Don Greenbaum, a Bala Cynwyd veteran, was among the United States troops that liberated Dachau concentration camp 75 years ago, writes Hadas Kuznits for the KYW Newsradio.

Greenbaum, who was 20 at the time, and his unit thought they were attacking a German supply depo when they approached Dachau.

But when they reached the gated area, the soldiers were hit with a tremendous odor.

“Men got violently ill; we were vomiting all over the place,” recalled Greenbaum.

That is when they realized they were walking into a death camp. They saw piled up bodies in abandoned boxcars which were sent to Dachau, the oldest and longest running concentration camp, to be burned.

Then they noticed men in “striped-type pajamas, weighing about 80, 85 pounds.”

“We didn’t know who they were,” he said. “They didn’t know who we were.”

Luckily, one of the soldiers knew enough Yiddish to tell the prisoners they were American soldiers there to liberate them.

Greenbaum never forgot what he saw at Dachau.

“The machine-gun pits, the crematoriums, all the clothing lined up in a pile, piles of skeletons, bones – just horrible,” he said. “I grew up really fast.”

Read more about Don Greenbaum at the KYW Newsradio by clicking here.

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