Când viața bate filmul

Holocaust Survivor Has an Emotional Reunion 70 Years Later With the American Soldier Who Freed Him

Daniel Gillespie was among the American soldiers who liberated the Jews being held at the Dachau concentration camp near Munich, Germany, during World War II.

When Nazi concentration camp survivor Joshua Kaufman and Gillespie reunited recently, the touching moment was captured in a series of extraordinary images.

Upon meeting, the two men immediately saluted one another. Then, the 87 year old Kaufman appears to be overcome with emotion…

Image credit: History Channel (Germany)

…and does this:

Image credit: History Channel (Germany)

He told Gillespie:

“I have wanted to do this for 70 years. I love you. I love you so much.”

It was a show of the tremendous depth of his gratitude.

Kaufman revealed that when the soldiers arrived, the guards quickly confined him and others to the barracks. He knew it meant that most of them were likely to be put to death.

The prisoners hid in the latrines, waiting in fear to learn the source of the boots they heard coming. The revelation that they belonged to their rescuers created an almost indescribable joy within Kaufman:

“Then I saw the white flag flying from the watchtower and I realized then that the torture was at an end. When the Americans smashed in the door, my heart did somersaults.”

As a young soldier, Gillespie, now 89, was horrified by what he witnessed at the camp. The first person he saw looked like “a walking corpse.” His name was Joshua Kaufman. Gillespie explained:

“It was the most profound shock of my life. It’s liberation changed my life forever.

We could not understand it. I grew up in California where we had everything in abundance. We didn’t get how people could let other people starve. They murdered them or just let them die. Again and again the questions moved through my head. And at the same time I was just incredibly angry.”

Almost seventy years later, the two men ended up living only an hour away from one another, but never knew it until their recent reunion.