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6-Concentration Camps

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Did you ever hear about atrocities against Jews from any of the prisoners?

No they never knew anything. I must believe that really they didn't know anything. They didn't want to know anything. When any other curious person would have said "Gee, that's strange that they are all disappearing like that—apartments are suddenly empty." The Germans didn't preoccupy themselves with that. That's what I mean when I say Hitler had helpers.

The Germans themselves, all say, "We are not responsible, we didn't do...” They helped him. As long as he was winning they were on his side. The moment he started to lose they suddenly turned against him and claimed at least that they turned against him. That is not really very honest and unfortunately we are not doing enough about it. We never did. We didn't punish the Germans. We built back their country. We allowed them to take back jobs. They became very rich after the war. Perhaps they have improved, but who knows that. We will see in the future. In the last few months we have seen that they were just as treacherous as they always were. Certainly because of this Schroeder, they changed their whole attitude towards America.

Did you ever pick up any information as an interrogator about the atrocities being committed?

No. No. We were very surprised ourselves. That is why I told you about Roosevelt. He didn't let us know. He knew, and did not make it public. You can read that in the article I gave you. Roosevelt said, "this is an internal affair" and that it "doesn't concern us." It could have helped those Jews.

Wasn't there a specialist that dealt with SS officers or the Gestapo that would have picked up information about the camps?

Up to the point that we saw it. Once we had seen it then there was no more question. We didn't know. It wasn't known. They knew very well how to hide it up to a point. The average German, instead of inquiring, closed his eyes. They didn't really know. It is hard for an American to understand with the publicity of today. There was not that kind of publicity. People didn't know so quickly. It took a long time to know something. You had to get a letter from a cousin or something to hear things like that. And there was really no communication with the Germans and us. Until the end of the war really, we didn't know what was going on in that country. It was our government that should have informed us in general. In the army we were absolutely surprised.

Were you concerned for your family when you came across the camp?

Well we knew that they were victims. I looked for my family but they were not in that camp. It happened that they were in Bergen-Belsen. I had a first cousin who escaped. She was already on the train with her three children to Auschwitz and the Russians liberated the train. She had lived in Holland and had hidden until they found her. They took her and her three children and they sent her to Auschwitz. But on the way the Russians invaded that part of Germany. The train was stopped by the Russians and all of the people on the train were liberated. Then we found out that she was there, but that was one of the persons that I went looking for in Buchenwald. I didn't find her, but we knew that there were relatives.

You know that this story with the Jews was not the reason of the war. The reason of the war were the Poles. The invasion of Poland produced the British declaration of war to the Germans. The Jews didn't enter into all of that. They were German citizens, or else captured Belgians or captured French citizens. We did not know in general that they were out to kill all the Jews as much as possible. That was very secret. There are only certain Germans who knew about that. The average German didn't want to know and didn't look to get explanations. They were just as surprised probably as we were.

When did you find out about the atrocities?

When we took the camps. The American army entered these camps and saw what was going on.

Was Buchenwald the first camp?

In our zone.

But America had liberated other camps before Buchenwald?

I don't think so. I think Buchenwald was the first. The British liberated Bergen-Belsen and that was in their zone. Prague and Czechoslovakia–Theresienstadt–that was again much later. Those camps were found and then the publicity came to the newspapers. But you know the average news information was not given to us. Even in America people did not know.

Did being Jewish make you more affected by the sight of the camps?

Not particularly. As I told you, my driver said to me that he could not understand. When he saw this the only thing that came to his mind was that he had to go and tell his mother the story. As I told you last time, "My Mom," he said "Will never believe me," because it was so outrageous that you just couldn't imagine such a thing.

Can you tell us a little more about what you saw at the camps?

Well, I'll show you the pictures. I have a whole page of pictures there that you can photograph. The pictures are known today because since then everybody has seen them. Films were made, the news showed programs, but mine were probably the first pictures of Buchenwald.

Did you actually go to General Patton himself to get the pass?

Yes, I got the pass. He told his adjutant Koch, "Give the pass to Charles Newton." I have it there. You can see it.

You made a decision that you wanted to go?

I got all of these telegrams from New York, so I showed them to him—stacks. He was just surprised probably.

You said that General Patton wanted to talk to you about your experience afterwards?

He asked what happened—what I saw. I told him. He said, "What should we do"? I suggested that we should walk the Germans through the camp, and that's what we did.

Can you tell us what you recall telling him?

I told him exactly that I saw these terrible killings of innocent people, and that they were like bones walking around, like shadows. He had never—Americans never heard of such a thing. It is hard to imagine if you have never seen it, you know. Even sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, after fifty-five years, I still think about the impression that you get when you find out a thing like that. It is so outrageously terrible and big that you can't grasp it. It was really unbelievably cruel. Beyond what we would normally—I mean animals don't get treated like that. But that is today known by everybody. At that time it was not known, so it was new. If you had seen that you would have had the same impression that we had.

Can you go back to that moment when you drove in on the Jeep into the camp? Walk us through your very first few moments in the camp.

You got to the camp. There was a big gate. On top of the gate was "Right or Wrong My Country", was written in German. You walked in and there was a field of bodies lying there in front of the gas chambers. It was all fresh. The SS were around sitting on the floor in chains, and you could go over and speak to them if you had wanted to. You know, I got there with my driver. I walked around, I saw what it was, I asked for names and I turned around and walked out. I was glad to leave. The smell alone drove you away. It was just awful, just awful.

You said you had a stack of telegrams asking you to look for people?

No my cousin, my uncle, sent me cables, yes.

You went in there looking for specific people you wanted to find. How many people did you find?

In that camp I found none. As I said, they were in a different camp. But they came, I mean, one of them lives in New York. My cousin is a lawyer. He went to Harvard, and he has the number on his arm. We never speak of this time.

Can you recall a conversation with anyone in the camp?

Well I don't recall all of the details. I did not waste my time with that. I tried to as quickly as possible get out.

You didn't interact with the SS at all?

We had nothing to do with that. You know, they were under different government. I mean, there were police and other American institutions that dealt with these people. We had personally nothing to do with them.

Can you recall any interactions with prisoners?

Yes, I told you I think that one little boy came and said that his sister had been thrown into an open fire in the middle of the—that I distinctly remember. He was twelve years old and he was just hardly higher than a five year old. He volunteered this. He came over to me and told me this in German. I listened and I said nothing. You know, what was there to say?

Did anyone express happiness because the camp was liberated?

It is hard to tell. They were in such a state that their emotions couldn't be seen. I mean, you cannot imagine the looks of these people. They were just bones. Walking dead people. Most of them died anyhow. They couldn't even take food. It was absolutely disastrous. But you know, it is like hell. When you imagine what hell is like, this is about what it is.

What were your feeling when you talked with them?

You feel disgust. But then they would always answer you, "It's not my fault. I just followed orders." As I told you last time, another country would have said, "I don't do such a thing." The Germans don't do that. They followed orders. They told them they have to do this, and they did it.

Did you personally walk other German citizens through the camps?

Well, that was not my job. The MP's did that. We had a military police who forced the Germans to walk through the camp, and they did, and they fainted.

Do you remember the words General Patton said when you suggested it to him?

Not exactly, he just went to the telephone and gave orders.

Do you remember Patton's reaction to the concentration camps?

Well, I guess they were reacting just the same as we all were. You know this is not how you—it's difficult to explain this to you. It wasn't that he invited me for lunch and that we wanted to discuss this matter. He was told that there were witnesses that heard the story, the Adjutant Koch was there, and Patton said give the pass, and he gave it to me. And that's how I went.

Were you one of the only ones who received the pass?

At that time I was, but friends of mine went to other camps. Particularly Theresienstadt, and some of them found names of their parents in the list, and they were devastated—American soldiers. Members in my outfit, two boys, went together to Prague. Theresienstadt was in Czechoslovakia, which was not far away. You know the distances in Europe are not like here. Very close, everything is very near. So they took their trip and went there and found out that their parents had been killed. The Germans kept lists of everything—very orderly you know.

You have said that all of the SS soldiers would say that they were just following orders, and that that is sort of a German thing to do. Do you believe that the Holocaust could not have happened in another country?

Most definitely not. In fact it hasn't happened ever in any other country.

Would you hold responsible a person who was a German citizen at the time for the Holocaust?

Absolutely, in fact there was a famous book written by a rabbi in Boston which is called "Hitler's Little Helpers", [Charles meant Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Judah Goldhagen, who is a professor, not a rabbi] who accused the Germans. If you want to hear an amusing story I will tell you one. There is a man here in Carmel who lived here with his wife, who was German, and who had bought himself a villa here in Pebble Beach. He befriended our friends here. One evening this lady said to me, "You know there is a family of Europeans." She didn't specify because she didn't understand. She said, "I'm sure you would like to meet these people." I said: "fine," and she introduced me to this couple. The lady said to me, "Mr. Newton, you are such a lovely man, I would like to invite you for lunch." I said, "Madam, I was the first American soldier that entered Buchenwald." She says, "Oh that gives us even today bad dreams." My wife was laughing: "Now we are going to go for lunch with the Germans." I said to my wife, "Well this is a small town, you make an enemy and he goes around in the churches here and everywhere. I think we should go to see him." So, he stood in front of his door like a German, and he slapped his knees and said, "You honor my house." I said, "And Hitler turns in his grave." He accepted that, and we became relatively good friends. My wife was once sick, and I was not here, and they came to the door and brought medicines and in other ways, we became friendly with these people. A:: One day they invited us again for lunch. We went, and my wife—as an American, innocently said, "What do you say about the book that came out—about the professor." This German turned as red as your cap and he said, "How dare he say how I should have acted. He said that we were helpers to Hitler. We were not helpers to Hitler." He became absolutely furious at my wife for having asked this question. We quickly said goodbye. At the door, I said, "Be careful, because my wife is taking the car." He said, "You would like her to kill me, wouldn't you." I couldn't understand, and here this German—I didn't even answer him. We drove away, and we didn't speak to them anymore. He died very shortly after that.

[Charles Newton's wife recounts speaking with this German's wife. The German woman told the story as a youngster when she overheard a train engineer involved in driving trains filled with Jews to the concentration camps.]

He didn't tell them what it was. He said, "I saw something terrible," but he didn't say what it was. This German here, when he heard that this rabbi accused the average German to have helped Hitler, he wanted to protest. We had nothing to do with that. He thought that my wife was prodding him. That was his bad conscience that worked. That is just an example of how Germans are. On the one hand, he was so friendly and kind, and then when we confronted him with a fact that had actually nothing to do with him—it was not the intention of my wife to reproach him, it was just in part of the general conversation—he took it personally.