My Visit to a Concentration Camp

While touring the newly liberated Ohrdruf camp, General Dwight Eisenhower and other high ranking U.S. Army officers view the bodies of prisoners who were killed during the evacuation of Ohrdruf. Ohrdruf, Germany, April 12, 1945.
— National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10006184&MediaId=3934

On Veteran's Day, at our Golden Age Center where I eat lunch, my friends and I were invited to relate some of our military experiences. I had the idea of relating my experience of visiting Camp Ohrdruf, a concentration camp in Germany. Another fellow took too much time at the microphone, so I wasn't able to share this story. But while it was on my mind, I decided to post about it here so my blog readers could also read of my experience.

The date was April 1945. General Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower visited this concentration camp at Ohdruf, Germany the day before I was there. His visit with General Bradley was photographed and the picture was published in the US News and World Report magazine, probably sometime in the 1960s. I had that page from the magazine once. It was said that Gen. Eisenhower issued all military units in within driving distance at the time. His orders were for the individual unit commanders to SEND all of the personnel down to Ohrdruf, Germany over a week's time. Our company, (3463rd Ordnance Medium Maintenance Co, THIRD ARMY) took probably three truck loads of people each day. Some of our guys were there the day before when Gen. Ike was there in person.

It was said that the civilian population near the camp acted like they did not know what was going on out at the Nazi Camp, when a lot of town civilians were EMPLOYED there. When I was there the second day, they had probably 20 town civilians out there digging individual graves on a rocky ground hill, on the west side of the camp. The Camp was sort of hidden by a tree line on the south side along the road that went by there. The camp was probably a half mile away from the road. It was tree lined also.

They had a steam house where they cooked the flesh of some dead people and the human bones were stacked probably 15 feet high in a pile 30 or more feet across. Also they had dug a pit with bull dozers probably a half block long, and probably 15 feet deep and about 20 or 30 feet wide. The bottom, as we saw it, was ALL COVERED, end to end, with dead bodies. You could see their rib bones, they had been so starved. The bodies were all covered with white powdered lime to expedite decomposition. How they got them to cover the whole bottom in the center of that pit, we could not figure out. Some said they would line them at the edge of the pit and machine gun them down to fall into the pit. Somehow they had to spread that white powdered lime also. ????

I talked to one prisoner at the camp. It later became the talk of our company area, as he was Polish and his skin was all white and his rib bones stuck out like he was starved. He was in a top bunk bed. He told me he was age early 20s as I recall. My conversation was brief as he was too weak to talk much. He told me he was from Poland.

The Camp had a formation every morning and picked SOMEONE to be hanged in front of the gathering. It was just a few feet north of the office back door. The frame with rope was still there. Their toilet was like our dairy barns: cement floor with a concrete ditch for people to squat over and relieve themselves. It stunk. There was still poop in part of it when we were there. It seemed they hosed it down every so often into a reservoir or such at the end of the building.

We got to go inside of the gas chamber where they gassed to death a bunch at a time. It was the same building that had that steam unit to cook the people at the north end.

As we unloaded from our trucks, probably right after 12 noon, about 15 feet from the office back door, lay a dead man who had been stabbed multiple times and blood not yet dried. He was dressed in dark clothes with a suit size coat. The story was that the military officers told them to leave him lay there the rest of the afternoon so all the incoming soldiers would see him where he fell. It was told that he was one of the townspeople that came out to tour the camp, as Gen Eisenhower directed the military to BRING ALL OF THE CIVILIANS of the town of Ohrdruf out there to tour the camp. This was the second day of liberation, so there were many being escorted through the camp. Well the story was that this fell and was one of the GUARDS on duty there at the camp. He might have been a Nazi soldier or civilian that worked there as a guard. Anyway, some of the prisoners still there recognized him, hit him over the head with a three legged stool, to knock him down, and the one of our soldiers gave them a knife and they took turns to stab him like a pin cushion. It had happened just a few hours before we got there.

I don't know how long this touring of the camp went on, but Ike said probably someday the world would saythat the Holocaust was a myth, so he wanted as many GIs as possible to see it in person. It was pretty gruesome, enough that I had to take a little time-out interruption here while writing this, as it HIT ME, to cry out loud. It is still all so real. To realize that these were real live people and that another human being could be that heartless.

You know we read later on that they had doctors there that used prisoners as guinea pigs for medical experiments-testing medicines or surgery procedures. It was all very inhumane.

This Ordruff Camp was even much smaller than Buchanwald and others we read about today.

You know the Nazi's build their Autobahn super highway with slave labor, so I don't know how these prisoners were used. I did not get to talk too much with that guy in bed, as he seemed to be a corpse with a voice. The guys in our company knew that I could talk German, so when someone found a live person, they came and got me to see if I could talk to him. The building was a one level barracks with bunk beds. He happened to be the only guy in there at the time. Probably the Army transported them to hospitals, etc, as they could. Perhaps the Army had already evacuated the ones who could still walk, etc, and would get this one later with a stretcher, if he lived that long. I don't know who fed him, etc. There were a lot of people there that day walking around to see it all. The civilians from town were using pickaxes to dig those graves as the ground was very rocky. A bunch of us GIs stood around watching them. They worked up a sweat. Apparently some of our Army people had set out where to dig the graves as they were in rows.

After I wrote this story, I found a wealth of information about this Liberation of Camp Ohrdruf at ushmm.org, the web site of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Dust Bowl Days

A friend emailed me some photos that were reminiscent of the 1930s. These thoughts came to me as I looked at those old photos she sent. In 1935 I was in the eighth grade and it was not uncommon to see dust drifts five foot high, barbed wire fence rows with a few thistles against them. The dust would pack in so that you could walk OVER the top of the fence. Horse drawn farm machinery would catch the dust and they were buried in the dust. Mom would sew girls dresses from FLOUR SACKS that came with patterned material. She also would sew the boys chambre (blue) shirts. Farm kids did not wear shoes during the summer for everyday, we all went barefoot. A daily routine was kids HAD TO wash their feet each evening before they went to bed. During the winter we had three pairs of shoes: one for chores, one for school and one for church on Sunday. The Sunday shoes never wore out, we OUTGREW them. Or they were passed down to younger family members.

Jobs were few, and during 1931 to 1933, there were times when our family was HOMELESS. We got permission to live in some friends's old hayloft of their barn. Improvised pot bellied stove with a flue thru the roof and old carpets or blankets stretched on two wires enclosed a corner with a kerosene two-burner cook stove. There were no beds -- we all slept on the floor. Dad and Mom, two boys ages 10 gnd 8 --I was the 10 yr old, and we also had twins, a boy and Girl born in 1929, so they were three years old. There were no stairs in the barn to the hayloft, it was just straight vertical step boards nailed to the side. Our toilet was just the night bucket with a lid.

The farmer let Dad work farming chores and they brought us groceries for wages. At age 8, I helped hand milk cows and we got our milk for that. Potatoes were a staple, as the farmer raised potatoes commercially. In those days people would eat the culls, as the spuds were sorted when sold. Culls were held back and used for hog feed. Instead of a granary for storage, potatoes were stored in a earthen cave. You had to watch for salamanders (similar to a lizard), snakes, rats and mice in those potato piles. B-u-t we survived.

This condition was a two year period when the bank foreclosed and repossessed our Trego County Kansas Farm and we became migrant workers in Colorado. Also during that two year period 1931/1933, my brother Alfred then age 9, died of an enlarged heart, St Vitas Dance, and pneumonia. Since we were poor with limited medical attention, the County performed the funeral and burial.

The period 1929 through 1934 was considered the DEPRESSION that followed with the DUST STORMS. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the USA President. He declared a two day National Bank Holiday when NO BANKS were open. The Government declared NRA (National Recovery Act), which included the government coming to your farm to kill a lot of your live hogs, as there was a national oversupply and no profit in raising hogs. The killed off some of the hog population to stabilize the hog market. It was common for communities to have collection points where people donated used clothing and shoes so us poor people could go obtain them at no cost. Welfare would bring us free groceries. The government made jobs for people called WPA (Works Progress Administration). The football stadium at Hoisington Kansas High School was of native stone built by the WPA. Also WPA cleared dead wood etc, along the banks of Wet Walnut Creek in Barton County Kansas. One time my Dad acquired a bad case of Poison Ivy and Poison Oak, working along the creek bank for the WPA. In Colorado WPA Labor created irrigation ditches for the farmers. In 1938 to 1942 the Government started the Civilian Conservation Corps for young boys. I served in such a Soil Conservation Service Camp in Nemaha County KS. We were civilian but the camps were run by the Army with Army Officers, Barracks, Kitchens etc. and the Dept of Agriculture provided the jobs known as SCS Service with area farmers to develop terraces, sodded waterways, water spring spillways.. This provided $18. 00 a month for kids ages 16 to 21. Like the Army, our workers had rank, such as pfc, corporal, Sgt, except we were called Assistant Leaders and got paid $36 monthly and Leaders got paid $45 month. The money was mailed to your parents as welfare income and the boys got a stipend for misc expenditures. The boys also learned a trade. Some became Stone Masons, Brick Layers, Caterpillar (Heavy Equipment) operators, land surveyors. I became a bookkeeper and gained the rank of Leader as Office Manager @ $45 a month during June 1940 to June 1942. Our camp had teachers come to our camp from Kansas State University (Manhattan, KS) to teach classes. That is how I became an Accountant. CCC Camps were all over the United States. Kansas had several, some planted Shelter Belt trees. Others that I knew were Forest Fire Fighters in Idaho who learned the Forest Ranger trade.

As World War 2 started at that time, CCC was faded out. Working in the SCS office, I had conversations with the office of the President in Washington DC. My contact was Steven Earle, who worked under President Roosevelt. The nature of our calls was the process of downsizing CCC Camps. Camp #1797 County of Nemaha, city of Seneca, Kansas was slated for closure. I handled calls to and from Washington in processing the closing of #1797. I was age 20 and 21. I think I got my rank as I was a high school graduate and many were not. We even had kids from Kansas State Industrial Reformatory (KSIR) in Hutchinson, Kansas, to rehabilitate them.

My View on My Accounting Career

I sent this article to a friend today in response to an email I got from her regarding her college accounting class. I typically copy my "reminiscing" emails to my daughter Becky so she can post them here on my blog for me. I tend to ramble as I write, so she "cleans them up for me" before publishing them for you to read. (Thanks, Becky!)

I was a bookkeeper all my life. Of course nowadays they call it accounting, but I still prefer the old terminology. You mentioned General Journals, which prompts me to review what you probably already know. Before all this computer bookkeeping, I learned from what they called "double entry bookkeeping". Basically we had a DISBURSEMENT JOURNAL , where you post all accounts payable stuff. Then we had A CASH RECEIPTS JOURNAL where we entered all cash received, then we had a GENERAL JOURNAL, where you make adjustments, as well as worksheets or spreadsheets of accruals, cost of goods sold schedule, and all sorts of period entries. Then of course all three or four sources were posted to the GENERAL LEDGER from which you transcribe the Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statement (P&L). It got to be fun when you went on a 13 four-week accounting period for the year and you had oodles of amortizations. Of course you have side schedules like machinery, property -- cars trucks, etc, and their depreciation schedules, etc, with CONTRA accounts and all the window dressing and fun stufff.

That Cost of Goods sold was always my headache . HAD SOME, GOT MORE, HAVE SOME LEFT, the rest THAT DISAPPEARED WAS COST OF GOODS SOLD. Since we were in manufacturing (meat packing) we had Materials & Supplies, Raw Material, Work In Progress, Finished Goods, and that was broken down, so we had Livestock, Beef, Pork, Smoked Meats, Sausage & Luncheon Meats, Lard, Inedible By-products, bone meal, and each of those had all those Work in Progress, Finished Goods etc. Then we added Cost Accounting. Whew, that was some fun too, with allocation of overhead, fixed expense, variable expense. We had to take into consideration the cost of Labor, Power, Refrigeration, etc etc, for each item.

You can imagine how much learning I had to do, for I did not take any schooling in accounting--only high school bookkeeping. I first had to learn the concept of DEBIT AND CREDIT, like Assets are something we own, good stuff, but then Liabilities were the stuff you OWED SOMEBODY ELSE. I wondered why OWNER EQUITY AND SURPLUS were liabilities. When the boss owned, why was it a LIABILITY?? Well, it all goes back to this: the set of books are like a slave and the balance sheet is a mirror or slate of what that slave owes back to the owner. The Balance Sheet is just a score sheet of what that slave owes back to the owner. I really enjoyed how it all fell into place. Especially when we got into that 13 four-week accounting periods per year, and all the accruals, and contra accounts, by department!

They used to say, Meat Packing or Manufacturing was like OIL--you start with a raw product and zooomm, it splits into all sorts of new products. You start with a cow or pig, then you have all sorts of things: inedible by products, finished goods, hams, bacon, lard, etc etc. I got a good education in accounting through the help from our auditors who taught me all this puzzle. I tell you, the fun part was ALLOCATION OF FIXED EXPENSE. Some you get by square feet of processing space, some you get by cubic feet of refrigeration, some you get by number of employee man hours. All more fun fun fun. I found it to be really all quite simple and it all makes common sense.

After I retired, I was bored. Actually I did not retire, (after 54 years in the same job). It was called "downsizing", meaning my job was turned over to a telephone line from a computer from our plant in "Great Bend Kansas to the corporate office in Cincinnati, Ohio. They told me I was eligble for "retraining" so the government sent me back to school to study accounting. Ha Ha! What a joke! But as I wrote in a previous post, at age 76 I went to college and made a 3.4 grade average on about five subjects that I took. I had not gone to college in my younger days. After WW 2 I enrolled in college on the GI Bill for service men to study agronomy (to study soils). But it was Oct 1945 so the school told me to come back in January, 1946 to enroll for the September, 1946 term. So I went back to working as a meat packing plant office clerk and stayed 54 years. No college! I went from file clerk to Controller and Corporate Secretary. I let the computers print our Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Satements. I still audited them! You know computers: "garbage in, garbage out"!

That is another story. Ha ha. I enjoyed accounting. I found it to be nothing more than common sense. You own some, you get more, you pass some out (sell or use up) and you have some left (profit). To me it was that simple.

My College Days at Age 76

College can be a bit stressful and it takes some dedication to keep up. Learning can be a task that requires setting goals and achievement. I have always thought Learning was quite a science. In my Army days (1942/1945) I served as S-3 Sgt for a time and that required preparing lesson plans and teaching recruits, so I learned to RESPECT the LEARNING PROCESS. It included the Utarie (sic) Window. The definition being in the learning process, involved Factor A: What I already know, and Factor B: the information being taught to me. Imagine two concentric circles, A and B. The amount of input information I hear being taught, that I can RELATE to something I already know, is the most absorbed by my learning process. Thus, it requires REPETITION. In other words, imagine the two circles OVER-LAPPING with increased knowledge.

My career job was as an accountant for 54 years for a meat packing company. It was a "hands-on" learning process with our auditors being my tutors. I worked my way up from file clerk to Corporate Controller. Product Cost Accounting was really fascinating. With Fixed and Variable Costs. Talk about something being METHODICAL, it was a prime example. After 54 years working at the same plant, under three different merging owners, my retirement came as a result of downsizing by our Corporate office. In 1989 our Government passed a law that afforded RE-TRAINING benefits for DOWNSIZED Job terminations. Since I had never atttended College, the Government paid me $110 a week and paid my costs (books included) to attend college for re-training. The stipulation was that I must work at least 90 days in a job after my schooling. Which I did when I became an accountant with a cattle feed yard company.

Among the subjects I took in college were English, vocabulary and reading improvement, which included Computer Lab with exercises in comprehension, observation, retention, etal., to show you how scientific LEARNING has become with the use of computers. With those LAB exercises, we were scored, and we did them over and over until our score was 85% or better before we went on to the next exercise. Classroom schedules were Forenoon, and we had all afternoon to work on our LAB exercises. Thus, Ernie put in some HOURS, attaining my 85% or better scores. We also had three to five hours of home work, and a lot of reading. I was age 76 at the time (I'm now 88) and I'm proud of myself for going to college!

Reminiscing About the Radio Days

A pen-pal of mine, Janet McBride, suggested that I might throw a lasso of memories your way concerning the heyday of Hillbilly Music. I am 88 years old and was a "wanna be" part of that era in the 1930s and 1940s. I was raised in central Kansas so I was in the heart of some of the action.

Iowa was ruled by Jerry Smith of radio stations KMA and KFNF in Shenandoah and later WHO in Des Moines. It was Jerry who sold me my first mail order guitar for $8.75. Then of course, the power house was BORDER RADIO. I was determined to leave a mark in that realm of music by taking the handle of "THE SUNFLOWER WRANGLER". My idols were Wilf Carter (Montana Slim), Nolan Rinehart (Cowboy Slim), Dallas Turner (Nevada Slim), and of course Al Clauser (Oklahoma Outlaws), Tex Owens of The Texas Rangers of KMBC in Kansas City, Missouri, Texas Ruby, Curly Fox, Hank Thompson in Waco, Texas (when he was just home from the Navy), the WIBW Dinner Bell gang, Red Foley, Ozark Jubilee; the list goes on.

My short contribution was on our Great Bend, Kansas station KVGB, with Harry Wright of the Texas Border days. Our exposure came through Medicine Shows, Grand Opening appearances and I was a brief member of Cal and Alta Lee Shrum's band, as they toured with their B-Western Movies presenting an 'IN PERSON stage show' following the movie.

In Iowa radio they had Robert Taylor and Ronald Reagan at the time. Did you ever hear Ron Reagan give the chatter of a baseball game? When they had "technical problems", as they called them when transmission was interrupted, Ronald filled the space with a continuation of his rapid sports announcer/auctioneer chatter, with his explanation of the happenings on the baseball field. His commentary was stuff he just made up.

Yes sir, that was an era that shaped Country Music: LIVE Radio. My part was the early 6:30 AM Farm Hour with wired-in Commodity and Livestock Market updates out of Kansas City.

Much of live radio suffered when Mutual Broadcasting and network affiliations started to rule the roost. Also an exciting experience at the time was when ASCAP enforced their license fee, and BMI came on the scene without a license fee. Radio Stations were flooded with COMP BMI music. I am thrilled that I have this blog where I can commemorate and renew memories of that era. My thanks to Janet McBride for reminding me to write this so we can also share it with her friend Dave Sichak.

A Surprise Visit From My Niece

I was quite surprised last Saturday evening when my doorbell rang and in walked Stephanie, my niece from Kansas. Stephanie's grandmother was the half-sister of my wife Phyllis, so even thought she's technically a "grand-niece" I still think of Stephanie as my niece. It's been maybe 20 years since I've seen her and had not met her husband or son. They were visiting Canon City to go river rafting and when their day of fun ended, they stopped in for a visit.

It was so good to see them and get caught up on all the family news. Thank you, Stephanie and Todd for taking time to say "HI" to Uncle Ernie!

Enjoying My Birthday Dinner With My Grandson

I had such a good time Thursday evening when I went to dinner with my daughter Becky and her husband Jamie because my grandson Matt and his beautiful wife Lucja were able to join us. This was a small family gathering to celebrate the birthday I had last Saturday when I turned 88 years old. I was really happy to be able to STAND for this picture outside DiRito's Restaurant in Canon City, CO. I've been walking with the help of a walker for several weeks now. In fact, Becky packed the wheelchair away for storage today. She also cleaned off my treadmill and cleaned up my office so I can start using my treadmill as my physical therapist has recommended.

I celebrated my 87th birthday last year in a hospital bed with my leg in a cast and diabetic ulcers on my foot. I'm healed and healthy now and can tell already that my 88th year is going to be a much better year. It was wonderful to start it off with an Italian dinner with my super family. I feel so lucky that my only grandson and his wife live so close to me that we can get together for special times like this!