Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project
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Interviewer
Michael Hirsh
Publication Date
March 2022
Date
June 2008
Abstract
Rip G. Rice was a member of the 104th Infantry Division, which liberated Nordhausen on April 11, 1945; he was in an engineering battalion, and his job was to purify water for the soldiers. The day his division found Nordhausen, they were en route to another town, and as they approached the camp they started to smell burning flesh. A military policeman met them on the road and diverted them towards the camp. Rice was physically and emotionally sick when he saw and smelled the corpses; after the war, he was very angry at the German people, but gradually his feelings changed to the point where he describes himself as a Germanophile. In this interview, he also recalls an encounter with a German chemist in 1967, who, during the war, was a member of the underground that saved several American soldiers by providing information about an attack.
Keywords
World War II (1939-1945), Holocaust (1939-1945), Concentration camps, Concentration camps--Liberation, Veterans, Genocide, Crimes against humanity, United States. Army. Infantry Division 104th, Nordhausen (Concentration camp)
Extent
00:53:46; 19 page transcript
Subject: geographic
Nordhausen (Thuringia, Germany)
Language
English
Digital Date
2022
Media Type
Oral histories
Format
Digital Only
Identifier
C65-00114
Recommended Citation
Rice, Rip G., "Rip G. Rice Oral History Interview" (2022). Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project. 101.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/concentration_OH/101
Rights Statement
