Remembrances of a visit to Dachau & Israel
By Judge Steve Walker
Back in 1971 while stationed in Augsburg, Germany and again in 1972 when I was released from active duty from the Army in Germany, I took advantage of being overseas to travel and visit various historical places for the next five months.
While still on active duty in 1971, I visited Dachau with some of my Army buddies on a weekend pass. Four of us crammed into a Volkswagen and headed for the concentration camp not knowing what to expect or how to react.
On the trip my buddies teased me since my father was Jewish, although my mother was a Catholic and raised me as such. Although I don’t believe at the time they meant to be cruel, one of them joked that “when we get there we will throw you in the ovens.” For the year we served together up to that time, they referred to me by a nickname, the “Dachau Dough Boy,” a take off of the Pillsbury Dough Boy commercials about biscuits cooking in the oven at the time. Obviously today those comments would be considered very hurtful and extremely offensive and insensitive. We were young and didn’t know any better.
On arrival at the camp, it became a whole different story. As we walked into the camp, to take the tour, we noticed before entering the gate, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping and we expected it to be a typical museum type tour. Once we entered the gates, it suddenly felt cold, deathly quiet and depressing. No chirping birds could be heard. It was as if we had entered another universe.
As we walked around the camp with a guide who had actually spent time incarcerated at the camp, it became apparent the tour would be a life changing experience.. Everyone spoke in hushed tones and acted very respectful about what happened in that camp those many years ago. The guide even showed his tattooed number on his arm. I cringe even now just thinking about.
Never again was I called the “Dachau Dough Boy” and the term was never mentioned in reference to me again. One of my fellow soldiers, Ralph Volweiler, a full-blooded Jew declined to go with us because he had relatives who died in that concentration camp.
My cousin, Sophia who I met in Israel the following summer in Haifa, also survived another concentration camp as a 12 year old girl for over a year. The experience of meeting her and hearing some of her story was gut wrenching and is emblazoned in my mind to this day. I will never forget.
At the time I wrote my mother (June 16th) about the experience that touched my very soul. My mother kept all my letters and I still have that one in my possession she gave me before she died in 2002.
It read in part, “Went to Dachau Saturday to see where they extreminate a lot of Jews. It was a depressing place let me tell you. You could still smell fumes in the gas chambers. The incinerators were eerie too. It was so quiet there and they had pictures of pictures piled up and all sorts of ghastly things. Many visitors were crying.
“It was an experience to be sure. I could almost feel death around me. I must visit Auschwitz, the main camp where they killed 4,000,000 Jews.”
The following year after separating from the Army, I backpacked for five months across the European continent and eventually made my way to Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for three weeks. I found my cousin, Sophia in Tel Aviv where she and her husband, Chaim, and two teenage daughters, lived. She showed me letters from my grandfather Robert Ginsberg and we were able to connect for the first time.
I also spent a week in Haifa and stayed on Kibbutz Yagur working the fields like a migrant worker. On my way home to the United States I travelled back to Germany for the 72 Olympics in Munich.
Unfortunately history records that the Israeli athletes were killed at the games, on September 5th, now known as ‘Black September” and my 26th birthday that the terrorists attacked.
Both the visit to Dachau and the Olympics are etched in my memory as two days that will live forever in my heart and remind me, lest I forget, of my Jewish heritage.
Justice of the Peace, Pct. 2 Steve Walker is a former journalist and Viet Nam Veteran.
By Judge Steve Walker
Back in 1971 while stationed in Augsburg, Germany and again in 1972 when I was released from active duty from the Army in Germany, I took advantage of being overseas to travel and visit various historical places for the next five months.
While still on active duty in 1971, I visited Dachau with some of my Army buddies on a weekend pass. Four of us crammed into a Volkswagen and headed for the concentration camp not knowing what to expect or how to react.
On the trip my buddies teased me since my father was Jewish, although my mother was a Catholic and raised me as such. Although I don’t believe at the time they meant to be cruel, one of them joked that “when we get there we will throw you in the ovens.” For the year we served together up to that time, they referred to me by a nickname, the “Dachau Dough Boy,” a take off of the Pillsbury Dough Boy commercials about biscuits cooking in the oven at the time. Obviously today those comments would be considered very hurtful and extremely offensive and insensitive. We were young and didn’t know any better.
On arrival at the camp, it became a whole different story. As we walked into the camp, to take the tour, we noticed before entering the gate, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping and we expected it to be a typical museum type tour. Once we entered the gates, it suddenly felt cold, deathly quiet and depressing. No chirping birds could be heard. It was as if we had entered another universe.
As we walked around the camp with a guide who had actually spent time incarcerated at the camp, it became apparent the tour would be a life changing experience.. Everyone spoke in hushed tones and acted very respectful about what happened in that camp those many years ago. The guide even showed his tattooed number on his arm. I cringe even now just thinking about.
Never again was I called the “Dachau Dough Boy” and the term was never mentioned in reference to me again. One of my fellow soldiers, Ralph Volweiler, a full-blooded Jew declined to go with us because he had relatives who died in that concentration camp.
My cousin, Sophia who I met in Israel the following summer in Haifa, also survived another concentration camp as a 12 year old girl for over a year. The experience of meeting her and hearing some of her story was gut wrenching and is emblazoned in my mind to this day. I will never forget.
At the time I wrote my mother (June 16th) about the experience that touched my very soul. My mother kept all my letters and I still have that one in my possession she gave me before she died in 2002.
It read in part, “Went to Dachau Saturday to see where they extreminate a lot of Jews. It was a depressing place let me tell you. You could still smell fumes in the gas chambers. The incinerators were eerie too. It was so quiet there and they had pictures of pictures piled up and all sorts of ghastly things. Many visitors were crying.
“It was an experience to be sure. I could almost feel death around me. I must visit Auschwitz, the main camp where they killed 4,000,000 Jews.”
The following year after separating from the Army, I backpacked for five months across the European continent and eventually made my way to Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for three weeks. I found my cousin, Sophia in Tel Aviv where she and her husband, Chaim, and two teenage daughters, lived. She showed me letters from my grandfather Robert Ginsberg and we were able to connect for the first time.
I also spent a week in Haifa and stayed on Kibbutz Yagur working the fields like a migrant worker. On my way home to the United States I travelled back to Germany for the 72 Olympics in Munich.
Unfortunately history records that the Israeli athletes were killed at the games, on September 5th, now known as ‘Black September” and my 26th birthday that the terrorists attacked.
Both the visit to Dachau and the Olympics are etched in my memory as two days that will live forever in my heart and remind me, lest I forget, of my Jewish heritage.
Justice of the Peace, Pct. 2 Steve Walker is a former journalist and Viet Nam Veteran.
Really Good Post!!
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