Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project
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Interviewer
Michael Hirsh
Publication Date
March 2022
Date
December 2008
Abstract
Edmund S. Motzko was in an anti-aircraft artillery battalion attached to the 102nd Infantry Division, which discovered the Gardelegen Massacre in Gardelegen, Germany. On April 13, 1945, 1,100 Jewish prisoners were corralled in a barn, which was then set on fire. The 102nd arrived on the scene a day or two later; when Motzko got there, two piles of bodies were still smoldering near the barn door. Motzko was assigned to guard the survivors, one of whom, Geza Bondi, served as his translator. The townspeople from Gardelegen were brought in to bury the bodies, and the 102nd stayed there until after the war ended. Motzko took several photographs of the massacre site which are in Holocaust museums in the United States and Germany.
Keywords
World War II (1939-1945), Holocaust (1939-1945), Gardelegen Massacre (Gardelegen Germany 1945), Massacres, Veterans, Genocide, Crimes against humanity, United States. Army. Infantry Division 102nd
Extent
00:29:13; 15 page transcript
Subject: geographic
Gardelegen (Germany)
Language
English
Digital Date
2022
Media Type
Oral histories
Format
Digital Only
Identifier
C65-00091
Recommended Citation
Motzko, Edmund S., "Edmund S. Motzko Oral History Interview" (2022). Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project. 79.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/concentration_OH/79
Rights Statement
