Some Stories Need To Be Told

My Granddaddy was the greatest influence on my life. He still is, despite having gone to Heaven several years ago. He was the best storyteller I ever had the pleasure of listening to. Unfortunately, he didn't tell all of his stories. There is one story in particular he never told. I learned it from an Army buddy, Clyde, of his that served with him in Europe during World War II. I was in my early teens when I heard this story the first and only time.

My Granddaddy was a cook and a medic during the war. I always considered them to be the most important jobs during World War II. They weren't fancy, but necessary. Very necessary. He would occasionally be ordered to the front lines where he did God only knows what, but most of his time was spent a few miles back from the fighting.

One day he was ordered to go close to the front. Several other men went with him, including the friend who told this particular story. My Granddaddy left the room as his friend told our family of this particular day...

Twelve men walked through Germany towards the front lines. They carried food and medical supplies. They had been told they would met up with others who would further guide them to their destination. Those 12 men thought they would be helping to stabilize the wounded that were too hurt to make it back to the mobile hospital where they all worked.

A few miles down the road, they met up with a handful of men. They weren't expecting to see the looks on their faces. Clyde said that words couldn't express what their faces said. In silence, the walked into the woods until they came to a clearing.

Clyde explained they began to smell something awful before they ever left the road. The smell became stronger and stronger. Some of the men they had met began to vomit and shake. They helped them walk towards the clearing.

There they saw what use to be people. They are now known as concentration camp survivors. Less than skeletons covered in sore-ridden skin, men, women and children stood inside a barbed wire fence. Clyde said those people just stared at them. In German, a man explained they were Americans and were going to help them.

Clyde said many of the American soldiers became sick and a few even fainted as they cut through the barbed wire and saw what was behind a rickety building. Bones and bodies were piled up as high as possible, one stack after another. It seemed to never end.

My Granddaddy, somehow, managed to stay on his feet. He gave the first person he met his canteen of water. He reached in his pocket and began passing out what snacks he had with him. Clyde said the others did the same. The walking skeletons didn't know what to do with the food. They just held it, as if waiting for a sign from someone to direct them.

Clyde explained that a few men left to get trucks to bring these people to the hospital. Nothing they had been given would be of much help to them. The meager supplies they had brought with them would not meed the needs of those they found. They simple stood around, dumbfounded, shocked and sickened at what they saw.

The man who spoke German stayed behind. He spoke with some of the people there. Their voices were hoarse whispers as they tried to answer him. They pointed towards the building, begging in different languages for help.

My Granddaddy and Clyde went into the building. There they found more people, on filthy bunks and on the floor. The stench, Clyde said, was unbearable. Their eyes watered. Clyde told us he wanted to move them outside, to get them out of the stink, but my Granddaddy thought they shouldn't be moved. He was worried they might hurt them more, if that was possible, if they carried them outside. They went outside for more water and food. Clyde said my Granddaddy prayed in broken German and French as he handed them the rations.

Trucks and ambulances arrived with doctors, nurses and volunteers from the Salvation Army. The people were carefully placed in them and taken back to the hospital. Clyde remembered that there were about 100 of them, but he never counted to get an exact number.

Once back at the Army hospital camp, my Granddaddy ran to the kitchen and began cooking. Clyde said that my Granddaddy knew that what medical training he had would not be enough to help. Clyde went with him. There were already several Salvation Army volunteers cooking. Clyde said he had never seen so much food being cooked at once.

My Granddaddy and Clyde, with a few of the volunteers, took trays of food to the area where the prisoners were being taken care of. The nurses and doctors quickly stopped them. They explained that they couldn't eat the food. Those starving would have to be fed small, simple meals.

Clyde shook his head. "We can't let them be hungry. We have all this food," a lady with the Salvation Army told the doctors and nurses. "I have to feed them. They can have my food if there isn't enough."

It was explained, in graphic detail, to my Granddaddy and the others with him exactly why they couldn't eat. It made sense, but it was hard to take the food back to the kitchen when they could see the need.

"Come with me," a Salvation Army lady told my Granddaddy and Clyde. "We can do something. Talk to them or bathe them. We have to pray with them."

They went with her. They walked down the rows of people on cots that had been lined up outside the hospital, offering what comfort they could. Clyde said they smiled, held their hands and listened to their stories in languages they didn't understand.

He said my Granddaddy knelt down by a little girl. She had brown eyes and was completely naked. He said he just sat there, stroking the few strands of hair she had. "Then she smiled at him," Clyde said in halting words. "She had the prettiest smile I had ever seen."

Clyde jumped up from the chair he had been sitting in and ran outside. I watched as he vomited off the side of the front porch. Not a word was spoken on the house. Clyde walked to the barn with where my Granddaddy had been. They stayed out there for quite a while. In silence, they walked back into the house.

We never spoke of this story again. He never mentioned it to us. What could be said? I had seen the pictures in history books. I knew that some denied it had ever happened. I have no doubts. I saw the look on my Granddaddy's face when Clyde said, "We were told to go into the woods." That was all he heard as he went out the door. That look explained horrors I can never comprehend. I don't want to understand it. I just have to make sure it is never repeated.