Holocaust National Days of Remembrance Event

by Air Force Staff Sgt. Zachary Wolf
JBER Public Affairs

4/15/2014 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska  -- The Soldiers of Company L, 157th Regiment, 45th Division arrived at the Nazi concentration camp gates and saw they were locked. They scaled the walls and took out the guards. When they had liberated the camp, what the Soldiers saw brought many of them to tears of sorrow and anger. How could a human do this do another human?

April 29, 1945, at 7:30 a.m., marks the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany. Less than three months after Dachau was liberated, a frontline medic from the 71st Infantry Division arrived to assess the cleanup effort. After 92 days of combat, his unit had traveled more than 1,060 miles and had taken 108,000 Prisoners Of War. What this medic saw would change his life forever. His name was Alvin Fleetwood. Fleetwood, a World War II veteran, was recently the keynote speaker for Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson's Holocaust National Days of Remembrance event at the Frontier Theater on JBER-Richardson, April 10.

"I came in after the liberation; everything was still visible as to what had occurred," Fleetwood said. "What we experienced was firsthand, and the evidence was everywhere."

Fleetwood said there were 30,000 people who were critically ill and dying and they couldn't handle them all at one time.

"In just a matter of a couple of hours, there was medical help there, food had been brought in, clean clothing had been brought in, lots of blankets had been brought in and that was almost instantaneous," Fleetwood said.

Fleetwood said he understands why some of his fellow veterans resist talking about the war.

"When we were discharged ... we were given no debriefing and no introduction back into civilian life," Fleetwood said. "What do you do when you are up against a thing like that? You put it in the back of your mind and never think about it, forcefully, and you forget about it, hopefully."

But Fleetwood continues to speak to keep it fresh in people's minds.

"I am afraid that the story of the Holocaust is being forgotten, or the story of the Holocaust is not reaching our young people or they are not being made aware of the Holocaust," Fleetwood said. "It's a story, needing to be told so it won't be repeated," Fleetwood said. "I think it's a story that needs to be told more from the heart than by an author."

"I have to believe that the genocide that happened, as inhuman as it was, can't be repeated in modern society," Fleetwood said. "I don't understand, and I never will, the terrible torture and killing that occurred to other human beings."

Fleetwood said he hopes audiences will take away at least one thing after he finishes speaking.

"If we can learn anything from our past, we should take advantage of it," Fleetwood said. "Some will go away with a deep feeling of 'we can't let this happen again.' I think [speaking] will give the public in general, a deeper feeling for the military and their sacrifices."

The United States Army Alaska and JBER Equal Opportunity office sponsored the Holocaust National Days of Remembrance event. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website, the United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation's annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year's Holocaust Remembrance Day is April 28.