emotional impact was heavy on all who were witness to these incidents but Some prisoners were able to escape during the bombing and hid in the nearby woods. We appreciate your comments about this site. It was like stepping into the knives and bullets for the males, desert death marches, hunger and rape for the Used as an overflow camp for sick and dying inmates from January 1945, numbers rose from a few hundred to over 6000, and the conditions saw up to 100 inmates die every day. There are those who now maintain Hitler's holocaust never Certainly, the Nazi's saw the labor camp as an opportunity to "kill two birds with one stone". Their corpses were found by the US Army units that liberated the camp on 11 April. [18] On 5 March, after heavy fighting, it entered Kln. In this large motor shop [18] The sector to the Mulde River was cleared by 21 April, and after vigorous patrolling, contacted the Red Army at Pretzsch on 26 April. supplementing more conventional means of transport for the relentless push East. In early April 1945, the Nazis began to evacuate the prisoners from Dora-Mittelbau. They were either sent by train or forced on death marches to Bergen-Belsen. The History of the 104th Infantry DivisionBy Leo Hoegh & Howard J. Doyle, Sixty-eight years after the original publication of this history, the National Timberwolf Pups Association created to accurately portray and preserve the World War II history of the 104th Infantry particularly sadistic attention from the SS Troopers. Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics, Find articles, photos, maps, films, and more listed alphabetically, Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust, Explore the ID Cards to learn more about personal experiences during the Holocaust. executed at the slightest suggestion of sabotage. No workers had ever been We saw in a concentration camp . Click here for order form: [5] Additional prisoners arrived in June 1944 for forced labor with Junkers and in the Mittelwerk tunnel system, mostly for the production of V-1 and V-2 rockets. here, not in America or Russia." abandoned to die and their bodies burned at the crematorium within the grounds. -- The US Army immediately had the prisoners transported out of the camp so that they could be treated by physicians. Division saw and lived a story we shall never forget. The 104th Infantry Division formally activated with ceremonies at Camp Adair, Oregon. The very few walking skeletons able to stand wandered about dazedly in This changed after the Factory occupied large tunnels underneath a mountain near Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains in central Germany. An estimated 20,000 inmates died; 9,000 died from exhaustion and collapse, 350 hanged, and the [7][5] According to the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, "it is difficult to describe in words" the conditions in the second garage, where prisoners were left to die. through the years, and point out the tragedy of this minor concentration camp! Info@104InfDiv.org. TThe unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor is what prompted most young American men to enlist. Men such as Jack Biolchini felt as though they could not, and should not speak of the atrocities. We pulled three or four feebly struggling living ones from the bottom In the 19 years since this program was inaugurated, the Museum and the Center of Military History have recognized 35 U.S. Army divisions for their heroism, gallantry, and help in liberating prisoners It was originally a subcamp of Buchenwald. Conditions were rainy, chilly, wet, and muddy. http://www.104infdiv.org/concamp.htm (accessed Oct. 10, 2009). Nor did it (10) The aftermath of these atrocities were what the Timberwolves were to encounter on April 11, 1945. Sergeant Ragene Farris of the 329th Medical Malnutrition and disease were rampant, and corpses lay unburied. I asked myself, 'Is this what is meant by genocide? It is primarily responsible for Combat Service Support training for soldiers entering the Ordnance Corps and other related fields. [5][7] The camp commander was SS-Obersturmfhrer Heinrich Josten[de; pl; sv], who had previously worked at Auschwitz, and the deputy commander was SS-Hauptscharfhrer Josef Kestel[ja; de; pl; sv], previously a functionary at the Dora camp. Photo: US Holocaust Memorial Museum. composure. is pleased to announce that a 2014 edition of TIMBERWOLF TRACKS is now available. Search the Holocaust Encyclopedia. I knew there was a reason the All medical personnel that could be In December, the 104th was forced into defensive positions by German counterattacks, but in March 1945, the division entered the Rhineland and captured the city of Cologne. Requesting help from the 104th Infantry Division, the 3rd immediately begins transporting some 250 ill and starving prisoners to nearby hospital facilities. There were lots of accidents, people buried alive under rocks and rubble. An hour-by-hour account of the liberation of concentration camp Dachau, based on numerous interviews with former prisoners and the American soldiers who liberated them. The former soldiers of the 104th Infantry Division, bound together by common memories Massacre was the word here, Working and living conditions at the camp were deplorable. conventional means of military transport for the relentless push to the [23], In 1967, the division was reorganized. Explosions set off during construction of the tunnels claimed many lives. Survivors of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp, located near Nordhausen, Germany, April 14, 1945. Additional Nordhausen accounts can be found in our War gear, and off across bomb-cratered grounds we picked our way to this particular quite understand how and why war could do these things. Dora. [2] After training at Camp Adair, the division participation in the Oregon Maneuver combat exercise in the fall of 1943. [14], Boelcke-Kaserne housed the largest percentage of Jews in the Mittelbau-Dora complex, except for one labor subcamp for Jewish women. These units were redesignated from other training commands and put under the command of the division. Activated in 1921 and deployed during World War II, the division saw almost 200 days of fighting in northwestern Europe as it fought through France, Netherlands, Belgium, and western Germany, fighting back several fierce German counterattacks as it advanced through the theater throughout late 1944 and 1945. Under the supervision of the US First Army, German civilians from Nordhausen carry victims of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp to mass graves. Private After 65 years Battalion,104th Infantry Division, was there and explained the impact of the Maintained by Sandra Eberhard, National Timberwolf Pups Association member. [3][4] From 1942, parts of the barracks complex had housed forced laborers for Mabag, a company involved in arms production. was huddled up against a dead comrade, as if to keep warm, having no concept if anyone spoke French. During its three-month existence, about 6,000 prisoners passed through the camp and almost 3,000 died there under "indescribable" conditions. In 1936, a Luftwaffe barracks complex, named after the World War I flying ace Oswald Boelcke, was constructed in the suburbs of the city of Nordhausen, Thuringia. found a large German concentration camp for political prisoners, discovering the ground awaiting burial I asked myself, 'Is this what is meant by genocide? So under the leadership of Colonel Jones and Chaplain Steinbeck, who spoke Tags: liberating units US Army. Caggiano, Robert . 8 September, 1944.). TTY: 202.488.0406, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, The Holocaust and World War II: Key Dates, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center. and there were about thirty corpses piled on the ground awaiting such treatment the Americans fought into Nordhausen. (Accessed Oct. 22, 2009). From 1946 until 2008, it was part of the United States Army Reserve. (11) The U.S. Army rushed medical personnel, food, and equipment to the This meeting helped hasten the liberation of the city of Halle and spare it from further destruction. [16] Some American newspapers drew an explicit connection between the atrocities at Nordhausen and the rocket production nearby. outright. there were no living beings; only the distorted dead. last token of those who enslaved and killed them. 104th Infantry and their discovery of the Mittelbau Dora labor camp; the camp in which prisoners were forced to work on a top secret weapon: the world's first ballistic missile. noticed; I would say she was about seventeen years old. 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Several people who served with the 104th Infantry Division later went on to achieve notability for various reasons. . [28] Each of these brigades carried the history of other historic units which fought under the 104th Infantry Division in World War II. [23] In 1961, the division was relocated to Vancouver Barracks, Washington. Activated in 1942, the 104th Infantry Division landed in France in September 1944, a few months after the Allied invasion of western Europe on D-Day (June 6, 1944). Schmidt was tried again at the Third Majdanek Trial in 1979 for unrelated crimes, and again acquitted. (Accessed Oct. 22, 2009). they worked several days carrying litter cases and collecting corpses by hand. saw them. The US Army forced about two thousand Germans from Nordhausen to bury the corpses in mass graves, a process which took until 16 April. [5] Daily trains shuttled between Dora and Boelcke-Kaserne, bringing incapacitated prisoners and removing the corpses for cremation at Dora. [4][12], According to Michael J. Neufeld, the atrocities at Boelcke-Kaserne were minimized after the war to protect the careers of German rocket scientists who had worked at other subcamps of Mittelbau-Dora. Sleet beat down on the troops, who went for days soaked to the skin and slimy with mud. The 104th Infantry Division during World War II As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they found tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners in deplorable conditions. Despite their efforts, many survivors died shortly after liberation. never occurred. been brought up, as have virtually all first and second generation Americans of [19] During the Battle of the Bulge, the 104th actively defended its sector near Duren and Merken (in German only) from 15 December 1944 to 22 February 1945. predominantly Polish slave workers, with some French, conscripted to turn out There in beds of crude wood I saw The division was instead centered on three infantry regiments; the 413th,[9] the 414th,[9] and 415th Infantry Regiments. Lying among the multitudes of dead were bearers and medical technicians as well as any other men available from duties Mr. Downs certainly gives us a glowing account of the Timberwolves' bravery and military prowess, but nowhere in the article does he describe the 104th Division's role in liberating camp Mittelbau Dora, or the horrific (1) National Timberwolf Association, "Mittelbau Dora Concentration Camp," 104th Infantry Division, http://www.104infdiv.org/concamp.htm (accessed Oct. 10, 2009). When US forces liberated Dora-Mittelbau in April 1945, only a few prisoners were still in the camp. lying around the camp and some 750 emaciated, starving and ill prisoners who had been left behind when the SS evacuated the inmates on death marches. [29] The 6th Brigade, 104th Division was activated at Aurora, Colorado. Some of these, lying in double-decked wooden There were others, in dark cellar rooms, lying in disease and filth, On 11 April 1945 the Division was involved in the liberation of a large German concentration camp at Nordhausen. Massacre was the word here, knives and bullets for the males, desert death marches, Time dulls However, they did possess deadly strong points and endeavored to make the Timberwolves' progress as time-consuming and costly as possible, making heavy use of mines, booby traps, and roadblocks. With care, he was lifted upon a litter and taken to our waiting Recognition as a Liberating Unit Although there are modern accounts from the men of the 104th regarding the horrific experience at Camp Mittelbau Dora, there was very little information published about the 104th Division's role in liberating the Camp We got almost nothing to eat, a piece of bread, perhaps two or three potatoes. Hitler's once mighty war machine was beginning to fail, but the 104th The full [15] The division then organized and assembled at Manche, France before heading into combat.[16]. east. hundred German litter bearers were gathered up and rushed to the evident almost immediately that our few medics could not evacuate hundreds of For the next two days, the Timberwolves pursued enemy remnants north to the Meuse. Among the men of the 104th Infantry Division was a medic from Brooklyn, New York. 104th Infantry Division . The trial also addressed the question of liability of Nordhausen scientists, who were then been crushed by falling walls - yet he displayed remarkable discipline and More His dozen or so photos from Mittelbau-Dora show rows of emaciated corpses in brutal clarity (inexplicably,. Boelcke-Kaserne concentration camp (transl. I saw one man feebly stagger to Animated Map Article Artifact . The majority of Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp prisoners were dispersed before liberation. They died like flies.(9). the near skeletonized to the newly dead. Its role and size have expanded over that time due to the consolidation of other training commands, and the division subsequently took charge of a number of brigades specializing in various entry-level training for soldiers of all types. Murphy, Richard. camp. that there had been no activity by the trains all night, I was beginning to think that my gut feeling was wrong. [8] After the arrival of 3,500 emaciated and ill prisoners from Gross-Rosen in mid-February, the SS decided to use the barracks compound to house prisoners who were no longer able to work,[7] since Dora had no gas chamber and transports to Bergen-Belsen could not be arranged. Nordhausen "became the defining image of National Socialist camp terror" in many parts of the world. The war-hardened soldiers of the 104th had seen the worst in humanity. detestable living conditions. [17] On 30 October, after five days of continuous operations the division had pushed about 15 miles to within sight of the Mark River and had liberated Zundert, gained control of the Breda-Roosendaal Road, and overrun the Vaart Canal defenses. But few realized the evil acts that Hitler and his Nazi regime were committing against humanity. a quick survey, this was to be as big a medical job as we had been called upon walking into a world apart and returning to bring these shadow-men into the Stories . of gathering at the national reunions, the final Timberwolf reunion was held in September, 2010 and the difficult decision to end the National Timberwolf Association was The 104th Infantry Division participated in major WWII campaigns and is recognized for liberating the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in 1945. 1945, the 104th Infantry Division, as part of the U.S. VII Corps, was teamed Main telephone: 202.488.0400 After fierce fighting in the Ruhr pocket, it advanced into central Germany and took the Prussian university town of Halle on April 19. by the hungry and desperate enemy, continued as tongue-twisting towns and It was located inside a former Luftwaffe barracks complex in Nordhausen, Thuringia, Germany, adjacent to several pre-existing forced labor camps. These men were dedicated to continuing the spirit of fellowship and teamwork from which their war experiences had instilled. As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they found tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners in deplorable conditions. [18] It took temporary command of the 60th Infantry Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division. as a top secret satellite camp of Buchenwald in 1943 after British bombers destroyed the main missile research base at Peenemuende on the Baltic Coast. The 104th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the United States Army. send e-mail comments or queries to the Webmaster: It was briefly inactivated from 2008 until 2010 when it was . Division, to recognize the contribution of the 34,000 men who proudly wore the Timberwolf Today, it is known as the 104th Training Division (Leader Training) and based at Fort Lewis, Washington, as a training unit of the United States Army Reserve. This was my signal to get into My legs just The 104th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the United States Army. The death toll from the first raid was 450 in the block for tuberculosis sufferers,[11] and the second raid killed about 1,000 people. Timberwolf Tracks Order Form, WRITTEN BY THE SOLDIERS OFTHE 104TH INFANTRY DIVISION, TIMBERWOLVES V-bomb factory was discovered. SS guards hid in air-raid shelters but did not allow the prisoners to seek cover. The [24], In 1996, three more brigades were added to the division's structure. of the 104th Division Timberwolves who were there and witnessed that in the camp had been worked, beaten and forced at top speed until they could Written & Submitted by Heather Smith SS guards barely entered the camp, instead allowing the prisoners to die from neglect. The temperature was eight or nine degrees Celsius (46 - 48 degrees Fahrenheit) . . (10) Mary Galione-Nahas, The Journey of Private Galione: How America Became a Super Power, (Washington: Pleasant Word Press 2004). acquitted.(13). National Timberwolf Association, www.104infdiv.org (accessed Oct. 22, 2009). (6) Richard Murphy, "Survivors of V2 Nazi Slave Camp Mark Liberation," Reuters, April 10, 1995, under "The Nizkor Project," http://nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/buchenwald/press/reuters.040395 (Oct. 24, 2009). [14] A coordinated attack over the Mark River at Standdaarbuiten on 2 November established a bridgehead and the rest of the division crossed the river. Deployed during World War II, the division saw almost 200 . camp liberation, and seeing the unspeakable atrocities committed by the Nazis. from the dead. One girl in particular I Rene Steenbeke. [7] Some were not concentration camp prisoners, but forced laborers who could no longer work. Upon return, it continued the process of demobilization until 20 December of that year, when it was inactivated. We went downstairs into a filth indescribable, They were still alive. The 104th Infantry Division discovered approximately 3,000 corpses lying around the camp and some 750 emaciated, starving and ill prisoners who had been left behind when the SS evacuated the inmates on death marches. The 104th Division was then assigned the mission of conducting One Station Unit Training, Basic Combat Training, Advanced Individual Training, and Combat Support training. As Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they found tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners in deplorable conditions. The Timberwolves travelled across France by train and debarked near the Belgian-Dutch border and waited for word to take part in a new allied offensive, Operation Pheasant, taking the place of the experienced British 49th Infantry Division on the left flank and the Polish 1st Armored Division on the right. Some female forced laborers deliberately had children in hopes of being sent home; other children were incidentally conceived from careless or violent sexual relationships in the forced labor camps. The Timberwolves were then assigned to Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery's Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group under the British I Corps, within the First Canadian Army, along with the U.S. 7th Armored Division, in order to clear out the Scheldt Estuary and open the port of Antwerp. He lay dust-covered, where he had nearly Dark Ages to walk into one of these cellar-cells and seek out the living; like TO ORDER CONTACT THE WEBMASTER experience of the dead and dying prisoners they encountered at the Camp, an experience which was one of the most profound of their entire military careers during World War II. Aftermath of the RAF bombing raid of 3 and 4 April 1945 that destroyed the Boelcke-Kaserne (Boelcke Barracks) located in the south-east of the town of Nordhausen and killed around 1,300 inmates. Visit . death had overtaken them, but some were stacked like cordwood under stairways. [24], Two additional provisional brigades were created under the 104th Division in 1999; the 8th Brigade, 104th Division was created at Fort Lewis as a unit for training Reserve Officers' Training Corps cadets, and the 4690th US Army Reserve Forces School at Fort Shafter, Hawaii was redesignated as the 4690th Brigade, 104th Division, for service as a multifunctional training unit. 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW We arrived in Amsterdam, Thursday, May 2nd, at Schiphol Airport ready to complete our journey following the footsteps of the 104th Timberwolf Infantry Division as they fought through Europe during WWII in 1944 and 1945. heap of ashes each day. [14] Leur and Etten fell as the division advanced to the Mark River, arriving there by 31 October. "Survivors of V2 Nazi Slave Camp Mark Liberation." A new subcamp of Buchenwald Concentration Camp was thus founded: the Arbeitslager Dora (Dora labour camp), as it was officially designated by the SS. Heinrich Schmidt and an SS guard were tried in 1947 in the Dora Trial at Dachau for abuses at Boelcke-Kaserne, but they were acquitted for lack of evidence. on to direct the U.S. Space Program. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. 'Concentration Camp.'. I was accosted by a less emaciated prisoner who asked words of a poet a sadder but wiser man.(16). A million or more Armenian lives destroyed at the whim of those who ruled the old Turkish Ottoman Empire. webmaster@104infdiv.org, Please ambulances. [13], The 104th Infantry Division sailed for the Western Front on 27 August 1944. Lucherberg was held against enemy counterattacks on 3 December, and all strongholds west of the Roer River were captured by the 23rd. The 104th Infantry Division formally activated with ceremonies at Camp Adair, Oregon. Shephard, Ben. building. were scattered throughout the buildings and grounds of the large camp and all hunger and rape for the women and children. In one bomb crater lay about twenty Initially [4][7], On 2 April, 3,000 prisoners were transported to the Mittelbau main camp and to Ellrich, a subcamp of Mittelbau. considerably more so on this writer. [5] Most of the prisoner functionaries were German "green triangle" prisoners (convicted criminals) whose beatings and cruelty made the situation even worse.[7][14]. Its men were to write sagas of sacrifice, devotion and heroism. risk their lives in order to protect the world from tyranny. Americans of similar background, on the eye witnessed horror stories of an even more sanguine genocide in Turkey three decades earlier. My legs were tired, weak, and the wound in my leg was raw. The soldiers reacted in shock and disbelief to the evidence of Nazi atrocities. The concentration camp prisoners were separated from the forced laborers by an electrified fence topped with barbed wire, and transported to work via a purpose-built railway spur. made. The Royal Navy took three weeks to sweep the estuary waters clear of mines, and in early December 1944, the port of Antwerp was open to Allied shipping.