Buchenwald liberator, American hero dies at 83

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CNN

James Hoyt delivered mail in rural Iowa for more than 30 years. Yet Hoyt had long kept a secret from those who knew him best: He was one of the four U.S. soldiers to first see Germany's Buchenwald concentration camp.

Hoyt died Monday at his home in Oxford, Iowa, a town of about 600 people where he had lived his entire life. He was 83.

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Hoyt had rarely spoken about that day in 1945, but he recently opened up to a journalist.

"There were thousands of bodies piled high. I saw hearts that had been taken from live people in medical experiments," Hoyt told author Stephen Bloom in a soon-to-be-published book called "The Oxford Project."

"They said a wife of one of the SS officers -- they called her the Bitch of Buchenwald -- saw a tattoo she liked on the arm of a prisoner, and had the skin made into a lampshade. I saw that."

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As a private first class in the U.S. Army, Hoyt was just 19 when he and his three comrades -- Capt. Frederic Keffer, Tech. Sgt. Herbert Gottschalk and Sgt. Harry Ward -- found Buchenwald in a well-hidden wooded area of eastern Germany.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/buchenwald.liberator/index.html

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RIP PFC James Hoyt. Thank you. :patriot:

[sabra]

1. "zichrono livracha"

Hebrew: Of Blessed Memory

[Jack Rabbit]

2. A heroic act can be as simple as opening a gate

[newscott]

3. I can't begin to imagine the horrors he witnessed

Bless you for being there. Find peace now soldier.

[ailsagirl]

4. Thanks for posting this-- very poignant and uplifting both

[Truth4Justice]

6. Nor I. nt

[Truth4Justice]

5. 1000 WW II Vets dying each day. Not many left now. RIP Mr. Hoyt.

[byronius]

7. This was a great post.

[byronius]

8. Do you know the Eisenhower story?

Eisenhower toured the recently-liberated camp at Gotha in 1945. His aides, other officers, and the press quit, one by one; the sights and smells were overwhelming. Eisenhower walked alone through barrack after barrack of emaciated, ill prisoners. He examined the execution facilities. He walked around the mass graves.

When he returned, he told an aide privately that he intended to murder the entire German General Staff.

The remark was never repeated, but Eisenhower formally requested that the Wehrmacht General Staff be considered guilty of crimes against humanity and summarily executed on apprehension. He continued to push for this request with every considerable resource at his disposal; Allied High Command demurred. Eisenhower continued to press the issue privately throughout his Presidency.

Apparently the one and only time iin his life that the Grocer ever revealed a murderous bone in his body was over a visit to a German concentration camp.


(I went to Dachau as a kid, and stuck my head in one of the blackened ovens. It truly altered me as a human being.)

[RamboLiberal]

9. No I did not know that story of Eisenhower

Thank you for posting. Was it Eisenhower who ordered that the German civilians in towns near the camps had to be brought through the camps to witness what had happened so they could never profess ignorance?

[roguevalley]

10. yes, and he also made them bury the dead.

There will be a lot of people greeting this man when he crosses over. there is joy in heaven tonight. A righteous gentile. we need a few more.

[onager]

19. "Fifty years from now, someone will try to say this never happened."--Ike

That was Eisenhower's comment when he ordered film crews into the concentration camps and told them to document everything they saw.

Of course, idiots DID say it never happened, and the last shots of WWII had barely faded away when they started. One of the first Holocaust deniers was an American Catholic priest, Denis Fahey. He got a lot of support from the Rush Limbaugh of his day, the famous "radio priest" Father Charles Coughlin.

There is also movie footage of the toughest old bastard in the US Army, Gen. George S. Patton, visiting a concentration camp and breaking down in tears.

Patton also ordered German civilians to walk thru the camps.

According to one story, the mayor of one town tried to refuse and said that, as civilians, they never had a choice.

Patton told him he certainly had a choice now: he could walk thru that camp or be shot.

[AnneD]

11. Simple farm boys from all over rural America....

and they managed to save the entire world. It was our finest hour. They truly were the greatest generation. I am sure many people were there to help him over.

[David__77]

12. We must always remember fascism.

Fascism - the logical end result of exploitation - has killed millions. May it be prevented in the future.

[Patchuli]

17. Fascists won't let us forget

as they perpetrate it on us today, August 14, 2008 in the form of our government...the Greatest Generation did their best but it's come back.

[Ken Burch]

13. I hope he's recognized as one of the "righteous of the nations" at Yad Vashem

n/t.

[hedgehog]

14. A couple of years ago I was going through some old drawing files

and realized that I was looking at a heat treating furnace built at a US steel plant during the war. It was strange to realize that while people here were building furnaces to make the steel to fight Hitler, over there they were building ovens.

[rasputin1952]

15. RIP PFC Hoyt...

:patriot:

[Behind the Aegis]

16. RIP.

A true hero has left the stage.

[kestrel91316]

18. Was he one of the soldiers depicted in Band of Brothers who found the camp?

Easy Company, 101st Airborne, I think......