Jan. 13, 2012 at 6:28pm with 143 notes
Reblogged from raphaellaskies
queuetw: holocausttw: racismhistory

Now that “Red Tails” is coming out, a part of my family history

eshusplayground:

Only a couple of years ago, my mom told me that my grandfather was one of the Black GIs who liberated a concentration camp. I don’t recall when he shared this information with her, whether as a child or later as an adult, but I vividly remember how she said that he described the inmates as looking like skeletons. I don’t recall the name of the camp, and my grandfather is not in any condition to tell me more.

But I did do some research and found out about eyewitness accounts of Black soldiers being the first non-German faces that concentration camp survivors encountered (which is how they knew the soldiers weren’t Nazis). Unfortunately, I don’t have access to any military records for my grandfather, so I can’t find out which battalion he was a part of. However, it’s most likely that he was part of the Dachau or the Buchenwald liberation.

For a long time, I’ve been reluctant to share this with (White) people, as they tend to immediately deny that this could have happened, despite the fact that, oh, the survivors themselves say that it was Black soldiers who freed them and despite the fact that, oh, regardless of whatever valor or prowess Black soldiers demonstrated in WWII, “official channels” are not likely to record or preserve their deeds.

For all their bullshit about the Greatest Generation and all that, it’s really fucking sickening how little of that history is explored when it comes to Black soldiers, especially when considering how much they risked and sacrificed to fight for a country that hated the fact that they lived and were free.

  1. noonaifyounasty reblogged this from anygoddamnedcolleen
  2. storyofaquietgirl reblogged this from hamburgerjack
  3. deathofyourface reblogged this from sour-idealist
  4. sour-idealist reblogged this from raphaellaskies and added:
    Now that “Red Tails” is coming out, a part of my family history
  5. charcoalsobriquet reblogged this from holothuroid
  6. cooledskin reblogged this from vladislava
  7. vladislava reblogged this from wildunicornherd
  8. eshusplayground reblogged this from jedifreac and added:
    Feel free to start another thread about that. It’s not really appropriate to use this story from my family history to...
  9. jedifreac reblogged this from wildunicornherd and added:
    Japanese American troops also helped liberate camps. They were...the history books until...
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  11. raphaellaskies reblogged this from favoritezipper
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  15. anygoddamnedcolleen reblogged this from wildunicornherd
  16. wildunicornherd reblogged this from leonineantiheroine and added:
    :| never learned about this black people? erased from jewish history? well i never
  17. golden-mage reblogged this from littlelionheartedavatar and added:
    Estantia: How can people deny eyewitness…. that’s just…. freaking gragh.
  18. littlelionheartedavatar reblogged this from priestoftime