VE Day: "it doesn't mean any great emotional satisfaction or triumph.. rather a sort of bitter satisfaction to go through the streets in the center of Germany on this day and just look at the German people and have them know you are there and that you (you being any allied soldier, including the lowliest private) that you are their Lord and Master of this year and hour." Drank 14 toasts to the victor last night; strafed today by a German plane as a last gesture: "Guess those Heinies, the last desperate loyal Nazis, are bound to get in their last bullets, and no doubt some of them would as soon die a soldier's death." Hard to love thy enemies when they are shooting at you. Will visit one of the notorious concentration camps nearby soon; had dinner with a lieutenant who helped clean it up: "He has collections of human skin from various lamp shades which are being kept for investigation." Hears a film of the camps has been banned in the US: "I hope that all the more gruesome pictures of this war will be paraded before the civilians in all the theaters of the land. It is an education in itself, the sort of basic education which evaluates war without sermonizing." Lewd and sadistic, anti-Semitic artwork in the house where he billets. Russians robbing people at the edge of town; Germans are scared to death of the Russians, "and I think with reason."
Requests to publish, redistribute, or replicate this material should be addressed to Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries.
Contact host institution for more information.