Holocaust survivor: 'I never saw any sign of pity'

Idaho Statesman ^ | 5/1/2008 | Tim Woodward

[Domandred]

EMMETT - When Dachau liberator Max Fullmer is honored at today's Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Boise, Lorissa Wilfong Holt - one of the people he helped liberate - will be in the audience.

The odds of that happening are almost nil.

Rabbi Dan Fink of Boise's Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel estimates the number of Holocaust survivors in Idaho to be fewer than 10.

"Between the relatively small Jewish population of the state and the reality that many or most of the survivors have died of natural causes, it's a small group," Fink said.

Fullmer, now of Caldwell, was among the American troops who liberated the Nazis' infamous Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945. To Holt, it was "the day we had lived for."

"We were laughing and dancing and hugging and kissing and yelling and crying," she wrote in a newly published memoir. "It was like nothing we had ever felt before or will ever feel again."

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She was able to live a normal life by putting her memories of the Holocaust behind her. Her mother was not as fortunate.

"I forgave the Nazis because I didn't want to be like her," she said. "She never forgave, and she hated them with a hot passion all her life. She died a bitter, suspicious woman. I wanted to be like the open, friendly Americans we met here."

[Domandred]

Article out of The Statesman that I thought I would post.

[tanuki]

Always good to be reminded of what we Americans are.

[Dan(9698)]

I visited Dachau in 1960 while I was stationed in Germany.

It was interesting to visit and contemplate the horrible things that took place there.

[wastedyears]

***”I forgave the Nazis because I didn’t want to be like her,” she said. “She never forgave, and she hated them with a hot passion all her life. She died a bitter, suspicious woman. I wanted to be like the open, friendly Americans we met here.”***

I’d be the same way. My soul would not be a rest.

[scan59]

I visited the holocaust memorial museum in Washington DC last month. The film clips and stories of the American soldiers liberating the camps and doing their best to help the victims made my very proud.

[visualops]

Wow. She sounds like a remarkable woman.

[Lx]

I’ve been to Mathousen, when we went through the ‘showers’, my wife kind of freaked out. I never understood why she didn’t want to go to a death camp on our vacation.

[Dan(9698)]

It would give anyone claustrophobia to be in one of those “shower” gas chambers and have them close the doors.

I was in the one at Dachau, but not with the doors closed.

It was still spooky.

Especially when you come into the room with the ovens.

[Southerngl]

...mother tried to kick her off delivery table...

Wow, if she were to be born now, she would be in the garbage disposal at the local abortion mill.

[armymarinemom]

Especially when you come into the room with the ovens.

My Father was one of the Dachau liberating troops. He has spoken about the ovens but has always sounded very haunted when he spoke about the box cars

[Dan(9698)]

I was born in 1939 so these took place while I was a small boy.

I had a brother who was in the Phillipines at the end of the war.

I was in Germany from 59 to 61.

[beaversmom]

Thanks for the post. 'I never saw any sign of pity'

I was up late a few nights ago, looking at videos on YouTube. I came across one from a Holocaust survivor that was one of the Oskar Schindler Jews. One person in the audience asked him if the movie portrayed Schindler accurately. The survivor said that he was actually better than the movie portrayed him. He said you looked in Schindler's eyes and you saw something there--a flicker. You looked in a Nazi's eyes and there was no sign of humanity there. That got me to wondering if there were any Germans/Nazis that worked in those camps that ever showed any act of compassion. Gave a somebody some extra food? Allowed someone to live that they were ordered to kill?