Face to Face with Evil

 

According published accounts, E/506 spent two nights in Buchloe, where they found the burgermeister and his wife had both committed suicide.  Band of Brothers, and several other E/506 related acounts, records that patrols were sent out eastward from Buchloe.  Clancy recalled that his platoon (1st Platoon) had two squads out on patrol.  During that patrol the a work camp was discovered in the forest. 

 

Interestingly, Clancy mentions that they saw a second work/concentration camp.  It was north of there and had already been liberated by an armored outfit, as he put it. However, he gave placenames which are not in that region of Germany so I wonder if he might have been thinking of other activities when he was on Occupation Duty and juxtaposed terms. However, his descriptions of showers and ovens to kill and dispose of the people would seem to match up to Dachau, and this was a place that at least one other man of 506 mention being at. (See Ian Gardner's Nov Victory in Valhala for more details)

 

The work camp that has been given as the one which elements of the 506 helped to liberate in the last days of April is Kaufering IV. It was one of a dozen work camps in the Landsberg area.  The series of camps were mostly named after a railroad hub in the area by which the slave labor was distributed to the camps.  Some details provided by the men of e/506 match those of the conditions of the KZ IV, but others seemily do not.

 

 

For example,

 

 

 

When Clancy spoke of the prison camps, conveyed a sense of disbelief that man could commit such atrocities. He mentioned the smell and the bodies-- the horrid smell of burning and rotting human flesh that he would never forget.  It was one of the few times in his life he cried. It is hard for me to fathom what that was like for a 17 year-old, who, though battle hardened in Normandy and Holland and Bastogne; experiencing the loss of fellow brothers in arms; and wounded in each campaign, being brought to tears with the inhumanity he witnessed there. He sat down, Pat Christenson at his side, and the young man took hold of Christenson's hand and cried silent tears. He felt so bad for those people.

 

 I wanted to see the place, not only to pay respects to the victims of the Holocaust, but to see where it was that had driven this young man to tears.

 

It was raining and gray, but the roads were largely clear. It was a national holiday in Germany. Father's day so most everyplace was closed.