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January 27, 2005
The Liberation of Auschwitz
Today commemorates the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Take 10 minutes out of your life and read this inspiring, yet heartbreaking story of an American serviceman and a survivor of the Nazi death camp:
The two young men stood trembling before Army Lt. John Withers, dressed in the rags they'd worn at the recently liberated Dachau concentration camp. Sores pocked their bony arms and legs. Decades later, the lieutenant would remember how their sunken eyes sought mercy.
But in 1945, near the end of World War II, they posed a problem. Lt. Withers was a black leader in an all-black supply convoy. In violation of Army orders, his men were hiding the refugees. Lt. Withers planned to have the strangers removed -- until he saw them.
They stayed with his unit for more than a year, two Jewish survivors of the Holocaust hiding among blacks from segregated America. The soldiers nicknamed them "Peewee" and "Salomon." They grew close to Lt. Withers. By the time he bid them farewell, they'd grown healthy again.
Mr. Withers never forgot them. Over the years, he told and retold their tale to his two sons. When one son set out to find them, he discovered that Salomon had died in 1993. But Peewee, he learned, was alive.
Unlike Mr. Withers, Peewee had buried his past. His children and grandchildren knew almost nothing about his time in Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau. When his grandson asked about the number tattooed on his left forearm -- A19104 -- all he could say was, "Bad people put that down."
He couldn't bring himself to talk about it.
Then John Withers reappeared -- and changed Peewee's life yet again.
Posted by Peter Mork at January 27, 2005 5:38 PM
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» Auschwitz from Rodney Hide's Diary
Read the story of Army Lt. John Withers and Peewee. I wonder if your eyes stay dry.
Hat tip Economics With a Human Face. [Read More]
Tracked on January 28, 2005 2:25 AM
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