Oral History Interview with Julius Eingorn

Dr. Julius Eingorn served with the 79th Infantry Division, U.S. 3rd Army in a special 12 unit dispensary that liberated Ohrdruf, April 1945. There were no survivors. He describes what he saw there, including evidence of primitive cremations, and prisoners marched out of Ohrdruf and killed just before liberation. He mentions General Eisenhower’s orders that all service men had to tour the camp.

In May, 1945 his unit entered an unnamed labor camp near either Weida or Werdau, Germany. He spoke with many of the 150 surviving Jewish Hungarian girls in Yiddish. They all told him that their choice had been either to stay with their mothers and be exterminated or work in the camp. Whoever got sick was killed. He also stopped at a German hospital for Polish and Russian prisoners and discovered that out of 1500 patients only 400 survived. His unit liberated British Prisoners of War. He encountered streams of German refugees fleeing the Russian army and mentions accepting the surrender of whole German divisions. He interviewed many people around Ohrdruf who all felt no guilt and pleaded total ignorance of what happened there. Dr. Eingorn reflects on what he saw during the war and the need for constant vigilance to prevent another Holocaust.

Date: 01/02/1989
Interviewer: Philip G. Solomon
Interviewee: Julius Eingorn
Language: English
Subject: Crematoriums.
Holocaust victims.
Jewish soldiers--United States.
Prisoner-of-war camps.
Prisoners of war--Great Britain.
Refugees--Europe.
Women concentration camp inmates.
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Western Front.
World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation.
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American.
World War, 1939-1945--Veterans--United States.
Men--Personal narratives.
Location: USA
Ohrdruf concentration camp
Permalink: https://hoha.digitalcollections.gratzcollege.edu/item/oral-history-interview-with-julius-eingorn/
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