Holocaust Survivor Reunites With His Liberator After 70 Years

Photo Credit: History Channel On April 29, 1945, a group of U.S. Army soldiers marched into Dachau to liberate the concentration camp where more than 35,000 people had been cruelly murdered by the Nazis. They forced their way into some barracks where several prisoners were hiding in the latrines, uncertain whether the soldiers were there to help them or kill them.

One of those soldiers was Daniel Gillespie, a machine gunner with the 42nd “Rainbow Division.” The first person Gillespie saw as he entered the barracks was a Hungarian Jew by the name of Joshua Kaufman. Gillespie helped Kaufman outside and then they tearfully parted ways, not believing they would ever see each other again.

However, almost 70 years to the day since that emotional meeting, they were given the chance to do just that. German director Emanuel Rotstein, who is filming a documentary for the History Channel about the liberation of Dachau, arranged a meeting between the two gentlemen who were unknowingly living only about an hour apart from each other in southern California.

The meeting was an incredibly emotional one. As the two men approached one another, Kaufman saluted Gillespie, kissed his hand, and then fell at his feet, saying, “I have wanted to do this for 70 years. I love you, I love you so much.”

Photo Credit: History Channel Photo Credit: History Channel Photo Credit: History Channel

Gillespie told Kaufman how horrified he had been to see the prisoners at Dachau. “It was the most profound shock of my life. Its liberation changed my life forever,” he said. “We could not understand it. I grew up in California where we had everything in abundance. We didn’t get how people could let other people starve. They murdered them or just let them die. Again and again the questions moved through my head. And at the same time I was just incredibly angry.” (Read more from “Holocaust Survivor Reunites with Liberator” HERE)

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