Personal Narrative Manuscript/Mixed Material Software, E-Resource Audio Recording Robert M. Walker Collection
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
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