Robert Edsel's Blog

Left to Right: Generals Bradley, Patton, and Eisenhower (Photo Courtesy of National Archives)

Having heard about the extraordinary discovery of most all of Nazi Germany’s gold reserves and paper currency, along with its vast cultural wealth from Berlin’s greatest museums and libraries, in a salt mine in Merkers, Germany, Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley left SHAEF headquarters in Rheims, France and made a several day visit to see it firsthand.  As the Monuments Men, led by George Stout, were urgently crating the works of art for removal from the mine, the generals descended in a rickety elevator manned by a lone German operator.

Their sense of disconnection was palpable:  billions of dollars (in today’s currency) of gold bars and bagged coins sat stacked in one chamber adjacent to some of the world’s greatest works of art. Chests filled with gold fillings pulled from the mouths of murdered victims of the Nazi genocide sat idle, not yet smelted into bars to sit atop the Reichsbank horde.  Suitcases of silverware, another reminder of property stolen along with the lives of the owners, lined several walls.

General Eisenhower at Ohrdruf Concentration Camp (Photo Courtesy of National Archives)

Later that afternoon, the generals visited Ohrdruf, the first Nazi work camp liberated by American forces. Strewn before them were the corpses of the dead and emancipated figures of those near death.  General Patton, old “Blood and Guts”, had to lean against the side of one of the bunkhouse sheds as he was sick to his stomach from the horrors and stench of what he was witnessing.

President Franklin Roosevelt attending Yalta Conference in February 1945, less than 2 months before he died. (Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

After dinner, as the generals returned to their respective tents, General Patton overheard on the BBC the announcement of President Roosevelt’s death earlier that day.  At age 63, 12 years into his presidency, having led the nation through its most perilous fiscal crisis and a world war, Roosevelt was gone. He did not live to see the fruits of his leadership – victory – which would follow 26 days later in Europe, and 125 days later in Japan.

April 12:  a day that had momentous implications for our nation, the world, and the Monuments Men.  (For a more detailed account of this story, please read The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History).

Elliott Dlin, the longtime director of Dallas’ Holocaust Museum. (Photo Courtesy of Dallas Morning News)

Everyone who has accomplished anything of importance has benefited by a key break from someone else.  Perhaps it was the opening of a door to see someone otherwise unavailable, or help with solving a seemingly irresolvable problem.  Oftentimes it’s something as simple as receiving an encouraging word.  This has certainly been true for the Monuments Men Foundation!

One of the people who played an important role in our work and was a constant supporter of mine was Elliot Dlin, an instrumental figure in the Jewish community and longtime director of the Dallas Holocaust Museum.  This week, Elliot died at the far too young age of 57.

I met Elliot at a booksigning for my first book, Rescuing Da Vinci, in 2006.  This large man, who possessed the charming and genuine smile of a happy boy, came bounding up to me, bypassing the line of people in the most kind and enthusiastic of ways, and said….”I’m Elliot Dlin and I can’t wait to show you some of the documents and letters your work has brought to mind!!!” His passion and and energy for not only his work, but LIFE, were hallmarks of his engaging personality.

Over the next three years I saw Elliot 3-4 times per year, sometimes at events, and on other occasions when I visited the Dallas Holocaust Museum.  Each time he would greet me with his warm smile and tell me how happy he was to see me – and I always knew he meant it.  This fine man and dedicated public servant followed our work closely and took time to relay his pride in our achievements.  He was a giver, a sharer, someone who wanted those around him to succeed.

In late 2006 Elliot contacted me, even before the Foundation was officially formed, to seek my assistance with several calls he had received from someone who claimed to have important Nazi documents.  Elliot selflessly turned this over to the Foundation to handle.  Over the course of the following year the Foundation not only determined the importance of the discovery, but ultimately acquired and then donated these documents to the National Archives.  It was a great success for the Foundation and the Dallas Holocaust Museum, and a significant benefit for our nation. No one was more pleased than Elliot and appropriately so:  but for his call to us, we might never have known about the lead.

We mourn the loss of this good man and extend to his family, and all those who knew and loved him, our most sincere condolences.

Elliot Dlin at the 2008 Hope for Humanities Dinner and Award Banquet. (Photo Courtesy of Dallas Holocaust Museum)

65th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland. On January 17, 1945, the Nazis evacuated the camp, forcing some 60,000 prisoners on a death march to the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany. On January 27, Soviet troops liberated the 7,500 prisoners who were left at Auschwitz because they were too weak.

Poland is marking the anniversary today with ceremonies and mass at Auschwitz, as well as the Third International Holocaust Forum. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek will address the forum, and video messages are expected from US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. 200 European Union dignitaries, Holocaust survivors, including 100 who were imprisoned at Auschwitz, and students will attend. Let us all take a few moments today to remember the victims of Nazi persecution. I found this short video clip on YouTube particularly moving.

Auschwitz haunts Soviet veteran (Click Link to Play Video)

Today there is a great seminar of experts and interested parties discussing how we can make continued improvements to our efforts to complete the mission of the Monuments Men as to objects stolen during World War II as well as the steps needed for the United States to do a better job in the protection of cultural property during future conflict.  I spoke at this conference last year and was honored to be asked to speak again.  Now, as then, scholars, students, and other interested parties have come together with a common commitment to protect and preserve the cultural heritage belonging to all of us.

I’ll have more to add about this critically important event in the days ahead.

In the course of research for my new book, The Monuments Men, and while filming The Rape of Europa, I had a chance to get to know the country of Poland and its remarkable people. During the period we were filming in both Cracow and Warsaw, I took a couple of days off to visit some other sites, in particular Auschwitz…the ghastly site of the concentration camps where millions of Jews and other victims of Hitler’s “final solution” were murdered.

When visiting such places, I go with a mind full of images and stories I have seen and heard, eager to merge them with the physical experience of being there. No matter how many images a person sees of Warsaw and the devastation it experienced as a consequence of World War II, it doesn’t really take hold until you walk the streets of the city, look into people’s eyes (especially those of the children), and see the great attractions which illuminate so well the history of the city and its citizens. This was my experience in Warsaw, a beautiful city today but one that looked like the pock-marked surface of the moon after the Nazis lade waste to it as they fled. You can’t believe the city is the same place.

One image that spoke volumes about how determined the Nazis were to destroy not just the Polish people’s lives and property but also the very soul of the nation and its values concerns the statue of the great music composer Frederic Chopin. This remarkable sculpture was unveiled in Lazienki Park in 1926. During summer, piano recitals are held at the foot of the monument. Note its scale by focusing on the people sitting on the bench to the left in the photo below. This is how it appears to visitors today.

The bronze monument to Poland's greatest musician, Frederic Chopin, was designed by Waclaw Symanowski and erected in Warsaw in 1910.

However, in 1941, a little more than a year after the Nazi invasion of Poland, the statue was dissected by the Nazis and placed on a flatbed railcar for transport to a smelter. This was but just one of enumerable acts by Hitler and the Nazis to destroy the most treasured cultural icons of each conquered city. In Russia notable such examples were the homes of the great poet Pushkin, and the remarkable composer Peter Tchaikovsky

Fryderck Chopin Monument cut up on rail car. (Photo Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administratiion.)

When I boarded the plane to depart Poland, I couldn’t help but admire so deeply the courage and fortitude of the Polish people. The Poles were the first victims of the Nazi invasion on this day 70 years ago. By war’s end more than 6 million Poles had died. Nazi Concentration camps had been built throughout the country at which millions of innocent people were murdered. The list of horrifying events that took place during World War II seems endless. Yet through it all, the Polish people found the will not just to survive, but to flourish. Their determination to rebuild their great cities and society as it was before the war is a living testament to the pride they have for the great history of Poland, and their courage and determination to triumph.