Charging Across Nazi Germany and Liberating Dachau Concentration Camp | Alan Lukens
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- Опубліковано 22 кві 2024
- Alan Lukens comes from a family steeped in military and academic tradition. His father, and both his father's brothers attended and graduated from Princeton University. The three brothers would all serve in World War I, only two would come home.
in 1942, Lukens found himself in his freshman year at Princeton, but like his father and uncles before him, he felt it was his duty to serve and joined the U.S. Army. An avid skier Lukens originally joined the 10th Mountain Division, but eventually found himself transferred into the 20th Armored Division.
Lukens arrived in France in early 1945 and was attached to the Third Army under command of General George Patton. His unit moved quickly towards Munich where they would discover and liberate the Dachau Concentration Camp. The horrors of the camp would stay with Alan all his life.
Alan W. Lukens passed away on January 5, 2019.
Interview recorded on January 28, 2015
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Video Credits:
Interviewer - Greg Corombos
Editor - Daniel Taksas
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I’m so grateful for all the men who liberated my Polish Catholic Grandpa from Dachau. I would not exist if it wasn’t for them. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ♥️🇺🇸
Bee there,that place will give you the creeps.
My father was in the 42nd division and was there. He was deeply affected by what he saw. He once told me, "I can't believe how human beings could treat other human beings that way."
That's the last great American generation.
they were the beginning and the end of the American dream.
after they saw JFK shot, right after that is when inflation and the wage gap started slowly turning the middle class into the lower class.
My father was there also. In General Patch’s army. He didn’t talk about it much and died in 1967. Wish I knew more. I remember him talking about one of his buddies killing the commandant. For years it was always in the back of my mind. Recent history and UA-cam showed there might be a grain of truth to it.
They were de-humanised! That's how the Nazis could treat them in such horrible ways
@@joemello7888There’s definitely some truth there with the Dachau guards being shot, so you really never know. I have 2 similar stories from my grandfather and I’ve been thinking lately that maybe it wasn’t all exaggerated. You can research and request your dads service records if you haven’t already but as you know you can’t get the stories back.
And it's still happening today in 2024!
Very bright man - very articulate. Yes, he did start rocking while he was talking about Dachau. At age 19 my Dad was with troops that liberated Flossenberg concentration camp. He wouldn't discuss it. To think that these brave men came home and went to school, went to work, raised families, lived a pretty normal full lives is astounding to me. Greatest Generation indeed!
God bless your Dad for being part of liberating Flossenburg. I had a distant cousin that had been there. And survived due to men like your father. BTW, my rel
BTW my relative made it back home and became a police officer. Please tell your father that.
My dad was there. He was just a young kid, but what he saw as a young soldier stayed with him his entire life. I remember the terrible dreams he would have where he would wake up crying. He tried to find solace in the bottle, which ended up killing him young. I wish I’d had him a lot longer.
Sorry for your loss 😢
I'm so sorry.Absolutely heartbreaking.
God bless you
😢very sad sir! May he rest in the heavens
I'm so sorry for him, for your family and the exponential number of people who were victims of this barbarism! This is why we must ALL speak out about hate and violence.
The way this gentleman moves his body back and forth when he's telling about the horrors he saw at Dachau... you know that never left him.
I noticed that also. Not a pacing as a wild animal in a cage needing to be free... But, a rocking as to self soothe through such horrendous memories. God Bless him.
I have so much respect for all these brave men who fought for all of our freedoms! The horror they had to endure escapes me! Im sorry they had to witness the horrible things the Nazi inflicted!
Thank you, sir, for your service. My stepfather was POW in Germany and liberated by US soldiers.
Incredibly humble man. He went to Princeton, he was part of the American elite, but he was a private. That wouldn't happen today, no way!
So true!
If he completed his education and received a degree, he would have been a NCO.
@@stanleybroniszewsky8538What would you know of it!!! This was WWII, so I do not believe your old or wise enough by your comment.
A lot of the British aristocracy’s kids fought in both world wars. When the country is on the line or u need more people. Everyone has to fight
My mother's brother was an infantry scout with the 45th division and so found himself one of the first GI's to encounter Dachau. He would acknowledge that he was there but refused to speak any further of it.
Thank you for sharing. I had an uncle who liberated a death camp, but would never talk about it. He passed in 1974.
He's sharp as a tack. Thanks for your honesty.
Definitely has Biden beat!
Why the hell bring Biden into this? Let's see how you are when you get this gentleman's age. Good grief!
Thank you for your service Mr.Lukens!🇺🇸
I'm sure that experience was something that Mr. Lukens never forgot, but to have to retell that terrible story really affected him, he rocks back and forth, trying to comfort his younger self as he remembers. Bless him, and all the men who had to endure the horrors of war.
You can see how difficult it was for him to relive the past, but he gave this interview because he didn't want what happened to ever be forgotten. What a brave and good man.
My full respect for this man and all the soldiers involved in the liberation of Europe, it was an atrocious war, may it never be forgotten or repeated. All the best.
He starts rocking when he talked about the horror
He folds his arms and closes off his posture too, it’s very telling.
My Grandfather never,ever recovered.
My great uncle returned in his little metal box in the late 1950s when roadwork was being done near the French border.
He and a number of other American servicemen were identified by their dog tags and finally came home.
Nothing about what happened to the Jewish people in World War 2 had ANYTHING to do with battle, with fighting, with the rigors of war.
What was done to the Jewish people was an attempt at annihilation.
Nothing else but evil drove the torture, degradation and murder of the MILLIONS of innocent Jews.
We're seeing anti-Semitism raise it's head again in the United States...
Many of us feel concerned but not afraid.
I say "Hello" to the Police Officers on my way into the Synagogue and carry on.
I'm a boomer, so grew up listening to some of my uncle's war stories- but not all- some were too awful to tell aloud.
I am utterly shocked watching hatred for the Jewish people rise again. I believed we would never see it on a scale like this. To this day there are many who deny the Holocaust happened. I knew some who survived- the tatoos on their arms with the # assigned to them was sickening, horrible.
I pray for the eyes of the ignorant to be opened.
What a lovely,caring,unassuming,brave man,thankyou for the video.
My God! How could anyone look upon that and not feel changed forever. I can't even imagine .
Just a few musings but like a string of beads they are all connected in a way. Anyone being in in war has had experiences they couldn't forget and like my Dad had nightmares sometimes. I remember reading about a British actor who gained his American citizenship either the day before or after Dec. 7th. He and a film crew were among other places at Tarawa. His marriage didn't last long when his wife said he wasn't the same man that returned home. His name was Louis Hayward. My father had purchased a book titled the Eyes Of The War and when someone would ask about the War he'd pull out the book and let them see for themselves. He wouldn't talk about it. The closest he could come to it was reminisces about old buddies. He kept up correspondences with a few. As a child I happened upon that book. Decades later Life magazine ran a photo of a poor little Vietnamese girl running down a road stark naked because napalm had burnt her clothing. I was instantly reminded of the introductory photo in the book. A Chinese baby of about 2 or 3 sitting in a war torn train station whailing for probably Mom. Also in the book were sections on the concentration camps. My Father told me the dead were people unwanted because they were different. My view of people was charged then and there. To this day I'm in wonder and awe of those men who returned home, some who were shattered for life and some who were able to pull some inner strength and went on to lead progressive lives. PS. It's a shame one of us children of these brave men didn't begin collecting family stories and publish them as a book. When the S F Chronicle had a Sunday supplement that carried a story written by a daughter about her father and what she found in a carefully hidden box. When in college don't know what brought it up but the subject of Daddy returning home brought up memories of our Dad's. At 81 there aren't to many of us left with those rememberences.
I salute you for your unwavering courage in the face of such horror that you witness, I'm so proud of you for your service and congradulate you, SIR !!! God bless you !!!!
Thank you for your service!
The stories they tell of first hand experience. Love to hear them. My Dad & Mum would not tell thier children.
My Father was also in the 20th, and the experience of taking Dacha was such that he could not bring himself to again see the sight in 1980 when we made a family trip to Southern Germany. It brought back painful memories just being close by.
On a side note, Mr. Luckens appears to have gotten attached to the 20th after it had switched from being a training divison for other armored outfits/individuals, to a combat div. It was the last armored division to reach Europe, as well as the last one avaliable for combat use.
Thank you sir, for your service.
Wonderful man, amazing life. Thank you for your service and sharing this piece of history with us.
Thank you for your service 🏥❤️❤️❤️
The eye-witness accounts tell history so vividly! The men who saw this and experienced it are very special, and I wish they could publish their stories so people would not forget. Thank you, all WWII vets, for what did with such bravery, and also, thank you for the lives you lived when you came home. America must never forget!
German - Swiss American here! My Great - Uncle died on a beach in Anzio, Italy February 1944! He was a Staff Sgt. in the US Army! Only e2 when he died! I visited Europe on an Educators Tour / Summer 1984! We were supposed to visit that Concentration Camp but I was very glad we didn't go! It had to be a HELLISH place ! As a sensitive, I am sure I wouldn't have been able to handle that EVIL place!HELL on earth!
32 years old when he died...
@@InnocentPotato-pd7wi
People like your great grand uncle are my heroes. I am a Kiwi and take a lot of interest in all these events. I am a Jewish descendant as well. In depth knowledge about the Holocaust has also changed me.
Not to the same degree, but I have been involved in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. And I have seen the very worst and the very best of humanity, II could not believe what man could do do man, and this wasn’t in the heat of battle for survival, this…..this was just depravity and cruelty for the sake off I.
Thank you for your service. All conflicts have their own horror stories, and all who witness them are forever impacted.
"The area was liberated by the Canadians." Yaay Canada! This is an excellent interview.
Thank you for your service Mr Lukens. You related your grim experiences superbly.
I visited Dachau when I was in the Army...Vietnam Era. It was very "Erie" as though you could "feel" the evil that had transpired there.
I agree! I studied abroad in college on a Holocaust Studies trip.
It was the greatest two months of my life between my junior and senior years of college. We visited Natzweiller-Struthoff and of course Dachau during our time there. I’ll never forget when I walked into the camp through those metal gates with the emblazoned words “Marcht Arbeit Frei”. To this day I swear the temperature dropped about ten degrees when I walked in. You could feel the haunted aura of the horrors that took place there and the clammy elements seep into your veins and every fiber of your being.
One of the most surreal and eerie things to ever happen to me. #NeverForget
I can't imagine what these went through all I can say is thank you.
I was stationed at the NATO HQ in Naples and during 1963 visited a friend stationed in Munich with the 24th Division. He told me I should visit Dachau and since, he said, directions were poor he'd draw a map. I said why don't you come along to which he replied that he'd been there once and wouldn't go back. After I visited I understood why.
That is absolutely heartbreaking.We should make every American child.Listen to this and watch the hamas video of October.The seventh the enemy's face becomes so much clearer when you see that!
Those kids are already seeing piles of dead kids in Gaza everyday on social media. In fact, for years, they have seen images of them being brutalised.
I love hearing these stories from ww2! Thank you. ❤
I'm blessed and extremely proud of this elderly gentleman. He is so lucid and fluent. God bless his soul! Thank you for your contribution. He reminds me so much of my great granddad. He fought in WW2 and he was a gem of a man. I remember his stories of the war. Still amazed at this gentleman's sharpness and articulation.❤❤❤❤❤❤
Forever enjoy hearing the old Military Veterans relating their experiences.
Especially 2nd World War Vets.
Across the 'Pond', in Europe, they are much Honoured and held in high esteem, at War Remembrance Ceremonies.
Thank You Pt.Lukens Sir.
May You Rest in Peace 🙏🏽🤲👏🏻 ❤🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thank you Sir for your service. Never again.
Omg to hear my home town university UNL get called a lark is hilarious i would think that too especially coming from the mountains. This guy is amazing and the liberation of the camps will never be forgotten the names of everyone will at some point but what they did will be know for the rest of history
You can see the stress of recalling these events in the way that Mr Lukens starts to rock a little as he tells the story. That was exactly the same as my grandfather did when he remembered his part in liberating Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Also there for the liberation of prisoners was someone whose friendship I would get many years later, who was a Canadian veteran. Both of them said they had heard of concentration camps before discovering Belsen and as my Canadian friend said, "If I knew about it, for sure the Generals knew about it".
When i was stationed in Germany we saw Dachow that was in 1989 and it was an experience in horror
My grandfather was in the same division, 20th Armored, 414th field artillery, and had to have fought along side him. He never, ever talked about the war until very late in life. Even then, it wasn’t much. I just visited Dachau and saw the 20th Armored plaque - just hard to imagine what they saw.
I want to thank all the honorable men for their bravery for defending our country! Allowing me to grow up free! I thank you all! I have much respect for u all! Again thank you all for my freedom and for the countries freedom! Again thank you
Thank you for sharing. This gentleman is very sharp still about what happened so long ago. It is very eye opening to hear about how cruel the human race can be
rip sir
Bless all of you 😢🙏☝️
I cannot imagine and don't want to. God bless and keep you safe & well. Thank you for all youve done for US. 🙏🇺🇸❤️🙏🇺🇸❤️🙏🇺🇸❤️
I really listening too veterens , what happened should never be forgot
Dachau. A Must see if you visit Munich. A short public Transportation Ride to camp.
I visited Dachau while stationed in Schweinfurt. It gives one the creeps.
I expected something like a Hogans Hero’s type set up. It wasn’t. It was built to last 100 years. The huge poured concrete fence posts were perfectly and skillfully crafted. The edges were sharp and crisp. They intended that place to operate for decades. That realization shook me up.
I read a book written by a Catholic priest who was there with a bunch of other Catholic priests as well. It was a really chilling read about the punishments the priests received (the nazi's hated Catholics with a passion). One of the punishments was having to kiss broken glass and every time you kissed it the SS would hold the priest down until his face was pouring blood. One priest died from this. What really amazed me was towards the end of the book when the Americans arrived the priest described some order finally arriving and everyone seemed to be at peace. Then suddenly the Russian POWs who had been imprisoned there as well started flipping out and decided they were going to get revenge on the SS who were still there (many had fled) and that's actually what got the American soldiers riled up and then they started helping with killing the SS.
@@SteveSmith-eb6ze Birkenau would really give you the creeps. Read up before going. Just looking at the place is only half of it. The real horror comes when you know what happened in each area.
@@Storytime2023x Visiting one concentration camp was enough for me. I don’t like the feeling you get when walking through the gate. I am not bs’ing,I could feel the hatred,suffering and misery,it felt like thousands of eyes were watching me,can’t explain it. I took our German Shepherd with us and she was very tense and hyper. She tried to dig where they threw the ashes of the dead.
God bless you sir
My mother was born in Hungary. She lived through those times. Her little brother was killed from air fire that collapsed her home. They fled in the middle of the night. 😢
Mustve been a horric sight.
Just seeing photos of the dead is horrible.I can't begin to imagine how much worse it had to be to see it first hand.
Thank you for your service and God bless you and ease your mind after witnessing that.
Must have been very awful 😞 to see Thanks to Everyone who served ❤
My Uncle was in a regiment that help liberate Dachau. Right up to the day that he died, he did not like talk about what he saw there. He would get very annoyed if anybody brought it up or talked about it.
the george stevens dvd has color footage of the dachau massacre
How did they not know about the camps? That's what gets me. How did no one know? Doesn't seem possible but guess it was. 🤔🤔
No cellphones, no security cameras on every corner, not many tvs yet. Radio & newspapers mostly. So easier to hide things. My friend’s dad did not even see her till she was 18 months old. No zoom calls or video either.
The smell must have been horrendous, the Germans knew, but fear can change people's attitudes.
Germans were watching each other and reporting each other, they feared being reported, as it meant going into a camp, or if in the military, the Eastern front.
I've visited Bergan Belson 3 times, Buckenwald and Dachau, makes you think, how did the Germans think up some of the atrocities they committed.
As an aside we visited Colditz castle, which was a pow camp, very interesting, we had a former pow with us Kenneth lockwood, who was interned there during ww2.
@@reneeb.2702: Of course they knew.
The German public knew of the camps but had no idea what went on inside them. There were of course rumors but one did not ask questions in Nazi Germany.
People knew they knew...... Germans knew and when trains went past they closed their ears and eyes.. they knew but preferred to be deaf and blind just like today....it will happen again
The bravest women served in so many areas of the war also.some never came home and are buried in other lands, never forget them, 😢
Wow I cant even imagine what they went through the stench had to horrible and smelled for miles away . He never said how they did away with the sniper rotten bastards put up the white flag and pick off soldiers ! They truly are the greatest generation
Fellow Philadelphian ❤️❤️❤️
I could listen to this gentleman all day.
My goodness! I go back and forth...how did they not know this was going on? For five years before the war? I can't fathom the disgusting depths of this evil.......and we're supposed to let it happen again? Put up a fight for God's name and righteousness sake!
These heroes are the people who diaper don calls "losers."
Turn off the news and think for yourself
Rip sir you are loved
Thank you for your service. Evil times
God Bless You
16:05
Of course Hitler refused to surrender!
He knew that he would be executed for his war crimes.
There’s some things human eyes aren’t meant to see.
solo una pregunta ¿ y qué pasó con la comida , medicinas y ropa para los judíos de los campos que debía llevar la cruz roja que tenía la lista de los judíos de los campos ?
Consumed by Nazis
Poor chap, poor suffering people , I’m so sorry… I hate war
75mm?
I visited Dakau you could still hear the screams
80 years later and Nazis are permitted to live among us without consequence. Have we learned nothing from what these heroes saw?
Who's this guy name ❤❤❤
Genocide is always a great evil. Why do people want to destroy the lives of others? Hate is a powerful force. Those who harbor hate in their hearts are truly sick. Sick to their souls.
I am always shocked and humbled hearing what people had to sacrifice to liberate my life, as it is, in Germany. I wished Germany with France had taken the chance to enter with permission of sovereign Ukraine their country under a similar spirit, thereby respecting Russia's sovereignty.
Back when Americans were heroes! Since then it’s all been downhill unfortunately…
this gentleman was in Elvis's division 😁
"ugh huh huh 🎶🎶" 😅
Rather Elvis had the honor to be in this gentleman’s division.
Germany can never be forgiven what they did in my lifetime to my generation. There were so many orphans in my school... So tragic!
Top of his class at Princeton, "We need Cannon fodder" smh
Talmudder, riesamme, mene, mene, huono tekele, ei versojani. Talmudders, riesamme, menkää, menkää , huonot tekeleet, ei versojamme.INRIX
Well this was a terrible video to watch when I first woke up because now I’m gonna be sad all day 😭😭
I’d say it looked like Gaza
WW2, the only true veterans
I was born shortly after the war, so my childhood was dominated by the immediate post-war culture. I knew that Germany was perhaps the world's most highly cultured country, and I wondered how such a society could produce Nazis, the SS, the Gestapo, and how they could have found enough soulless people to conduct the Holocaust.
Later, after I learned more about our legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings and Southern conservatism, I began to understand. After Nixon began his Southern strategy and the party slithered into the MAGAt era, our home grown storm troopers began emerging from under rocks, with Trump's permission o be cruel. Now it's clear -- the SS is among us, the 1/3 of us who are born with the conservative disposition. When societies struggle, the fascist underbelly reactivates and the world sinks into cyclic fascism.
You’re blaming Trump really?
Can’t come to terms of their parties errors in recent last fours years
Trump would like to be the next Hitler I fear for America and the world
God bless all the greatest generation now and forever ,those men who died ,those who survived, we are free because of them
❤❤❤❤❤😊
Typhus....
Germany sent civilisation back a 1000 years.
All you people ppsting about your fathers and grandfathers who were there: neoNazis and holocaust deniers say they're lying. I don't because im not an idiot, but they do, and it infuriates me.
God bless our WWII veterans! Greatest generation America has ever known❤ Jesus is king.
Where was Jesus when all those atrocities were being committed? Some king...
@@rgc1961 dont mock God my friend. There are two forces love comes from God. Evil comes from satan. And God gave man free will which satan uses to his advantage. Jesus loves you rgc1961. I pray you ask Him to spead love throughout ur heart. ❤️
@@hintoflimetostitochip7978 🤣🤣🤣
It’s repeated again but people should warned about fornications as the world can only provide to so much, fortune we love our loved ones, but you have to be cruel to be kind, so only and George Orwell saw this from a distance, never forgotten George but How we are going to live? Concrete and plastics?
Starving due to supply lines being bombed
Yep and the Canadian army guys killed them
😂
God Bless the USA Veterans 🇺🇸
God Bless the Israel 🇮🇱
The Apple of God’s Eye
Just remember what Trump has said he will do if he gets elected People like him always seemto find those who will enable them
Just wait until islam gets enough power.
How You Can Have Eternal Life ! Realize you are a sinner being sorry. Sin is lying, evil thoughts, lust,etc. Therefore, do not trust in your own works to go to heaven because you realize, being a sinner, you cannot offer the perfect blood sacrifice that God requires to pay for sin. Instead, believe, meaning fully trust, that in Christ's love for you, on the cross, His one perfect blood sacrifice, when Christ bled, suffered and died, in your place, paid for your sins in full, past, present and future ! Believe that Jesus rose from the dead ! Believe Jesus is God Almighty, God the Son, alive for evermore ! And believe that the sinless blood of Jesus Christ is what cleanses you from all sin, which purifies your soul ! Then the Lord Jesus will forgive you,save you from hell and give you eternal life ! And you will be sealed with the Holy Spirit who will dwell within you forever! And thank Jesus ! Rom.3:25,5:8,9,10:9 Rev.1:5,Ephes.1:7,13,4:30, Heb.10:10-14,19,38,39 I John 5:7,13,20
The testimony of this man indicates this wasn’t a death camp. The prisoners were still being fed until the end, even though everyone in Germany was starving because food was very scarce at that point. If this was a death camp, they would have simply killed all the prisoners and not waste any precious food on them while their own German population was starving.
🙄. What planet are you from? There were a modicum of survivors from every death camp. Most were dead.. or killed thus, why they were called death camps. Concentration camp victims who survived were kilos more starved than regular citizens. Sure enough everyone was hungry but only some were truly starved to death. Thanks to Hitler. What a guy. Killed millions, starved millions and ruined his own people for decades to come.
It was a death camp. Have you been there? Have you read the history? Most were killed or starved to death. They could not even eat what most of us would call real food, having survived on watered down rutabaga soup or such and bread made with wood shavings. The German population was not eating the same. Any starvation that occurred among Hitler’s chosen people was because of him. He was the root cause of all of it and the German population allowed it to thrive. Shame on them for centuries to come.
You are wrong.
This is disgusting and ignorant.
@@samanthacrump1976 please tell me why the at that point brutally starving Germans kept giving food to people in an “extermination” camp…? It only makes sense if this was a prison camp, otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.
They did what they did because the captive ones weren't angels at all , but UA-cam never mentioned it . Its always telling people's lies and calumnies !
@@lysas781 the ones inside the camps
@@lysas781 they were members of criminal organizations but zionism make them look like Angels and liberated to make the party look really bad
You saw a labor camp full starving and typhus infected people caused by allied bombing campaing.
What are you talking about?
Troll or an idiot!
You cannot be serious and if you are, you are a sad, sad individual.
Oh look..a troll 🙄
Bombs don't cause lice. And people were starving to death in these camps before America even entered the war.