Front Seat to War

A Harvard man documents the Third Army’s liberation of Europe

April 11, 1945, Ohrdruf: [See full hadwritten letter, below] "In the interior of one of the barracks, on one of the straw pallets, lay a live human being, distinguishable from the dead only by the blinking of his eyes....Here we saw vast pits scooped in the earth where incompletely burned bodies were tossed and immersed in lime to complete their destruction. At the edge of the pits were vast pyre sites. Here on some railroad tracks which we saw the charred remains of a number of bodies which had been incompletely incinerated...Villagers have confessesd to our troops that for two years without interrruption the fire has been burning, so you can calculate well the number that has passed through here. Close by was a huge poker with which the firemen stirred the bodies to complete their consumption. The Frenchman told me that this was one of the more insignificant of Germany's concentration camps. He had been at Dachau and Buchenwald, where they really did things in a big way....There's all the difference in the world between seeing something like this and reading about it, and now millions of Americans will know, through these boys, that all we heard about the Nazis was not propaganda."[See full hadwritten letter, below]

More Carl Henry photographs here Photo of Edith Entratter by Gabor Eder

World War II news from the front

Every day that he served overseas, for 15 months -with a very few days exception due to conditions and movements in the Battle of the Bulge- Carl Henry used the office typewriter from his desk job as Warrant Officer Junior Grade and then Chief Warrant Officer to write to his wife Edith- one, two, three or four pages a day.

She preserved the letters in books, one book for every month of his service overseas.

(Edith did not save her letters, contrary to Carl's request, when he sent them back to her.... but we do have some of her memoirs, here.)

Carl's letters are typed on onion-skin paper and with very few excisions from the censors, since he knew how to censor himself,

contain detailed, sometimes intimate, record of the experiences, sights, and feelings of a literate and affectionate man.

His somewhat obsessive personality serves to increase the detail of the description, both about war-shattered Europe and his own feelings and those of his buddies. From “Somewhere in England” to “Somewhere in Germany”, here then is Carl Henry's enthralling document of the Third Army’s liberation of Europe.

Contact: Diana Mara Henry, 188 Sumner Avenue, Springfield, MA, 01108
dmh@dianamarahenry.com 413-736-6414

About Carl Henry:

• Born Carl Henry Levy, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 7, 1913
• Graduated Harvard College: 1934, AB, Magna cum Laude
Philosophy major, Phi Beta Kappa
• Met and married Edith Entratter on December 25th, 1941
• Enlisted (after changing his name) and worked in cryptography unit at Fort Monmouth, 1942
• Attended Officer Candidate School and was about to graduate 5th in his class, when he was, for political reasons, told he would not graduate.
• Served in US Army and rose from Private to Chief Warrant Officer
• Served in European theater from July 1944 to September 1945, from Normandy to Luxemburg, through the Battle of the Bulge and Germany. Participated in the liberation of Ohrdruf concentration camp.
• After his return, founded Lucky Stride Shoes and retired in 1960. Deceased in NYC, August 24, 2001.

Read his obituary tribute for the Jewish Press by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald

The Cincinnati Post

October 6, 1944

Carl Henry's medals:

Bronze Star medal

American Campaign Medal

European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal

WW II Victory Medal

Army of Occupation Medal

with Germany Clasp

Honorable Service Lapel Button WW II

Chief Warrant Officer Carl Henry (1913-2001) fourth from left, back row, in August 1945 photograph.

Christmas card from General Patton

More printed news from the front here

CAUTION: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION BELOW

(More about the Ohrdruf concentration camp, a subcamp of Buchenwald; and the US Defense Dept film the Army took when they visited eight or so camps--this film also includes a visit to Ohrdruf : www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/cc/ccamps-us.htm