Captured On Film
or decades, Bob Hartwig kept
quiet about his experiences as a
death-camp liberator. The
Grayling resident felt he didn't
need to talk about it. Besides,
much of what he saw was
recorded by his camera.
"I kept my mouth shut," he
said. "I put it away and forgot about
it until I heard people say the Holo-
caust never happened. I thought,
Hartwig, I guess you owe them some-
thing. Now I speak at all kinds of
things. I feel it's my job to talk. It's important
we bring to light the fact that it happened."
Mr. Hartwig, a member of the 12th Armored
Division, was near Landsburg when a captain
from his division arrived at the extermination
camp ahead of the rest of the unit. Upon his
return, he told Mr. Hartwig to "get your cam-
era and get in this jeep."
The 26-year-old photographer began pho-
tographing everything and any-
Americans
thing
inside the camp.
speak with the
"I
had been in the Army and
only surviving
prisoner of
around death a lot of times," he
Landsburg who
said. "I was used to seeing dead
wasn't put on a
train to Dachau. German and American soldiers.
But this was different."
His photos show the differ-
ence. Many are gruesome, revealing the cruel
realities of the Holocaust. Some pictures show
piles of naked bodies. Other shots capture sol-
diers carrying the dead to be buried.
Mr. Hartwig tried to capture everything he
could with his camera. When he ran out of
35mm film, he used X-ray film. Today, his neg-
atives are kept in a safety-deposit box. Copies
appear in textbooks and museums, including
the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington.
Recently, a survivor of Landsburg, who is
now a resident of Sacramento, wanted des-
perately to meet with one of his liberators; he ,c1)
CO
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