In the first decade of the 21st century, author Hirsh interviewed many of the surviving U.S. veterans who liberated concentration camps in Germany and other parts of Western Europe. Most of the interviewees were in their eighties and nineties at the time of the interviews. For some, it was the first time they had ever spoken about what they had witnessed. My takeaways from this book:

There were many more camps than I realized. The main camps like Dachau and Auschwitz had dozens of sub-camps.

Camps kept springing up through the final weeks of the war in Europe, as the Nazis were determined to exterminate the Jews and other “undesirable” populations in the camps rather than allow the Allies to liberate them.

Many veterans recalled smelling a terrible odor beginning several miles away from the camps and getting stronger the closer they approached. The veterans who spoke of the odor nearly to a person rejected claims of the local Germans who said that they had no idea what was going on in the camps. The stench made it impossible for them to believe those claims.

Most of the veterans still suffered from PTSD more than sixty years after these events. I agree with the author that the U.S. needs to provide more and better mental health services for veterans.

This book preserves eyewitness testimony from some of the first witnesses to the horrors of the Holocaust. It’s not easy reading, but it’s important reading, and it should be widely available in libraries to keep these memories alive and prevent this evil from being repeated. ( )

I need to read this book still, but am looking forward to it due to my job being the transcribing of the interviews used to write this book.

This is an important historical book documenting the stories of ordinary men called to witness and attempt to clean up and rebuild. War was bad enough, but liberating the camps was exposure to cruelty and evil not experienced on the battlefield. My friend and relative, Duane Mahlen, is among those soldiers interviewed in the book. This is a view into what it looks like to have seen the aftermath of evil. His most striking comment is how people a mile or two away from the camps denied that they knew anything terrible was happening. ( )

The Holocaust as seen through the eyes of GIs who took part in liberating concentration camps all over Europe. I was disappointed none of the veterans interviewed were from African-American units which did take part in some of these liberations. Terrible and powerful.
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The author interviewed more than 150 U.S. soldiers who were the first to arrive at concentration camps across Europe near the end of World War II. These soldiers recount what they witnessed and how they felt, both at the time of the discoveries and as they have grown older. It is a touching, saddening, enlightening view of the war; I highly recommend it to everyone. It's hard to read because of the subject matter, but well worth every tear you will shed.

The next time you see a veteran, thank him or her for serving our country. We wouldn't be free without their sacrifices! ( )