It has been my honor to interview a few World War II veterans and if I get the opportunity I will be greatly honored to interview more. These posts will be updated versions of articles that previously appeared in the Dunwoody Crier newspaper.
Twin brothers Howard and Hilbert Margol at Syracuse University.
World War II veteran and Dachau liberator Hilbert Margol shared his experiences with me in February of 2021. It was an honor to meet Hilbert Margol, World War II veteran who has lived in Dunwoody since 1984, thanks to a Zoom call arranged by Jan Slimming and the Churchill Society-Atlanta Chapter. He shared with the group the story of how he and his brother came to be at Dachau on April 29, 1945-liberation day.
Twins Hilbert and Howard Margol were born in 1924 in Jacksonville, Florida. The boys began college at the University of Florida in 1942 just ten days after they graduated from high school. They joined the ROTC horse drawn artillery and began training as gunners on 105 mm Howitzers. Hilbert remembers, “The Howitzers were real, the horses were real, but the rifles were made out of wood.”
Later in 1942, the ROTC students were told they would probably be able to finish college if they joined the army reserve. However, a few months later they were called up to active duty and reported to Camp Blanding, Florida.
Next came thirteen weeks of basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Officers training was offered to the brothers, or army specialized training at a college. They chose specialized training which took them to The Citadel, Syracuse University, and the University of Illinois.
Hilbert Margol says next the army decided there were too many healthy young men in college. Howard was sent to the Mojave Desert in California and Hilbert went to Camp Gruber in Oklahoma. This is the first time the brothers were separated.
Howard and Hilbert’s mother, Sarah Margol, wanted her sons to be reunited. She wrote a letter to President Roosevelt asking that her sons serve together. The first reply to her letter, dated June 12, 1944 was signed by Major General Edwin Watson and closed with the following. “To you a two-star-mother the President sends friendly greetings and all good wishes.” Following two additional responses, one from the War Department and one from 104th Division headquarters, Hilbert and Howard were reunited.
In December of 1944, Hilbert and Howard, both part of the 42nd Infantry boarded a troop train, which took them across Canada, through New York and on to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. They boarded a ship and arrived in Marseilles, France in early January 1945.
The division went into active combat at the village of Wingen-Sur-Moder, France. They were in support of the 222nd regiment. The Germans dug in on one side of the Moder River while the 42nd, Rainbow Division, dug in on the other. At the break of dawn, they heard shells flying overhead. Hilbert remembers how the men learned the direction of the shells based on the sound.
A memorable day for Hilbert was March 23, 1945, when a special Passover Seder was arranged for the 42nd division in Dahn, Germany.
From Dahn, the 42nd traveled to Wurzburg, Schweinfurt, and Furth, a suburb of Nuremberg. At Furth, Howard entered a captured German airbase. Hilbert shares a memory of his brother at Furth. “Howard went into one of the buildings, saw a stack a white silk parachutes, took out his bayonet, cut off a large piece of one of the parachutes and made himself a neck scarf, then went back to his gun.” Hilbert was unhappy that Howard did not make him a scarf.
Hilbert recalls how April 29, 1945 began. “It was early on a Sunday morning, a two-lane country road, a cool day.” The orders were to pull off on the right side of the road. The men set up their four Howitzers and proceeded firing projectiles toward Munich, which was eight to ten miles south.
The brothers noticed an unusual strong odor. Their gun sergeant gave them permission to go through the woods to determine the source of the odor. Past the woods were boxcars along a railroad line that were filled with dead bodies. They were at Dachau Concentration Camp. Thirty thousand prisoners were within the camp, but the brothers only saw three or four sitting outside. A few of the men from the 222nd were walking around.
The prisoners in the boxcars were transported from the Buchenwald Camp to Dachau because the American army was getting close. Two thousand five hundred prisoners were packed in the cars with raw potatoes, a loaf of bread, and only one porcelain pot for a bathroom. The trip to Dachau took twenty days.
One side of the camp was for German soldiers and the other was a prison camp with a gas chamber and crematorium. The previous day, Swiss Red Cross representative Victor Maurer arrived with provisions. He informed the SS general in charge that the American army was close, and their choice would be stay and fight or leave. They left.
Howard and Hilbert had a Brownie camera they had picked up but no additional film. They took two photos of the boxcars and these photos are now held at the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The official surrender of Dachau took place on April 29, 1945 at 2:30 p.m. At 4:30 pm that same day, one tank crew of the 20th Armored Division, halfway to Munich, received orders to turn around and go to Dachau. They had an official camera and film.
Howard Margol died February 9, 2017. In 2015, Hilbert attended the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. There he met some former prisoners and liberators.
Hilbert Margol celebrated his 97th birthday on February 22nd. He and wife Betty Ann have been married for 72 years.
His interview with the Atlanta History Center can be found here.
Howard Margol wears the scarf he made from a white silk parachute.
Hilbert Margol with his photograph on display at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D. C.