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April 29, 2005 |
Friday |
www.marinij.com |
60 Years after Dachau |
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Liberator, survivor linked for life |
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IJ photo/Jeff Vendsel Together again: John Steiner (left) of Novato, who survived imprisonment at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, and Dan Dougherty, an American soldier who participated in the camp's liberation 60 years ago, discuss their wartime experiences while sitting in Steiner's living room. |
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Men reflect in Marin about the suffering, horror and freedomBy Jennifer
Upshaw Sixty years ago, Dan Dougherty saved John Steiner's life. Starving, ravaged with infection and suffering from the after-effects of frostbite, Steiner lay dying in the infirmary at Dachau, a German concentration camp outside Munich. He believed he had about 10 days of life left in him. He was 19 years old. Dougherty was a member of C Company, part of the 157th infantry regiment, 45th Division of the Seventh Army, one of the units that helped liberate Dachau. What he saw that day would stay with him forever. He was 19 years old. It would be 50 years before the two men – liberator and survivor – would meet in Marin for the first time. "Immense gratitude to begin with, that goes without saying," Steiner said of Dougherty. |
Historic day: John Steiner is shown at Dachau in 1945 after the camp was liberated, telling an American colonel about the ovens that were used as crematoriums. |
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“The joy of the liberation passed me over in a way because I was not in a state to experience it.” —John Steiner, a prisoner of the Dacahu concentration camp, who was freed on April 29, 1945 |
“I guess I've never given any great thought to it, but I think I carried it around for a long time.” —Dan Dougherty, a member of the Army's C Company which helped liberate Dachau |
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