Dachau

Allied Bombing

"Please bomb. Bomb us... together with our tormentors!"

"We came to Dachau on October 23rd, 1944. So you know that historically the war was well advanced, okay? At no time, during the whole time, of all the camps we were in, were we ever bombed... But we felt the fact that they didn’t bomb where we were, they didn’t bomb our tormentors, was a sign we were totally abandoned. Nobody cared who we were... We came to Dachau in cattle cars for three days without any food. When they unloaded us, they lined us up in the square, and they had kettles of potatoes and jackets and cabbage. And we could smell the potatoes and the cabbage... People were supposed to get a few potatoes and a leaf of cabbage. While we were lined up, the air alarm sounded. And they chased us to special trenches dug for this particular purpose. And we sat in the trenches while the planes flew over us. And we begged them, 'Please bomb. Bomb us... together with our tormentors!' ‘Cause we didn’t ever think we were gonna survive by that time. This was five years of war already in 1944. We just-. The only chance we had is to choose how we’re gonna die. But we knew we gonna, not gonna survive. And we begged them, 'Please bomb, please bomb.' And they flew over and they bombed the industrial complex a couple miles away from the camp... While they were flying over, people, they were so hungry, they could smell the food. They couldn’t control their hunger. They ran out from the trenches towards the kettles. And the SS in the watchtowers machine-gunned. The square was full of dead and injured bodies laying there. And then eventually they called us out and they lined us up. And the food was cold and bitter-tasting. The sight of our comrades laying there in the square did not help. It was one of the most depressing and disappointing scenes I remember."

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