"Graves at Gunskirchen"
Extent and Medium
folder
1
Creator(s)
- David L. Ichelson
Biographical History
David Leon Ichelson (1921-2008) was born on 12 October 1921 in San Francisco, California to Maury and Selene Ichelson. He serived with the 71st Infantry Division and was a witness to the liberation of Gunskirchen, a subcamp of Mauthausen.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
David Ichelson donated the Graves at Gunskirchen to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in December 1987.
Scope and Content
Consists of "The Graves at Gunskirchen" by David Ichelson, a United States Army soldier who served with the 71st Infantry Division, documenting his eyewitness account of the conditions of the Gunskirchen concentration camp three days after abandonment by SS troops in May 1945. The testimony describes the severity of starvation among the camp inmates, the number of dead at the time the 71st Infantry Division entered the camp, and the mass burial of Gunskirchen victims at the direction of American troops. Ichelson also describes his thoughts and feelings during a return visit to the camp site 23 years later.
System of Arrangement
The collection is arranged as a single series.
People
- Ichelson, David Leon, 1921-2008.
Corporate Bodies
- Gunskirchen (Concentration camp)
- United States. Army. Infantry Division, 71st
Subjects
- Linz (Austria)
- Jews--Hungary.
- Prisoners of war.
- Jews--United States.
- Austria.
- World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation.
Genre
- Document
- Personal narratives.