Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project
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Interviewer
Michael Hirsh
Publication Date
March 2022
Date
May 2008
Abstract
Harry Gerenstein was a truck driver with the 6th Armored Division, which liberated Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. Their convoy encountered some Russians who told them about the camp where they had been prisoners, so Gerenstein and his comrades decided to go see it. They did not spend very long at the camp, feeling overwhelmed by the sights and the smell, but Gerenstein took several photographs of the crematorium. He also helped liberate a small camp of Hungarian Jewish women who were used as factory workers, giving one his spare pair of shoes. In this interview, Gerenstein also describes some of his other wartime experiences as well as his lifelong correspondence with a Belgian woman he met during the Battle of the Bulge.
Keywords
World War II (1939-1945), Holocaust (1939-1945), Battle of the Ardennes (1944-1945), Concentration camps, Concentration camps--Liberation, Veterans, Genocide, Crimes against humanity, United States. Army. Armored Division 6th, Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Extent
00:37:54; 20 page transcript
Subject: geographic
Ardennes; Weimar (Germany)
Language
English
Digital Date
2022
Media Type
Oral histories
Format
Digital Only
Identifier
C65-00047
Recommended Citation
Gerenstein, Harry, "Harry Gerenstein Oral History Interview" (2022). Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project. 37.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/concentration_OH/37
Rights Statement
