Depths of Desperation

But the Germans played with human bodies. They would order people into the death zone that surrounded Buchenwald. There was a huge, all around the outer perimeter there was a huge electric fence. It was electrified and people would throw themselves into this fence. They would literally run in to it to terminate their life because they couldn’t take it anymore because they saw, there was no possibility to escape out of Buchenwald and everyday was another day of agony, of torture, of witnessing people dying all around you and so people gave up. And we would have given up to except that we were 168 allied airmen and mind you, once I got in the infirmary, I lost contact with all the boys but the rest of them would stay together and try to keep the morale up. They would try to bolster somebody who is starting to fade, don’t give up, so it was a good thing because it brought you out of the depths of desperation because there was no way you could see of ever getting out of there alive. You were surrounded by death. You were surrounded by the smell of death. You were witnessing death every second of the day or night while you were in Buchenwald. They played with your life like you play with a toy. They had no respect for human life at all. You were less than an animal.