Two Philadelphia Men Remember Dachau Liberation 71 Years Later
By David Spunt
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Don Greenbaum and Ernie Gross sat next to each other in front of a crowd at the Drexel University Chabad House to tell a the tale of a teenager rescued from the horrors of Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945.
Ernie Gross was that teenager, and Don Greenbaum, an Army corporal, helped liberate the camp.
Ernie gross was born in Romania in 1929. His parents and siblings were killed behind the gates of Auschwitz in Poland. On April 29, 1945, Gross was standing in a line to the gas chamber at Dachau in Germany. His life was minutes away from the end.
Then his fate changed.
"Something very strange happened. The guard near me threw down his weapon and was running away. We were still in line. We didn't know what to do," Gross told Eyewitness News.
Greenbaum and other soldiers were there to liberate the Jews.
"I started talking about this maybe 50 years after I got out of the Army, in 1995, and I didn't talk about it until I heard someone say on 20/20 it never happened," Greenbaum told Eyewitness News.
Greenbaum, 91, served in the Army under General George Patton. He fought at the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded the Purple Heart. Greenbaum said his proudest moment was liberating Dachau, a place where he says the conditions were atrocious.
"The sky was black we had no idea what it was. We didn't know until we entered the camp that it was a death camp. On the way in we passed by 20 box cars full of dead naked bodies, thrown in like pieces of wood," Greenbaum said.
The men don't remember meeting inside Dachau but insist it's possible. After the war, the two went on to do different things. Ernie heard of Don's story and the two were in contact almost immediately. They both happened to live in Philadelphia.
Now, Greenbaum and Gross travel across the country to speak to groups and share their story. They represent part of the Greatest Generation, and they will continue to share their story as long as possible.
"If he would have come in half an hour later, I wouldn't have been here to talk about it," Gross said of Greenbaum.