Healing the harms
The expression "freedom isn't free" means a lot to me. The sacrifices service men and women have made (and continue to make) in service of their country are worthy of recognition to the extent that they are helping to protect the possession and way of life of people they've never met. In short, I "support the troops." But let's supervene the story here, a quick loan from the pages of history, a loan that President Obama should repay with interest.
Trickle Up Poverty
The ties of duty and the promise that he would make sure people would know what transpired at Buchenwald concentration camp have driven retired Army brain officer Albert Rosenberg for over 60 years. Now 91 and living in El Paso, Texas, Rosenberg collected evidence at Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald back in April of 1945. His directive was to "investigate what genuinely happened in that particular (liberated) camp," Rosenberg said to Darren Meritz of the El Paso Times. "The allied governments wanted to know what happened in those camps." The description Rosenberg and his colleagues produced was swiftly classified because it contained the names of Communist foreign officials from nations with which the United States was attempting to form diplomatic ties.
Now Rosenberg's copy has resurfaced
And he's "looking to the White House for help in what may be the last mission of his life," writes Meritz.
This coincides with President Obama's up-to-date visit to the site of Buchenwald concentration camp. Rosenberg remembered a list of 321 captured U.S. Army and British Royal Air Force men who had been held at Buchenwald. He sent that list to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel with a handwritten note explaining how these men needed to be identified. The wounds needed to heal.
Unfortunately, Rosenberg still has not heard back from Washington.
Discovery!
"What became of these fliers, we could not conclude in 1945," Rosenberg wrote to Emanuel. "It can be assumed that many may have perished or moved in death transports to the interior of Nazi-held territory."
Those that were found had been subject to starvation and other forms of cruelty that the fog of war cannot conceal. The Nazis had attempted to conceal records when they left Buchenwald concentration camp behind, but some evidence has unintentionally left behind after their hasty retreat.
"Among my papers that I have kept, I came over typewritten pages that were part of our primary report, which lists the name, rank and serial numbers of American pilots who had been shot down during the war by the Nazis and who had been prisoners at the concentration camp," Rosenberg said. "They no longer were at the camp. I have no idea what happened to them."
Searching for answers
If President Obama's visit to Buchenwald concentration camp will shed some light on Rosenberg's list, the veteran will be happy.
After all of these many years, Albert Rosenberg has never learned whether the Buchenwald description has been declassified. He does know that the primary copy had been kept at a National Archives depository in Virginia, in box 149. Unfortunately, a fire during the 1970s destroyed the report.
Stand up
At the time, that was believed to be it. Experts plan that all of the remaining copies of the Buchenwald description had disappeared. That is, until Rosenberg emerged with his own copy. In 1995, all of the material he had collected - both the first-hand testimonies and the other evidence - was collected and translated from German to English. Then it was published in book form for all the world to see, so that the questions could be answered. That name of that book, fittingly, is "The Buchenwald Report," written by David Hackett.
Tear down that wall
"For decades people had been finding for that report," Rosenberg said. "I do not know, have the families of those prisoners, American fliers, ever been identified? Did they survive? I don't know."
Buchenwald concentration camp "represents a painful gap in (Rosenberg's) knowledge," writes Meritz. But he has not forgotten what sacrifices men and women like them have made in the pursuance of freedom. President Obama's visit to the camp is a start, but more can be done to make sure that families who have gone decades without knowing what exactly happened to their loved ones during that horrible war deserve closure. The law of classifying documents is questionable to say the least (Dick Cheney and his cavalier attitude toward classified memos on waterboarding is just one example). But too much time has passed. The walls must come down and America must do what is right by humanity. No more can a mere trickle of information here or there suffice. No quick loan, a loan that will never be enough until the floodgates are opened will stand. President Obama, tear down that wall of institutional ignorance.
Buchenwald attention Camp description Surfaces
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