<Begin Segment 33>

AI: Well, so then I wanted to kind of bring some things up more to the present, and well, it's past information, but you had mentioned in an earlier conversation that it was only after your husband had passed away that you learned about some of the things in his past that you hadn't known, that he had never talked about either when he was in the service and with this... when, related to a concentration camp that he was, his unit was near, in Dachau?

MN: Uh-huh. He was part of the 442nd, but he was attached to the 522 Field Artillery, which was attached to the 442nd. And one of the later moves was they released the prisoners from Dachau. But while he was alive, he never mentioned that, and we'd have vets get together, but nothing ever was, did come out from it. And one of the... what was it, the vets' reunion in Hawaii, they mentioned it and they made 522, gave 'em citations and told them what a wonderful thing they had done. And one of the, his buddies says, "Hey, we're heroes now." So, and then some of the fellows told me how bad it was when they went to Dachau, and the stench, he said, was just unbearable with all the dead bodies and things. And he says they were all in tattered clothing, and they were gaunt, they were just skin and bones, and they're barely moving, you know. And some of 'em gave 'em their C-ration, and that was the wrong thing to do because all of a sudden, they got something to eat and they gobbled it down, and they died from it. And so one of the fellows told me (when) they were leaving Dachau, and he saw a group of the prisoners, they found a dead bull or something, and they were pawing at it and trying to get some food out of that, but that probably would have made them sick, too.

AI: It's hard to imagine.

MN: Yeah. And so now, when I reflect back on it, and I go, "What if he came back to Minidoka and released the prisoners in camp because his brothers, sisters, father, mother were still in camp at that time, what would have happened to him?" I said, "He would have been shot," even if he was in the same uniform.

AI: He wouldn't have been a hero.

MN: No.

AI: That's so ironic.

MN: Yeah, well, that's life.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.