Buchenwald

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“My father actually came back three weeks later, I happened to open the door and I didn’t recognize him at first. His hair had turned white, he had lost thirty pounds in three weeks. He had been subject to unspeakable abuse. Yes, he was taken first to an assembly place in Frankfurt, and from there to Buchenwald concentration camp, which is at Weimar in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps.”

"He said “I have to talk,” and I thought he talk for half an hour. He talked all night. A terrible story of abuse: physical, mental, personal abuse in this concentration camp. For example, I’ll just give you one example, he—they had to stand in formation every morning at 5:00 and it was in that part of Germany, especially in December, was twenty below zero. They stood—had to stand formation naked, without clothes on, and the Nazi guards made fun of them and took away all their personal dignity and abused them right there while they were standing there in formation. And then one day while he was standing in formation, they called him out because they found in his wallet a document that showed that he had been awarding the honor cross for front soldier in World War One, and it was awarded by the Führer and chancellor, which happened to be Adolf Hitler, under a rule passed after the war, after he came to power.”