Dachau Concentration Camp entrance on July 30, 2015. Photo courtesy of pxhidalgo.
The region’s Jewish War Veterans have invited the community to the New York State Military Museum, 61 Lake Ave., Saratoga Springs on Saturday, April 26, at 2 p.m. to mark the 80th anniversary of the WWII liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp and its more than 30,000 prisoners. The program is free and open to the community.
In partnership with the Military Museum, Rich Goldenberg, commander, Capital District Council
Adjutant, Albany Post 105, will present the combat history of the 42nd Infantry Division across Europe in the spring of 1945, culminating with the liberation of prisoners from the Dachau Concentration Camp on April 29, 1945.
The 42nd division continues its service today in Troy as part of the NY Army National Guard.
Evelyn Loeb, a Delmar resident, whose father Walter Loeb, was arrested following Kristallnacht and detained at Dachau in November 1938, will join the veterans in noting the Dachau Concentration Camp liberation. Loeb’s father was released in the late winter of 1939, obtained passage to the United States in 1940 and would later serve in the U.S. armed forces in the Pacific theater. He died in 2009.
Loeb will discuss her father’s experience before the discussion program turns to the liberation in 1945.
Goldenberg will review the liberation through the perspective of a former 42nd Infantry Division soldier Richard Marowitz, who at 19 was present at the liberation. Marowitz lived in Albany and died in 2014 at the age of 88. Marowitz was a past commander of the Albany Post 105 and spoke with area congregations over the years for Yom HaShoah programs.
The U.S. Army credits the 42nd Infantry, 45th Infantry and 20th Armored Divisions for the liberation, with all three participating in the camp’s capture or within 48 hours of liberation. The Dachau Concentration Camp was established by Nazi Germany in 1933. Situated on the outskirts of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich, the camp was designed to hold about 5,000 political prisoners. Nearly 33,000 were present at the camp’s liberation.
Goldenberg will draw on the oral histories of former 42nd Division veterans archived at the Museum and Veterans Research Center as part of his discussion.
