45th Signal Company DUI45th Signal Company45

LEFT: 45th Signal Company Distinctive unit insignia

Communications Support for the 45th Infantry Divison During the Liberation of Dachau

Signal Company
Click on photo for larger format

Some members of the 45th Signal Company
after the liberation of Dachau on occupation duty 16 miles away
at Furstenfeldbruck, Germany

The 45th Infantry Division combat units of Task Force Spark that were the co-liberators Dachau were supported by the service and support units of the 45th Infantry Division including the 45th Signal Company

On the day of liberation, April 29th, 1945  the 45th Signal Company was moving from Schrobenhausen about 39 miles (63 kilometers) by road north of Dachau to Haimhausen, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) by road northeast of Dachau.

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.Map

Map showing possible routes of the 45th Signal Company from  Schrobenhausen, northwest of Dachau to Haimhausen, northeast of Dachau on April 29, 1945.


The 45th Signal Company provided lateral communications support among the 45th ID's units.

After Liberation: The Battle of Munich

On April 30th, the day after liberation, the 45th Signal Company moved to Feldmoching, Munich, about 7 1/2 miles (12 kilometers) by road southeast of Dachau.

Photos and Newspaper
In the The 45th Signal Company Photo Album compiled and edited by Thomas R. McLeon of photos taken by Thomas R. McLeon, A.P. Clark, Gene Simonson, Frank Jardieu, William R. Potts, and Bill Smith.

Click on image for PDF with three pages from the The 45th Signal Company Photo Album with the eight Dachau photo
PDF Cover
The caption on the photo of the crematorium erroneously states that it also included a gas chamber.

Dachau was a concentration camp but not an extermination camp.

Postwar research found that those gas chambers may have been part of the SS poison gas research that was done in the camps.


Some inmates were killed in those gas chambers as part of those experiments.
  
Estimated 32,000 people murdered by the Nazis at Dachau were killed by other means such as firearms, hanging, beating, along with overwork, starvation, and medical neglect.

Felix A. Cizewski kept his copy of the Dachau liberation edtion of the 45th Division News.
Felix A. Cizewski found a photo of the the entrance to an SS training camp and garrison for Waffen-SS soldiers, located west of the concetration camp.

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Gate

Care for the Liberated Inmates While on Occupation Duty of Germany

The 45tth Signal Comapny was stationed on occupation duty at Furstenfeldbruck 16 miles southwest of the Dachau concentration camp from May until late July 15, 1945.

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Map


"Immediately after Dachau's liberation, U.S. Army authorities and other Allied representatives began treating the sick prisoners, implementing health and sanitary measures to curb the typhus epidemic, and bringing in tons of food to feed the starving prisoners." - U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Dachau became a center for the processing of both the 32,000 liberated main camp inmates and the inmates from the Dachau satellite network of 127 subcamps.

Very little documentation has been found with details of the care provided by members of the 45th to the liberated Dachau main and subcamp inmates.

What is known is that:

Soldiers of the 45th organized convoys to returned liberated main and subcamps to their homes.

Soldiers who could speak a language spoken the many languages of the liberated inmates used those skills to assist in the care of the liberated inmates.

What is unknown is if any  members of the 45th Signal Company were among those who assisted in the care

For example, at least 9,000 of the 32,000 liberated main camp inmates were Slavic Poles, 45th Signal Company member Felix A. Cizewski was Polish speaker.

As he nver spoke of his experiences at Dachau, we do not know if he translated for the Polish speaking liberated inmates.

How Serving at Concentration Camps Affected GIs

On June 5, 2009, as part of the observances of the 65th anniversary of D-Day, President Obama visited the concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany.

His remarks about his great-uncle may also describe how Felix was effected by what he witnessed at Dachau:

I've known about this place since I was a boy, hearing stories about my great uncle, who was a very young man serving in World War II.  He was part of the 89th Infantry Division, the first Americans to reach a concentration camp.  They liberated Ohrdruf, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps.

And I told this story, he returned from his service in a state of shock saying little and isolating himself for months on end from family and friends, alone with the painful memories that would not leave his head.  And as we see -- as we saw some of the images here, it's understandable that someone who witnessed what had taken place here would be in a state of shock.

For the rest of his life 45th Signal Company veteran Felix A. Cizewski suffered from what may possibly have some form of depression.

He may have been suffering from depression from before his WWII service.

But might the trauma of what he experienced at Dachau worsened and deepened his depression?


Personal Note:

Felix A. Cizewski was my late father.

He was born on April 8, 1918 and had turned 27 three weeks before arriving at Dachau.

Munich
Felix A. Cizewski lounging with a captured Nazi helmet in Englischer Garten in Munich


Sources:

In The Liberator, Alex Kershaw reports 9,082 of the surviving inmates were Slavic Polish. He does not specify the citizenship of the 2, 539 surviving Jewish inmates some of whom were also Polish citizens.

In Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944 author Richard C. Lukas reports as many as 8,900 Poles among the liberated survivors of Dachau.

Lukas sites as his source: Jan Domagala, Ci Ktorzy Przeszli Przeszli Przez Dachau (Duchowni w Dachau). Warsaw: Pax, 1957

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia's entry The 45th Infantry Division.
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All material not in the public domain c 2021 Leonard H. Cizewski
and c Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center

Minor Revision or Correction: December 29, 2021
Last Major Update:
Last Reviewed:
Posted: April 8, 2021

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