you know, at the end of 1945. Yeah or 46. 46. There's probably
[00:18:48.010]some information in there.
[00:18:52.250]And how was his adjustment back to civilian life?
[00:18:55.610]I think that he was, he was hit with some very hard things. When he
[00:19:03.410]arrived back and was on the west coast, and met his first wife, he was in his
[00:19:11.310]20s and then was grappling with her mental illness and then was
[00:19:17.590]hit with polio. He just
[00:19:19.790]got hammered by some very rough circumstances. And
[00:19:25.730]I think that his life after he returned was
[00:19:28.670]very unhappy for some time. Actually, I don't think
[00:19:32.990]he adjusted well. You know, I don't know about
[00:19:37.410]lasting scars or PTSD from what he had seen in the war, but it could not have,
[00:19:42.790]you know, had no effect on his mind. 19 year old kid in the
[00:19:49.370]middle of a concentration camp,
[00:19:51.130]seeing that. I think. I'm just conjecturing,
[00:19:55.410]but I would think that it added to,
[00:20:00.170]you know, the, the stew pot that was his psyche, post-war. Yeah.
[00:20:06.230]From your conversations with him, how did it seem to impact him?
[00:20:09.890]He, when he was talking to me about it, he never
[00:20:15.090]showed emotion. Not really.
[00:20:18.010]It was always very matter of fact. He was matter of fact. I think he had taught it to
[00:20:23.610]kids so many times that,
[00:20:25.430]you know, it had become something that was by rote.
[00:20:31.750]And he was sort of, when I knew him, which was
[00:20:35.370]from his middle years on, he was more of a solid.
[00:20:40.230]He had his feet under him. He was more stable.
[00:20:43.750]I think that meeting my aunt turned his life around
[00:20:47.450]in a very big way and that he found happiness and
[00:20:51.650]stability after that point.
[00:20:53.710]Tell me that story. How did he meet your aunt? How did he meet your sister?
[00:20:58.510]Well, mom, you could tell that story. I didn't catch the question. Yeah.
[00:21:02.450]How did Norman meet your sister? Tell me that story.
[00:21:05.550]Well, Donna had gone, was a teacher in Skagway,
[00:21:08.730]Alaska, and he was teaching in Hanes and they
[00:21:11.270]met at a conference that was in Skagway, I guess, and he had
[00:21:17.670]come there for a teacher's
[00:21:19.030]conference and that's how they met and had an immediate connection.
[00:21:25.510]It was a love at first sight. Yeah, that's the way
[00:21:29.730]Donna described it, certainly.
[00:21:31.990]They would always tell this amazing story that Norm
[00:21:35.610]was lonely and unhappy and he was on a ship
[00:21:40.310]out in the water with a friend and he was lamenting, you know,
[00:21:49.290]I guess he was lamenting
[00:21:50.950]about his love life and the man said, you know, the best woman that I ever met
[00:21:57.450]stays in that cabin across the water. It was
[00:22:01.750]an evening and the lights were on in the cabin.
[00:22:05.510]Her name is Donna Smith. Or it wasn't Smith. Donna Wilson,
[00:22:10.510]and she's a teacher
[00:22:12.970]and he was teaching at the same time, so when he first met Donna,
[00:22:18.870]it was at this teacher's
[00:22:19.970]conference and I guess she was drinking from a
[00:22:23.610]water fountain and when she stood up, there was Norm and there was
[00:22:29.230]love at first sight and she was playing the role
[00:22:33.490]of the femme fatale in some kind of a melodrama
[00:22:37.010]that he saw that evening. The entertainment for
[00:22:40.370]the conference. For the conference was this melodrama
[00:22:43.910]and he asked her if she would go to the cast party or, you know,
[00:22:50.530]a gathering afterwards with him and
[00:22:55.410]was true love. True love. They wrote to each other pretty much every day.
[00:22:59.810]Before the time that you talked on the phone or texted constantly,
[00:23:04.310]they wrote letters.
[00:23:08.210]And ended up back in Omaha, in Albion, Nebraska,
[00:23:11.910]in a farmhouse, yeah. But, like you know, I don't know for sure. . . I always admired Norm. He has been a
[00:23:23.950]gas station manager when he was hit by polio. He
[00:23:27.330]had not had, you know, more than a high school
[00:23:30.110]education and they told him he'd never walk again.
[00:23:36.930]He was at an iron lung in the whole
[00:23:38.550]magilla and so when he came out of that, he, he
[00:23:44.050]did struggle back to being able to walk and everything,
[00:23:48.530]but his right side was kind of withered and
[00:23:50.990]he limped. But he got an education and I think
[00:23:55.130]it was the GI bill probably that saved him on
[00:23:57.450]that. He got the education to become a teacher and
[00:24:01.550]that had to take a lot of gumption with all
[00:24:05.910]the other problems that he was dealing with in his
[00:24:08.030]life. So, just wanted to put that in. Yeah, he did
[00:24:13.690]survive. It was a tough go of it for, I think,
[00:24:18.510]several years. Any other questions? Tell me
[00:24:21.750]about their life together in Albion, Nebraska. Oh,
[00:24:24.830]they lived in a ramshackle, little old Victorian farmhouse on
[00:24:28.530]the edge of town,
[00:24:29.450]10 acres with a creek that ran by and Norm had his office. He loved
[00:24:37.170]to type and write and,
[00:24:38.610]you know, created pieces, written pieces and
[00:24:44.370]he became the, he called himself the clerk,
[00:24:48.450]in quotes always in his writing. He was the sort of the architect of this ongoing
[00:24:59.410]annual reunion of the 101st Company C airborne
[00:25:03.690]guys. And so, he gathered them together all over
[00:25:07.910]the country. He was the historian of them. I
[00:25:09.970]don't know about the organizer, but he was definitely
[00:25:12.330]the historian. But it was by his initiative
[00:25:15.870]that they started having these regular reunions and
[00:25:20.310]they would, I don't know if it was- It didn't
[00:25:21.810]start until 30 years after the war. But then these old
[00:25:26.090]guys would meet up in different cities all over
[00:25:28.850]the U.S. and he was involved in helping to organize
[00:25:33.410]all the details to make that happen. Where's the collection of
[00:25:38.030]their writings and things?
[00:25:40.850]Well, the scrapbooks would have, and those we
[00:25:43.950]are going to- We're going to go today,
[00:25:45.990]actually, to bring back a whole bunch of scrapbooks and stuff,
[00:25:50.570]like Xerox copies of-
[00:25:58.470]I'm almost not breathing, I want you to know.
[00:25:59.350]And there are some writings here, too, some of
[00:26:01.670]the accounts, the war stories of some of those.
[00:26:05.730]Yeah. Like a lot of the scrapbook stuff is like,
[00:26:08.210]this is the hotel we stayed in for the reunion.
[00:26:11.570]You know, there's a lot of stuff that is of no historical
[00:26:15.750]significance whatsoever. But there,
[00:26:19.550]yeah, there are- He had lots of spiral-bound Xerox copied
[00:26:24.750]things of various relatability
[00:26:29.170]to the war service. There's, there's . . . And stacks of magazines,
[00:26:35.690]it's called The Five-O-Sync was one of the
[00:26:38.910]magazines. There's another magazine called The Screaming Eagles.
[00:26:44.010]He has a tube, a bound book called
[00:26:46.210]Curahee, which is all about his basic training
[00:26:49.210]here in the United States. This Curahee mountain
[00:26:52.270]that they ran up and down and, you know- For paratroopers.
[00:26:56.650]He was a paratrooper.
[00:26:58.090]Yeah, he was a- He trained as a paratrooper.
[00:27:00.210]That's right. And he was sent over to Scotland,
[00:27:02.790]and then was in England, and then they parachuted into France.
[00:27:07.890]But I'm not sure, did they actually jump in? Oh, they jumped.
[00:27:11.210]Yeah, okay. I didn't remember.
[00:27:12.970]They had their clickers, their cricket clickers, these little metal clickers that
[00:27:17.230]they couldn't say, hey, Joe, I'm over here in the hedgerow. So
[00:27:21.930]they had these little metal
[00:27:23.390]things that made a cricket sound [makes cricket sound] like that [makes cricket sound] . And that would be how they would
[00:27:29.730]communicate with one another after they landed. To get together.
[00:27:35.010]They parachuted in at nighttime. And then they-
[00:27:39.150]Does he write about those stories as well?
[00:27:41.890]I think it's in there. Yeah, one of the guys in his
[00:27:45.170]team says he parachuted in.
[00:27:49.150]He was in a hedgerow, hiding in a hedgerow,
[00:27:52.530]terrified, terrified. He was 19 or 20 years old.
[00:27:56.530]He didn't see any of the other guys. He heard some rustling nearby,
[00:28:01.930]and he did his clicker,
[00:28:03.470]click, click, and nobody said. Nobody clicked back. Nobody clicked back.
[00:28:08.710]And he clicked it again, a little more rustling. And he said he just opened fire.
[00:28:17.250]He just shot his gun. And he heard, he heard a cow hit the ground. He shot a cow.
[00:28:25.830]Well, I guess that's better than- Yes, one of his buddies. Yeah, much better.
[00:28:31.790]Yeah. What other questions do you have? Yeah. So I'm curious,
[00:28:36.470]why did Norman want to share his service
[00:28:39.590]experiences with students?
[00:28:41.830]I think that he was just so stricken by the inhumanity of it that
[00:28:47.210]he knew. And he was,
[00:28:50.650]he made a lot of notes about deniers, you know, and revisionists.
[00:28:59.470]Handwritten notes in there,
[00:29:00.930]they're just sort of lists, you know, they're brainstorming
[00:29:03.590]lists of how am I going to put my
[00:29:05.150]education program together? What am I addressing? What
[00:29:07.930]are the topics we need to talk about?
[00:29:10.430]And that word revisionist and deniers come up a lot
[00:29:13.810]in his stuff. He was, and he wrote to the
[00:29:16.290]World Herald saying, you know- Just to their local paper.
[00:29:21.610]This Curry guy is saying it never happened.
[00:29:23.950]Tell that to the, you know, the thousands and thousands of liberators who saw it first hand and
[00:29:30.910]smelled the smells. And yeah, he was vehement
[00:29:37.310]that it should never happen again, I think.
[00:29:39.890]And wanted to use his eye witness, he understood
[00:29:43.630]the importance of his eye witness account of it.
[00:29:47.830]That's what he understood.
[00:29:50.850]What is his legacy? What is Norman's legacy? It's in there on the table.
[00:29:58.880]His legacy. What is his legacy? I mean, every, every
[00:30:02.400]student he spoke to, how they carry that visceral
[00:30:07.940]knowledge that he talked about, that's his legacy. And what they tell their friends,
[00:30:17.120]and their family, and their children, it's the only hope we have, you know,
[00:30:24.340]to keep it from happening again. I mean, it does happen
[00:30:27.960]again. It's currently happening
[00:30:29.880]in various places in the world. It does happen. That's, my passion
[00:30:35.320]about it is that
[00:30:36.500]the education never detach from the current, what's currently
[00:30:44.040]happening in the world.
[00:30:46.200]It can never be detached. Like educators, it's just, I feel strongly that it is
[00:30:54.480]crucial that educators say, here is genocide
[00:30:59.180]that happened in 2019. Here's genocide in the
[00:31:02.840]world that happened in 2023. And here, and here are the parallels.
[00:31:09.520]Here's what to look for.
[00:31:11.300]I don't think that most kids have a clue what fascism is. In fact,
[00:31:15.340]I don't think most adults
[00:31:16.440]know what fascism is. But my uncle, when he
[00:31:20.820]was alive, he was an outspoken man. He didn't mince
[00:31:25.560]words. And he wasn't one of those veterans who
[00:31:28.260]are too injured to speak aloud about what they
[00:31:31.000]went through. He knew he had, it was his obligation
[00:31:36.100]to humanity to speak about what he saw. I mean,
[00:31:40.680]now the liberators and the survivors, how many are
[00:31:44.960]left in the world? You could count them on
[00:31:47.300]two hands, I'm sure, because they all, they'll all
[00:31:50.060]be up around a hundred years old. I made a

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Interview with family of Holocaust liberator Norman Smith

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