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Veterans History Project Service Summary:

  • War or Conflict: World War, 1939-1945
  • Branch of Service: Army
  • Unit of Service: Assistant G-2, 80th Infantry Division; S-2, 317th Infantry Regiment, 80th Infantry Division
  • Location of Service: Pacific; Hawaii; Arizona; Kansas; Maryland; England; France; Germany; Czechoslovakia
  • Highest Rank: Captain
  • Collection Number: AFC/2001/001/1989

View full service history

"My feeling was to get those ovens shut down." (Audio Interview, 31:18)

Robert Walker was in Pearl Harbor shortly after the Japanese attack and landed on Normandy shortly after D-Day. What he didn't miss, however, was the discovery by Allied troops of Buchenwald's concentration camp. The German guards had left only minutes before his arrival, but he saw evidence of torture, corpses stacked in piles, and the camp's crematorium going full blast, with workers still loading bodies. He fired his pistol into the floor to get the workers' attention; almost sixty years later when he visited the camp site, the hole in the floor was still there. The citizens of the nearby town of Weimar claimed they knew about the camp, but Walker found them disingenuous. (Note: The transcript for Walker's interview covers only the first half; the material about Buchenwald is in the second half.)

Robert M. Walker Collection
Interview / Recording

Transcript

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Robert M. Walker Collection
Interview / Recording

Transcript

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About this Item

Title

  • Robert M. Walker Collection

Names

  • Story Books
  • Robinson, Mary Jane
  • Walker, Robert M.

Home State

  • Indiana

Headings

  • -  Walker, Robert M.
  • -  World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal Narratives
  • -  United States. Army.

Repository

  • Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Gender

  • Male

Status

  • veteran

Service History

  • World War, 1939-1945

    • Branch of Service: Army
    • Unit of Service: Assistant G-2, 80th Infantry Division; S-2, 317th Infantry Regiment, 80th Infantry Division
    • Location of Service: Pacific; Hawaii; Arizona; Kansas; Maryland; England; France; Germany; Czechoslovakia
    • Highest Rank: Captain
    • Dates of Service: 1940-1946
    • Military Status: veteran
    • Service History Note: The veteran served in Hawaii for 8.5 half months as enlisted and went to officer's school and became a Second Lieutenant. Walker included the following note on his biographical form: "Captured Nuensnwanstein Castle in Fussen, Bavaria (single-handed) and notified fine arts of 3rd Army that the entire looted statuary of the Louvre, Paris, was intact. Shut down ovens at Buchenwald outside of Weimar, Germany. Captured Heinkel-Troken Champagne Fabricen in Wiesbaden, German. 4,500,000 bottles in various states 'Alles fur Weirmach.'"

Materials

  • Audio: Audio Cassette [1 item] -- Oral history interview (collected 2002-07-19)
  • Computer File: Floppy Disk [1 item] -- Electronic file of manuscript (collected 2002-07-19; 2004-11-22)
  • Manuscript: Transcript [1 item] -- Transcription of audio recording (collected 2002-07-19)
  • Audio: Audio Cassette [2 items] -- Oral history interview (collected 2002-07-19)
  • Audio: Audio Cassette [2 items] -- Reference copy (collected 2002-07-19)

Collection Number

  • AFC/2001/001/1989

Cite as

  • Robert M. Walker Collection (AFC/2001/001/1989), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Online Format

  • audio
  • online text

Additional Metadata Formats

Rights & Access

Using VHP Material in Publication or Exhibition

The Veterans History Project (VHP) at the Library of Congress collects, preserves and makes accessible the firsthand recollections of U.S. military veterans who served from World War I through more recent conflicts and peacekeeping missions, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand what they saw, did and felt during their service. The Veterans History Project Collection includes oral histories along with documentary materials such as original letters, diaries, photographs, and memoirs.

Veterans and interviewers contribute these materials to the Library for scholarly and educational purposes, retaining any copyright they may hold. Therefore, permission must be obtained before using the interview or other materials in exhibition or publication. Researchers or others who would like to make further use of these materials should contact the Veterans History Project for assistance.

As a publicly supported institution, the Library generally does not own rights to material in its collections. Therefore, it does not charge permission fees for use of such material and cannot give or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item from the Library’s collections and for securing any necessary permissions rests with persons desiring to use the item.

Please contact us with questions.

Obtaining Copies of VHP Materials

In order for VHP materials to be duplicated, we must receive written permission from the interviewee for you to obtain a copy of the recording unless the proposed use is limited to personal use, research, or other uses permissible by copyright law. If the interviewee is deceased, their next-of-kin may grant written permission.

Please contact VHP for assistance if you need to contact a veteran for permission to use their materials in exhibition or publication, or if you have received permission from the veteran and need access to high-resolution copies of VHP collection materials.

Citing VHP Materials

Please use the following formats when citing Veterans History Project materials (substituting the appropriate name and collection ID number).

Materials as a whole:

  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Manuscript material:

  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Memoirs (MS02), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Transcript (MS04), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Correspondence (MS01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Recording:

  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Audio recording (SR01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Video recording (MV01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Photograph:

  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Photographs (PH01), photographer unknown, Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Photographs (PH03-PH14), Ralph Williams photographer, Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Computer file:

  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Computer file (CF01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Artifact:

  • John P. Snodgrass (AFC 2001/001/[VHP collection]), Artifact (AR01), Veterans History Project Collection, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Story Books, Mary Jane Robinson, and Robert M Walker. Robert M. Walker Collection. 1940. Personal Narrative. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.01989/.

APA citation style:

Story Books, Robinson, M. J. & Walker, R. M. (1940) Robert M. Walker Collection. [Personal Narrative] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.01989/.

MLA citation style:

Story Books, Mary Jane Robinson, and Robert M Walker. Robert M. Walker Collection. 1940. Personal Narrative. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.01989/>.