Andrew Roth (left) reunited with Jack Moran in Los Angeles, 80 years after Moran helped liberate Buchenwald. Photo / the Washington Post
Jack Moran entered Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945. Immediately, he said, he was overcome by what he saw.
An American soldier, Moran was there to help liberate more than 21,000 people, most of them Jews, who had been imprisoned there for months or even years.
Moran, then 19, saw emaciated prisoners barely clinging to life.
“They treated them like cattle,” he said. “They were malnourished; they needed medical attention.”
Among the prisoners was Andrew Roth, a Jewish Hungarian teenager who had survived several concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Roth, 97, remembers the day he was liberated from Buchenwald with complete clarity.
“It was unbelievable,” he said.
Recently, 80 years after the men first crossed paths, their lives intersected once again – though this time in Los Angeles, in the United States where they both live.
Their reunion was arranged by the USC Shoah Foundation, with the goal of bringing together a survivor and a liberator whose lives converged amid the horrors of the war.
Organisations like the USC Shoah Foundation are racing against time to acquire as many first-hand accounts as possible.
“We are at this tipping point where the history could be lost, or it could remain relevant for future generations,” said Robert Williams, chief executive officer of the USC Shoah Foundation.
“I knew we were at a moment where both the liberators and the survivors were passing very quickly.”
For Williams, the reunion between Roth and Moran felt urgent. Williams’ own great-uncle, Cliff, was also a Buchenwald liberator.
“No one who was touched by the Holocaust walks away unchanged,” he said. “This is a subject that shaped the present world, and we need to remember it.”
Williams arranged for Roth and Moran to meet on June 5. He knew their conversation – which was recorded – would be meaningful to both of them, as well as those who listened to it.
“We’ve seen how powerful it has been in the past when survivors and liberators had the chance to meet one another and share their common bond,” he said.
Indeed, although Moran and Roth had entirely different experiences during World War II, they felt an immediate kinship and connection.
“We felt like brothers,” said Moran, who is 99.
“I don’t cry easily,” Roth said, “but my eyes welled up when I saw him.”
Both men recounted their stories.
Roth was born in Penészlek – a small village in Hungary – in September 1927, to an orthodox Jewish family. He had five siblings, only one of whom survived the Holocaust.
The Nazis deported Roth and his family to a ghetto in Romania in 1944, and not long afterwards, they were sent in a cattle car to the Auschwitz death camp.
“After what seemed like an eternity, the train stopped,” Roth recalled. “It was full of people, many of them were dead already.”
When Roth arrived at the camp, he lied about his age, claiming he was 18 (he was 16), making him eligible to work.
Guards were separating people into two lines, and while his mother and siblings went in one line, Roth followed his uncle and cousin to the other.
“It was my instinct,” said Roth, who received a numbered tattoo on his left arm by the Nazis, as part of their system to track and manage prisoners at Auschwitz.
His family was murdered in a gas chamber that same day.
Roth was transported to a forced labour camp, Buna, a sub-camp of Auschwitz.
He remained there for about nine months, until he was moved to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Roth remained there for about three months until he was liberated.
“It was hell on earth. We had no blankets, no mattresses, no heat,” Roth said. “You had to be very resourceful to survive.”
He remembers starving.
“I stole food from the German Shepherds and the garbage can,” Roth said. “I didn’t mind climbing over a fence, even if I was electrified. I did what I had to do.”
Writer Elie Wiesel was in Roth’s block at Buchenwald, and after the war, he went on to write Night, a memoir based on his survival story.
“We had similar experiences, so when I read his book, I read my story,” Roth said. “All the survivors, we felt like we were brothers.”
Before they were liberated, Roth said, they were not given food for 40 days.
“The only thing I ate in those 40 days was dog food,” he said.
When US soldiers, including Moran, arrived to free him, “it was a sign from heaven”, Roth said. “I couldn’t believe it could happen.”
Since that day, Roth has celebrated his birthday on April 11.
“I was born again,” said Roth, who worked for the Hungarian Embassy in Paris after the war, and later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for another Holocaust survivor who owned a carpet business.
He went on to start his own carpet business, and he continues to be a real estate investor. He has two children and two grandchildren.
For Moran, who was born in Superior, Wisconsin in 1925, April 11, 1945 was also a momentous day.
“It was a miracle,” he said. “It felt good comforting these people, giving them some of our rations.”
Moran was 17 when he enlisted in the army, and he was deployed to the battlefields of Western Europe in 1944. During his first battle in the Saar Valley, he lost his four best friends.
“It was very sad … people were dropping like flies,” he said. “I had seen so many kids fallen. We took it as a product of war and kept going. We had no choice.”
During the Battle of the Bulge – the final major German offensive on the Western Front – Moran was stuck in a frozen foxhole for six days.
“We had no food after the third day, and the snow was our water because we had no water,” Moran said. “I was scared to death, freezing. There were dead bodies around us but we couldn’t move, we had to live with them.”
While in Nazi-occupied Europe, Moran said he saw many signs of the Holocaust.
“I remember opening up the doors of several boxcars, and there would be hundreds of suitcases,” he said. “The owners never got to see their suitcases again.”
“It’s tragic that someone had the power to do that to the human race,” Moran added.
Of the 33 men in his platoon, Moran said, only two returned to the US alive.
Moran moved to Milwaukee after the war, then settled in Los Angeles, where he worked for a brewing company. He has three children, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
“It was just an absolute miracle that I survived,” said Moran, who, for the last 20 years, has spent his time connecting with the families of lost soldiers. “That gives me great joy … to give them comfort.”
It also gave him joy to meet Roth, who he now considers “a good new friend”.
“He and I hugged and shared our good thoughts,” Moran said. “He thanked me for liberating the camp, and I was congratulating him on being able to survive.”
Their reunion was a powerful reminder of all that was lost – and saved.
“I’m grateful to people like Jack, who took the trouble to fight for us,” Roth said. “It was very brave of them.”