Doug Collins @ get this straight ® STORIES ABOUT war crimes usually cause me to turn the page. Not that such things don’t matter. There were the 600 men, women and children herded into a church in France and burned to death; and the men of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, who were murdered in cold blood. in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich the Nazi. What makes me turn the page, though, is that although we are now in the fifth decade since the war, war crimes are still an in- dustry. German war crimes, that is. We hear less about the Japanese sort, and nothing at all about what our side did. although Col. Buechner’s book was published last year, few have heard of it and it is one war story that Hollywood won't be featuring. Col. Buechner is not some loon roaming the reaches of fantasy. In 1945 he was a 26-year-old medical Tater arco] 346 were lined up against o a wall and machine- gusned. A further 122 were ‘shot on the spot.’’’ You would not know, for | in- stance, that ou April 29, 1945, the Americans who freed Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria -murdered 560 German SS guards. 1 didn’t either until reading Dachau: The Hour Of The Avenger, by Col. Howard A. Buechner, Of that total, 346 were lined up against a wall and machine- gunned. A further 122 were ‘‘shot on the spot”, Another 40 were turned over to camp inmates, who tore them apart in gruesome ways. And so on. . The camp commander, Lt. Heinrich Skodzensky, was also gunned down after surrendering. He had only recently been transferred to Dachau from the . Russian front, so was not respon- sible for the wretched conditions in the camp. Astoundingly, this atrocity re- mained a secret for over 40 years, and is still being covered up. For ” officer with the Third Battalion, 1S7th. Regiment. He was among the first to enter Dachau, and much of the ensuing slaughter took place almost under his nose. He kept a diary, and has provided an hour-by-hour account of what happened that day. Plus photographs. The cover-up began immediate- ly. Court-martial proceedings were initiated against the perpetrators, and the man who machine-gunned the 346 in one group — Lt. Jack Bushyhead, now deceased — was brought before General George Patton for questioning. Then, as Col. Buechner puts it: “Patton ordered every officer who had participated in the in- vestigation to report to his office. He also demanded that they bring every document and photograph which they had collected. “He then asked if they had placed every scrap of evidence in _ BIG SAVINGS uest ‘Kyolic’ Speci Freeze Dried Garlic Products ‘Completely Odourless!! * ALL PRODUCTS ON SALE x “yeast free —~ with lecithin, leopin, “. kyolic extract — only | while inventory > lasts! his hands. When assured that nothing had been withheld, he dumped all the papers into a metal wastebasket, asked for a cigarette lighter and personally applied the flame to the documents. “The charges against Lt. Bushyhead had been dismissed. But, of greater importance, with this act the written records of the executions at Dachau were stricken forever from the annits of military history...’’. The author is a physician of note. He is a former professor of medicine at Louisiana State University and has written over 200 medical text books and scien- tific articles. His lips remained sealed for 40 years, but in the end he had to tell his story. Why didn’t he stop the killing? There were several reasons, one of which, he says, was that if he had tried to do so he might have been shot himself. Some will make capital out of this crime by claiming that our side was no better than the other. Which is not true. What is true, however, is that Americar. troops could be trigger-happy. In explaining the Dachau case, Col. Buechner emphasizes the scene that greeted his battalion: wagonloads of dead, sick and dy- ing inmates. But that doesn’t ex- cuse murder. Similarly awful scenes greeted the British when Bergen-Belsen was liberated. Discipline prevailed, though. This story does not call for smugness. If it calls for anything, it calls for an end to the one-sided, late-date war criminal witch hunt. Dachau costs $13 (U.S.) and is j available from Thunderbird Press, 300 Cuddihy Dr., Metairie, LA. 70005, USA. 9 - Wednesday, November 4, 1987 - North Shore News 984-DPESK Catheart Office Furatiuvere & Stationery Jim Catheart 1827 Capilano * 984-DESK * (8875) "Charman VERTICAL BLINDS MINIS — MICROS PLEATED SHADES WOVEN WOODS DRAPERY AND UPHOLSTERY FABRICS — Choose from 1000's of designs & patterns SANDERSON, AFTEX ROBERT ALLEN NOTE: All our fabrics are current designs — pro- fessionally made and in- stalled. 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