DACHAU, Germany — It was a shocking, horrifying “beautiful day.”
Survivors and liberators alike recalled on Sunday the horror of the Dachau concentration camp and the overwhelming relief of its liberation 70 years ago. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to keep alive the memory of Nazi crimes and give no quarter to present-day discrimination or anti-Semitism.
Dachau, near Munich, was the first concentration camp the Nazis set up — a few weeks after Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. Before it was liberated by U.S. troops on April 29, 1945, more than 200,000 people from across Europe were held there and more than 40,000 prisoners died.
“When we entered the camp exactly 70 years ago, it was a terrible shock to see how much you, the survivors, had suffered from starvation, disease, brutality and freezing conditions,” Alan Lukens, who entered Dachau as a U.S. army private in 1945, said at the anniversary ceremony at the former camp.
“But we will never forget your excitement and ours as we entered the camp and were overwhelmed by you, as you hugged us and brought out a hand-sewn American flag, which you had hidden for the occasion,” said Lukens, who later became a U.S. diplomat.