By Eli Kavon

As I stand by my father’s grave, I speak the words of the Psalmist: “Though I walk through a valley of deepest darkness, I fear no harm, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.”

Sixty years ago Paul Kavon, later my father, marched through the darkness of a continent in ruins, aware that he could die at any moment, armed not with God’s rod or staff, but with a machine gun and hand grenades. While he saw action in the closing months of the war in Europe, his most vivid memories were not those of a fighter but of a liberator—and a Jew. When I was a child, my father told me the stories of his experiences as a sergeant in the American 97th Infantry Division. He also gave me the letters that he wrote home to his family from the front. Before his death in 1999, my father lived to see the content of some of those letters published in historian Sir Martin Gilbert’s account of the Allied victory in Europe, The Day the War Ended.

As we commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Europe by the allies, I offer the following letter to the readers of Torah Currents as an eyewitness account of the final chapter of the Nazi genocide of the Jews during the Second World War. Written on the day of the German surrender, it is not a chronicle of victory and jubilation but of anger, defeat, and frustration. In the end, the Allied victory in Europe came too late to rescue the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis.

***

Czechoslovakia, Tuesday, May 8, 1945

Dear Mom, Pop, Ida and Frances,

This morning we received the announcement that the German High Command had unconditionally surrendered to the Allies, that the war was over in the entire ETO with the exception of resistance still going on in parts of Czechoslovakia and Bohemia. That is the principal reason we are still in this sector of operations cleaning out the remaining Nazis in this part of Europe. We’ve been taking countless numbers of prisoners all along and we have liberated many of the Russians, Poles and other nationalities that were confined in German concentration camps, some for more than five years.

Yesterday, a group of Russians who had been imprisoned by the Nazis was freed by our outfit, and we caught their Nazi prison keepers and guards. We had the Russians guard them on their way back to the Prisoner of War compound and you can just imagine how those Russians reacted with the tables finally turned. They made the Krauts run all of the 5 miles back to the P.W. camp and if any of them lagged behind, the Russians hit them with their rifle butts and really made them keep on moving…We saw many Russians with either the right or left arm cut off, something they told us the Krauts had done as punishment.

We met five Jewish girls near here, the first Jews I have met since I arrived in the ETO. The Nazis had taken them from their homes in Hungary and put them in concentration camps. You can just imagine how these girls looked as they told us about the whole thing. Every time the Krauts would have to flee from a town, they would not leave the Jews behind, but instead made them keep up with their retreat.

They told us that one day Germans marched them 25 kilometers (about 18 miles), many of them barefoot, and all the Germans fed them the whole day were three (3) potatoes! One little boy saw some beets in a field and ran out to pick some because he was starving. He didn’t get very far because the Germans shot him before he could get to the food.

They related so many things to us that to tell you all of them would require I write a book about it. On finds it hard to believe that humans could possibly live through something like that, but a few managed to survive and were able to tell us these things.

The girls spoke a beautiful Yiddish and were surprised to find American soldiers who could also speak the language and who were brought up in a religious atmosphere. After seeing these girls, believe me, all that has been said about the German dogs is not propaganda but true facts. Just to hear about these things is not enough. When you see it with your own eyes it makes a much greater impression on you. Oh yes, before I forget to mention it, we haven’t met any Jewish men yet wherever we’ve been.

Another incident in one of the towns we rolled through recently is typical of what has occurred throughout the lands conquered by the Nazis. We were quartered in a house and while I was standing guard outside I noticed a building with all the windows broken, roof torn down and, generally, in a deplorable state. I knew it couldn’t have been from bombing because the surrounding homes where we were quartered were in good shape despite the war.

I noticed two words on the outside painted over with white paint. I could just barely make out the words “Israelite Gotthaus” and I knew immediately that it must have been a synagogue. My best friend in the company, George Skolnik from New Haven, Connecticut and myself went about investigating.

The Germans told us it was a temple and when we inquired about the whereabouts of the Jews of the town, they said only six Jews remained and they died of old age. The door of the temple was locked but we got the key and upon entering the door a sight greeted our eyes that enraged us more than anything before.

The Nazis had used it as the city dump! The bastards had thrown every type of filth and decay in there, but more than that, after a bit of rummaging about we came upon bones, carcasses we could not identify. We found half-burnt siddurim [prayer books] and the S.S. troopers had really left their mark on the temple. Our anger was beyond words, and if it had been in our hands we would have riddled the town with our heavy machine guns.

Instead, we went to the prisoner of war compound to try to get some Krauts to clean out the entire building, or what was left of it, but at the compound they told us that we would be moving out shortly and we couldn’t stay long enough to have them complete the job. We were determined to do something about it, and for a while we waited to see if we could capture a few Jerries ourselves and get them for the job. We gave up finally and went back to our headquarters to start moving out….

We usually have the job of chasing Germans out of homes we need to garrison troops. [George Skolnik and I] both walk in, rifles ready and tell them to get out. We’ve had great satisfaction doing that and innumerable times we’ve scared hell out of them by telling them we are both Jews. They move and they move fast. Our turn has come to give orders—and give them we do as they look down the business end of a rifle or heavy machine gun!

…Keep well and give my regards to all at home.

Your loving son and brother, Paul

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