University of South Florida Scholar Commons Digital Collection - Holocaust & Genocide Studies Digital Collection - Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center Oral Histories Center 9-5-2008 Sol Feingold oral history interview by Michael Hirsh, September 5, 2008 Sol Feingold (Interviewee) Michael Hirsh (Interviewer) Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/hgstud_oh Part of the African Languages and Societies Commons, History Commons, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons, Race, Ethnicity and post-Colonial Studies Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Scholar Commons Citation Feingold, Sol (Interviewee) and Hirsh, Michael (Interviewer), "Sol Feingold oral history interview by Michael Hirsh, September 5, 2008" (2008). Digital Collection - Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center Oral Histories. Paper 57. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/hgstud_oh/57 This Oral History is brought to you for free and open access by the Digital Collection - Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Digital Collection - Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center Oral Histories by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COPYRIGHT NOTICE This Oral History is copyrighted by the University of South Florida Libraries Oral History Program on behalf of the Board of Trustees of the University of South Florida. Copyright, 2011, University of South Florida. All rights, reserved. This oral history may be used for research, instruction, and private study under the provisions of the Fair Use. Fair Use is a provision of the United States Copyright Law (United States Code, Title 17, section 107), which allows limited use of copyrighted materials under certain conditions. Fair Use limits the amount of material that may be used. For all other permissions and requests, contact the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA LIBRARIES ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at the University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, LIB 122, Tampa, FL 33620. Concentration Camp Liberators Oral History Project Oral History Program Florida Studies Center University of South Florida, Tampa Library Digital Object Identifier: C65-00044 Interviewee: Sol Feingold (SF) Interviewer: Michael Hirsh Interview date: September 5, 2008 Interview location: Conducted by telephone Transcribed by: Kathy Kirkland Transcription date: February 7, 2009 Audit Edit by: Mary Beth Isaacson Audit Edit date: February 15, 2010 Final Edit by: Kimberly Nordon Final Edit date: March 1, 2010 [Transcriber’s note: This interview begins in mid-sentence. The Interviewee’s personal information has been removed, at the request of the Interviewer. This omission is indicated with ellipses.] Sol Feingold: —the monument’s erected. Steve Ross knows. And I worked on it. It was quite an undertaking. Michael Hirsh: Mr. Feingold, did you get—this is Sol Feingold. It’s S-o-l F-e-i-n-g-o-l- d. SF: F-e-i-n-g-o-l-d. MH: When were you born? SF: Nineteen thirteen. MH: Nineteen thirteen, so you’re ninety-five years old. SF: I will be on October 4. MH: And you were with the 42nd Infantry Division? 1 SF: Yes, I was. MH: What city in America were you from? SF: Chelsea, Massachusetts. MH: Ah, okay. So, when did you get to Dachau? SF: On the twenty-ninth [of April, 1945]. MH: On the twenty-ninth? SF: Yeah. MH: You were a rifleman? SF: Yes, I was. MH: With which unit? SF: 42nd. I was with the 242nd Infantry Regiment. MH: Can you tell—what did you see when you first got there? SF: Well, we came into—we came in through the administration area of the concentration camp. You know, Dachau consists of the two camps: one was a training camp for the SS, and the other part was the concentration camp portion, where they kept the inmates. There were 25,000 inmates there. MH: Yeah. And when you got to the camp, was there any shooting? 2 SF: There was. There was another infantry division; there was the 179th—a company from the 179th, if I remember correctly. MH: Of the 45th Infantry Division? SF: No. The 45th Infantry Division, they came in through the back side of the camp, whereas we came in through the front side of the camp. Yeah. MH: And how much shooting was there when you got there? SF: Well, the Americans did the killing. MH: Right. SF: Yeah, they shot the SS prisoners there. MH: What was your rank at the time? SF: I was a private at that time. MH: And how did you happen to be going into the camp? SF: Yeah, I was—at that time, I was attached to the division headquarters, on that particular day. I was a scout. MH: So, you were with General [Henning] Linden? SF: Yeah. Well, he was part of the team, you know, that got there. He was the one who actually liberated—well, he liberated the camp. MH: Right, I know he took the surrender. 3 SF: Yeah, General Linden took the surrender. MH: Were you watching that? SF: No, I didn’t see that, actually, there. But I know very much about it, because General Linden and I were very good friends after the war. He died about two years ago. MH: When you got into the camp, were you able to talk to any of the inmates there, any of the prisoners? SF: No, we were moving so rapidly because by the time we got there, the American army started moving a lot of troops into the camp, the hospital units to take care of the inmates. There was a lot of dysentery and sickness in the camp, so the inmates needed treatment and they brought in hospital units to take care of them. And probably the next day a lot of the inmates were given their freedom; you know, they could go out if they were healthy. Other than that, they stayed at Dachau, and they were treated by the hospital units. Yeah. MH: How was it for you as a Jew to go into that place? SF: Well, you see, you have to understand there were more goyim there than there were Jews. MH: Right. SF: Because they were moving—the goyim, I think there were 15,000 priests there, Catholic priests. The Jews only numbered a small amount of the total population, because the Jews were being moved out so darned rapidly; they were moving them out to Austria to be killed. A lot of them were killed on the road. MH: Did you ever see any of the death marches on the roads? SF: No, we didn’t see the death marches because we came and we moved so rapidly. We received word that there was a death camp, there was a concentration camp in our area. So we were given—at least that’s what I know—we were given orders there was a concentration camp on our route, and the word was there may be a concentration camp. 4 You know, that camp was very sacred; even the population, the civilian population, claimed that they knew very little about the camp, although we believed that they knew much more than they said, than they told us that they knew. Because that camp had been there for years, for many years; it was one of the first camps. There were only two camps in Germany itself: one was at Dachau—a main camp, I’m talking about—and the other was at Buchenwald. Yeah. MH: How did that experience affect your life? SF: Well, I still haven’t recovered. I hate this damned place. Well, even this conversation may be monitored. I don’t like this place at all. So, how did it affect? It’s affected my way of living. I hate this place. I hate it. We’re not—I don’t believe we’re being treated properly, but that’s the way it is. I’ll die here. They won’t let me out because I’m blind, you know—I’m not totally blind, but I’m blind. MH: But emotionally, how did seeing what you saw at Dachau affect your life? SF: Well, it always left an impression on me. I thought, “Why the hell did I ever come to this camp? Why did I have to find this place?” You know what had an effect on me? The indifference of former inmates about this camp. They knew what went on, the Jewish people. You know, sometimes I feel sorry that I ever came upon this camp. I’m giving you my personal opinion. MH: That’s what I want. Why would you feel sorry that you ever came across Dachau? SF: Huh? MH: Why would you be sorry? SF: Well, the part—the remembrance to not leave something on the inmates to remember their liberators. What do you think? I’m a nobody; I’m only expressing my own personal opinion, you know? But I’m not happy about it. I’m going to die here, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The population here, the American population, they’re thieves here. They’re thieves! They steal from the inmates. They’ve stolen money off of me. MH: You mean at the VA hospital? 5 SF: Yeah. Yeah. MH: Were you a religious person? SF: No. I was religious in that I always remembered that I was a Jew, you know? We have a rabbi here; we’re supposed to have kosher food—(inaudible) the manager for some kosher food. We have about ten inmates, ten veterans here. But no, no way. The only thing that leaves an impression, that we liberated a camp. Nothing.