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By Douglas Cramer In 1945, a Paschal Liturgy like no other was performed. Just days after their liberation by the US military on April 29, 1945, hundreds of Orthodox Christian prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp gathered to celebrate the Resurrection service and to give thanks. The Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933 in a former gunpowder factory. The first prisoners interred there were political opponents of Adolf Hitler, who had become German chancellor that same year. During the twelve years of the camp's existence, over 200,000 prisoners were brought there. The majority of prisoners at Dachau were Christians,...

Christ opening the gates of Dachau In 1945, a Paschal Liturgy like no other was performed. Just days after their liberation by the US military on April 29, 1945, hundreds of Orthodox Christian prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp gathered to celebrate the Resurrection service and to give thanks. The Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933 in a former gunpowder factory. The first prisoners interred there were political opponents of Adolf Hitler, who had become German chancellor that same year. During the twelve years of the camp's existence, over 200,000 prisoners were brought there. The majority of prisoners at...

Reflections on the anniversary of the liberation of Dachau… For eleven centuries, it was just another town. Founded in what is now southern Germany sometime before the early 800s A.D. (the first documented deed is dated 805), Dachau was home to merchants, farmers, millers, and brewers, like a hundred other towns in Bavaria for 1100 years. In the 1800s, it became known for its artists’ colony. But all that was to be forgotten when the world learned of what had gone on near this town, in the twelve years from 1933 to 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist...

We don’t have to wonder what J.D Salinger would have thought of the world today even as Israel fights back mobs from Syria and prepares for more bloodlust from its enemies domestic and abroad. Salinger told it plainly and powerfully in his novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” published in 1951, and following that, in his 60 years of retreat into silence. He would have called his vow of silence, “The fire between the words.” ..... .... As part of the 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, Salinger was heroic at Utah Beach/D-Day and later at The Battle of the...

BERLIN — Germans in Pope Benedict XVI’s home state of Bavaria celebrated Sunday the beatification ceremony of a priest who was honored for practicing his Roman Catholic faith in defiance of the Nazis. The pope, who grew up in Bavaria, sent Cardinal Angelo Amato from the Vatican to celebrate the beatification Mass for Georg Haefner in Wuerzburg Cathedral, the DAPD news agency reported.

2,579 Catholic priests, seminarians and brothers were thrown by the Nazis during World War II into Dachau.  1,780 of these were from Poland.  Of these, some 868 priests perished, 300 in medical “experiments” or by torture in the showers of the camp.The remaining priests, seminarians and brothers came from 38 nations.  Besides the Poles the largest groups were 447 German and Austrian priests, 156 French priests and 46 Belgian priests. This post could be filled with the sadistic treatment meted out to these men of God by the Nazi barbarians, but I recoil emotionally from this task.  I will suffice with...

November 7, 2008 Change.gov: America serves -- "work brings freedom" Obama: Change to a different liberty What constitutes the "change" Barack Obama wants to bring? Did you ever hear a reporter ask him that, during his campaign? Did you ever see a clear picture of the change, from the mainstream media? Unanswered questions abound. Now that the popular (not electoral college) votes have been cast, Obama is already beginning to tell us — and this spurs further, very serious questions. Are you prepared for the change? See a new site, called change.gov. There, after kicking butt just two days...

My wife and I went to a Republican fund-raiser this weekend - a wine-tasting party. At our table an eldery couple sat down - both in their late 80's. The man was a WW II vet. Joked that he joined the army in 1940 only for one year and ended up getting out in 1946. Was in the Normandy invasion all the way to Germany. Was part of the group that liberated Dachau. Swore up and down that Patton was the greatest general ever. Had some good conversation with both he and his wife.

Near the end of World War II, Lt. John Withers, the leader of an all-black convoy, hid two young Holocaust survivors among his truck company -- a violation of Army orders. They stayed with his unit for more than a year as their health improved. "Peewee" and "Salomon" grew close to Lt. Withers and his unit. Over the years, he told and retold their tale to his two sons. One son set out to find them. He discovered that Salomon had died in 1993. But Peewee, he learned, was alive, a successful businessman in the U.S. Five decades later, Lt....

Monument unveiled to Catholic priests killed in Nazi camps Nov 4, 2006, 17:23 GMT Berlin - Catholic priests and monks, the bulk of them Polish, who were killed by the Nazis in a concentration camp near Berlin were commemorated Saturday with the unveiling of a stone sculpture in the presence of Cardinal Jozef Glemp of Poland. The sculpture is engraved with the names of 96 clergy who died at Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the north-west outskirts of Berlin. Historians working for the Catholic archdiocese of Berlin have so far documented the names of 711 Catholic clergy from Poland, Germany and...

When Glenn Ford died Thursday morning at the age of 90, major media recalled his long Hollywood career, recalling the 106 films in which he appeared, his many marriages and romances. Wrote the Associated Press, "He was a star to the end of his career." Glenn Ford was far more than that, yet none of the obituaries bothered to mention his extraordinary patriotism or his distinguished military career. Ford rose to the rank of Captain in the United States Navy after years of dedicated service that began with World War II and continued through the Vietnam War. He was undoubtedly...

DACHAU, Germany (Army News Service, April 25, 2006) – More than 200 Soldiers and family members of the 1st Infantry Division and U.S. Army Garrison Franconia visited the Dachau concentration camp April 20 and experienced one of history’s most horrific landmarks. The Dachau concentration camp was the first of many the Nazis established, and it stood as a model for those that followed. While not intended to be an extermination camp like the more infamous Auschwitz camp in Poland, documentation shows that approximately 30,000 prisoners were killed in Dachau. Thousands more died from disease, starvation and suicide. More than 200,000...

At 105, Herbert Brown is impeccably dressed in a crisp blue shirt that brings out the color of his eyes but belies the strain of time on his frail frame. Given his time spent in a Nazi concentration camp and his run-in with the notorious Adolf Eichmann, it's a wonder Brown has survived. But here he is, in the one-bedroom apartment he shares with his wife of 74 years, the former Magda Fritz, who is 100. Together, on July 15, their ages totaled 205 years and 293 days, making them — according to the Guinness Book of World Records —...

Remembering Dachau's living hell, and the American Christian who brought Nazi war criminals to justice. Liberation troops trekking across Europe in the final days of World War II thought they had seen it all. Then they followed their noses and stumbled on camp Dachau and realized that, until that moment, they hadn’t seen much of anything. As they neared the camp, the U.S. Army 42nd Infantry Division, known as Rainbow, found a line of boxcars. What they discovered inside the cars had them doubting their eyes: more than two thousand bodies in various stages of decomposition, emaciated and skeletal. Many...

28 April Dear Folks: Boy oh boy am I having a heck of a time trying to find time to write. We are really moving. My days have been consisting of getting up between 6:30 and 7:30 eating, throwing my stuff in a Jeep and taking off. When visiting the regiments and sometimes the battalions and then head for a new CP. By time we get into the new CP and set up it is 11 o'clock at night or later and I am so tired. I just hit the sack, so I really haven't had much time to write....