Abraham Klausner - Holocaust

Holocaust

Lieutenant Klausner (he would later be promoted to captain) was one of the first Jewish chaplains in the U.S. Army to enter the Dachau concentration camp after it was liberated in May 1945 with the 116th Evacuation Hospital. He spent several weeks with the 116th while they were stationed at Dachau. He buried Holocaust victims that could not be saved after liberation and traveled throughout Bavaria looking for survivors. When the 116th was ordered to move on to an Army rest camp Klausner initially went with them but surreptitiously returned to Dachau against Army orders and told the commander of the 127th Evacuation Hospital unit at Dachau that he had been reassigned. Eventually the 127th would depart Dachau on a day that Klausner was traveling around Bavaria, leaving Klausner's duffel bag on the floor of an empty room.

Klausner wrote letters of protest about conditions in the camp and sent them up the chain of command and to major Jewish organisations in the United States. He listed every survivor at Dachau and made sure the list was posted at other camps. Klausner collected and published lists of Holocaust survivors in volumes called Sharit ha-Platah (Surviving Remnant).

Klausner established a centre in Munich to assist survivors. He conducted funeral rites for the dying and saw to their spiritual needs.

He later wrote a book on the survivors of the Holocaust, including those from the camp at Dachau called "A Letter to My Children, From the Edge of the Holocaust." He also was featured in an Academy Award–winning documentary, The Long Way Home, in 1997.