Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project
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Interviewer
Michael Hirsh
Publication Date
March 2022
Date
September 2008
Abstract
Leo Serian was a member of the 65th Infantry Division, which liberated Hersbruck, a sub-camp of Flossenbürg on April 20, 1945. The day they discovered the camp, his company was on their way to rendezvous with other units when they came across a gate, out of which two German trucks fled. The division went into the camp and saw dozens of bodies, including a stack of corpses Serian estimates to have been about eight feet high; some of the prisoners were still alive and crawled towards the soldiers. The soldiers did not walk around the camp but tried to comfort the inmates, though they did not have enough rations to give them any. Serian's unit was only in Hersbruck for a short time before they were relieved. In 1995, he began speaking about his experience and, though the National Holocaust Museum, wrote letters to the survivors he liberated.
Keywords
World War II (1939-1945), Holocaust (1939-1945), Concentration camps, Concentration camps--Liberation, Veterans, Genocide, Crimes against humanity, United States. Army. Infantry Division 65th, Hersbruck (Concentration camp)
Extent
00:27:21; 17 page transcript
Subject: geographic
Hersbruck (Germany)
Language
English
Digital Date
2022
Media Type
Oral histories
Format
Digital Only
Identifier
C65-00125
Recommended Citation
Serian, Leo, "Leo Serian Oral History Interview" (2022). Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project. 110.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/concentration_OH/110
Rights Statement
