Buchenwald liberator, American hero dies at 83

Discussion in 'The Holocaust' started by SSGMike.Ivy, Aug 15, 2008.

  1. SSGMike.Ivy

    SSGMike.Ivy Senior Member

    (CNN) -- James Hoyt delivered mail in rural Iowa for more than 30 years. Yet Hoyt had long kept a secret from most of 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 700 people where he had lived his entire life. He was 83.
    His funeral was Thursday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Oxford, with about 100 people in attendance. The Rev. Edmond Dunn officiated and recalled time he spent with Hoyt and his wife.
    "I used to go over to have lunch with Doris and Jim, and I would sit across from Jim at the kitchen table and think, 'Before me is a true American hero,' " he said.
    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."

    continued Buchenwald liberator, American hero dies at 83 - CNN.com
     
  2. Gage

    Gage The Battle of Barking Creek

    God Bless.
    Thanks for the info, Mike.
     

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