George Katzman, who helped liberate Dachau concentration camp, dies at 96

Miami Herald ^ | May 13, 2016 | Howard Cohen

[Lera]

As a member of Gen. Patton's Third Army in World War II, George Katzman liberated the Dachau and Langwasser Lager concentration camps

He devoted the second half of his life to speaking as a living witness to the horrors of the Holocaust

*snip*

George Katzman was a World War II veteran who lived in Aventura.

*snip* The New York-born Katzman was a member of Gen. Patton's 3rd Army. He served as a rifleman, German/Yiddish translator and photographer.

And on April 29, 1945, Pfc. Katzman, then 25, was one of the soldiers who shot the lock off the gate at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany to free its prisoners during World War II.

"He was one of the few soldiers who spoke Yiddish so he became the liberator that the cadaverous survivors could talk to," Florida International University professor Kurt Stone said in a eulogy for his friend and teacher.

*snip* "Walking skeletons would come up to us, smile at us, touch us, then keel over and die," Katzman recalled in a voice filled with emotion at a Holocaust survivors gathering in Margate in 1986. "We were not the heroes. We were accidents of being in the right place at the right time. The survivors of the camps were the heroes," he maintained in a Miami Herald report that year.

The photographs he took at the camps -- black-and-white images of stacked piles of half-naked bodies and unwashed, shrunken survivors -- would be turned over to the Army. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had encouraged first-hand reports and photographs so that no one could deny what the soldiers had seen.

[TalBlack]

“We were not the heroes. We were accidents of being in the right place at the right time.”

With all due respect, being there ain’t no accident when you pick up a gun and FIGHTING your way to a place.

[TalBlack]

I cannot say how damned tired I am of this brainless auto correct.

[allendale]

Great point. The man had an innate courage and is worthy of all respect and honor.

[Ciexyz]

Inspiring story. May he RIP.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Yes, true to form, The Greatest Generation’s humility on display

[fella]

George Katzman Speaks people from my age group may need some Kleenex.

[taildragger]

Well done Pfc, RIP and why is the screenm so blurry.

So many of the "Brooklyn Boys" are now gone too ( I hope that is the correct name, for Translators post the liberation & for the Trials ).

[Gay State Conservative]

I went to the Dachau museum (built on the site where the actual camp stood) in the early 80’s.It was a cold,dreary,drizzly day (very fitting) and that visit is just about the spookiest,most unnerving experience of my entire life.

[Gay State Conservative]

Yes, true to form, The Greatest Generation’s humility on display

Exactly

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[MarvinStinson]

“My dad apparently hated barbecue because it brought back the smells, and that is what he would smell every time we would have a barbecue,” Williams said. “He still had it. .”

[MarvinStinson]

“I was embarrassed to be part of humanity,” Katzman said of his first reaction upon opening that gate at Dachau.

“When I go to my death, which will probably be soon, my last thought will be of that.”

[MarvinStinson]

For more than 30 years, he wouldn’t speak of what he witnessed at Dachau and the 23,000 people locked inside or the Langwasser Lager internment camp he’d also helped free during the war.

Then he heard a professor in the Midwest deny the existence of the Holocaust. Katzman was motivated to speak. He never stopped.

“I was so angry, so that was when I started to speak,” he told the Miami Herald in 2015.

[Rastus]

I’m sorry we squandered so much of what you fought for, sir. May God forgive us as we pray it’s not too late. Thank you for your service during and after the war. May you rest in peace.