Halifax WWII veteran recalls 'awful' scene inside Dachau

The Enterprise of Brockton, Mass.
www.enterprisenews.com
By Kyle Alspach
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
There are many things Roy MacDonald of Halifax has tried to forget about his military experience during World War II.

At the top of the list is Dachau.

As a member of the Army's 42nd Infantry Division, he took part in liberating the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, on April 29, 1945.

After entering the camp, MacDonald saw dead bodies "everywhere." Some had apparently been doused with gas and set on fire not long before the U.S. troops arrived.

Later, MacDonald and another soldier were ordered to stand guard outside a laboratory where experiments on humans had been conducted.

The lab was filled with jugs containing body parts, MacDonald recalled.

"It's an awful thing," he said, "to see what human beings can do to human beings."

MacDonald, 82, spoke about Dachau from his Halifax home last week, his memories triggered by news that a movie directed by Martin Scorsese will depict the liberation of the camp. The Dachau scenes were filmed over the past two weeks at an old mill complex in Taunton.

MacDonald was a private in the 42nd Infantry Division, also known as the 42nd "Rainbow" division, which is credited by Army historians as one of the liberators of Dachau. He had been drafted at age 18 during his senior year at Abington High School.

MacDonald showed photos of himself with his squad and a map of the division's route through France, Germany and Austria.

He showed the Bronze Star he received for meritorious achievement in the war.

The scariest part, he said, was fighting on the front lines, which he did for months.

But Dachau "was the hardest to deal with" after combat was over. What he saw, and smelled, was death.

"In the movies you see all this horrible stuff going on, but you really don't get the smell," he said. "That's something you don't forget — the smell."

At the real Dachau, he saw a train of freight cars inside the camp packed with people, alive and dead. MacDonald said he helped open the cars to rescue the survivors.

There were no German soldiers in sight inside the camp, he said, adding he never witnessed the alleged execution of German soldiers by U.S. troops that is expected to be a scene in the movie.

Dachau was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis, and held both political prisoners and Jews. There were 32,000 prisoners at the camp when it was liberated.

At least 28,000 people died there from 1940 to 1945, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

After returning home from the war, MacDonald spent three decades working at the veterans hospital in Brockton, trying to help men like himself who were scarred by the war.

He said he has rarely talked to anyone about Dachau.

"I never looked at it as being proud," he said, of his role in helping liberate the camp.

"It's an awful thing. That's all I remember."

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