JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST –
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany sought to cleanse the world of those they deemed beneath them.
The primary target of this aggression were the 9 million Jews in Europe. By the time the war was over, 6 million Jewish people, 66 percent of European Jews, and countless other ethnic minorities had been systematically exterminated.
World War II veteran and Dachau liberator, Don Greenbaum, a forward observer with the 283rd Field Artillery Battalion, and his dear friend, Ernie Gross, a Romanian holocaust survivor joined Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst for Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 24, 2017.
Although they were unaware at the time, Greenbaum and Gross first met when the United States liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945.
“We were fighting a very patriotic war, we could not wait to get in,” said Greenbaum. “We spent 236 continuous days in combat. We were fighting evil.”
Gross was 15 years old in 1944 when the Hungarian soldiers occupying Romania gathered the Jewish population of his town in the Synagogue. From there, they were taken by train and then led on a death march, first to Auschwitz, and then to Dachau, deep in the heart of Nazi Germany.
“My parents would not leave my younger siblings when we arrived - they were all sent to the left,” said Gross, his voice cracking. “We didn’t talk about what happened if you were sent to the left, it was something we did not want to think about. But we knew, if you were sent to the left you were stripped, herded into crowded showers, gassed and killed instantly. If you were sent to the right you worked until you were too weak to go on, and then you were killed, too.”
Because prisoners under 17 were killed immediately, Gross lied about his age to survive. For a year, he moved from barrack to barrack in Dachau, clinging to life with tiny rations of bread and stolen potatoes. Gross believed he had reached the end of the line when salvation came in the form of soldiers in a jeep; the United States’ 3rd Army had arrived.
Although his immediate plight had ended, Gross did not have a home to return to. Left with almost no options, he immigrated to America after learning his few remaining relatives were alive in Philadelphia. Determined to rebuild his life, it would be 50 years before he ever spoke about his experiences during The Holocaust.
Greenbaum was motivated to tell his story after seeing a TV show claiming The Holocaust was a hoax. Years later, a Rabbi connected him to Gross and the two were reunited over 50 years after their first fateful meeting at Dachau.
Today, they share their story together all across the region.
“I’m 92 years old; I don’t have many years left to tell my story,” said Greenbaum. “Ernie is in his late 80’s - he too will not be around much longer. It is our duty to make sure The Holocaust is never forgotten. People need to remember and understand this atrocity actually happened.”
Recalling their vivid tales of horrific events, Gross and Greenbaum stress the importance of remembering the Holocaust of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other ethnic groups deemed sub-human by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, and not just on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Quoting 20th Century philosopher George Santayana, Greenbaum said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”