Next to the Dachau Death March memorial.
Monument
A cut field stone with an engraved plaque attached to the front.
The memorial remembers the assistance the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion rendered to the survivors of the Dachau Concentration Camp Death March survivors on May 2, 1945 near Waakirchen, Germany. The 522nd Field Artillery Battalion was a Japanese-American unit that fought along side the 442nd Regimental Combat Team throughout the war.
From the Nisei Veterans Legacy Website:
The 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, comprised of about 650 Americans of Japanese Ancestry (AJAs) from Hawaii and the mainland, earned its place in history as liberators of one of the Nazi's Dachau death camps and the Dachau Death March in the final days of World War II.
The 522nd initially fought alongside the 442nd in Italy and France in an effort to liberate Western Europe from German control. They participated in all the battles from Anzio north to the Arno River line, then France, including the deadly battles in the Vosges Mountains and rescue of the Lost Battalion of the Texas 36th Infantry Division. But in March 1945, when the 442nd infantry was returned for the final breakthrough in northern Italy, the 522nd was sent to become a “roving” battalion to help other units in the attack into the German heartland. The 522nd became the only Nisei unit to fight in Germany, supporting seven different army units in 52 assignments. They traveled over 1,100 miles through 40 towns in 60 days, chasing Germans from the Saar and Rhine River to the Austrian border.
Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler had already ordered the march of prisoners from other slave labor camps in the Dachau complex toward the Austrian border, away from advancing Allied armies. History has termed this the “Dachau Death March.” Many Jewish marchers looked like skeletons, weighing less than 80 pounds and shivering from the cold. If they stopped, guards shot them and left their corpses along the road. On May 2, 1945, soldiers from the 522nd scouting ahead near Waakirchen saw an open field with several hundred “lumps in the snow,” which turned out to be prisoners who had been shot or left to die from exposure. Then the 522nd encountered hundreds of emaciated prisoners who were barely alive and roaming aimlessly across the countryside, their Nazi guards having abandoned them to flee the approaching 522nd soldiers. For the next three days, the Nisei carried the survivors into houses and barns, giving them blankets, water and food until medical personnel arrived.
The soldiers left Waakirchen on May 4, and subsequently became part of the Army of Occupation in southern Germany.
Source: https://www.nvlchawaii.org/522-liberates-dachau-prisoners/
Symbols of the 442nd Infantry Regiment and the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion
IN HONOR AND REMEMBERANCE
522ND FIELD ARTILLERY BATTALION
ON MAY 2, 1945, THE JAPANESE AMERICAN (NISEI) SOLDIERS OF THE 522ND FIELD ARTILLERY BATTALION
LIBERATED THOUSANDS OF PRISONERS ON THE NAZI DEATH MARCH FROM THE DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP, ENDING THEIR SUFFERING AND REVEALING THE HORRORS OF THE HOLOCAUST.
THIS LIBERATION IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF THE NISEI SOLDIERS DOING THEIR DUTY FOR THEIR U.S. HOMELAND, DESPITE HAVING MANY OF THEIR OWN FAMILIES BEING UNJUSTLY INCARCERATED IN U.S. INTERNMENT CAMPS.
THEIR ACTIONS, AMIDST PERSONAL INJUSTICE AND PREJUDICE, ARE A POWERFUL TESTAMENT TO THEIR UNWAVERING COURAGE, LOYALTY, AND PROFOUND SACRIFICE.
MAY THEIR DEEDS BE FOREVER REMEMBERED AND HONORED.
"YOU FOUGHT NOT ONLY THE ENEMY, BUT YOU FOUGHT PREJUDICE - AND YOU HAVE WON."
PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN, 33RD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
