80 years ago, in the spring of 1945, US troops were in the final days of fighting against Nazi Germany in World War II. They stumbled across something they couldn't comprehend: bodies stacked like cordwood, emaciated prisoners, and blatant war crimes. These were concentration camps. And for these American service members, it was their first encounter with what we now call the Holocaust. Before he was president, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was commanding the Allied forces in Europe who were, in 1945, liberating camps. When he heard about what the soldiers were seeing, he and his top generals toured the grounds of Ohrdruf concentration camp and insisted that others come to witness for themselves. He demanded the world see what Nazi Germany had done to millions of innocent Jews and other so-called enemies of the state. Eisenhower understood human nature and that there would be some people who did not believe that this could happen. Thank you for watching. I am Rebecca Erbelding and I'm a historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I am joined today by Susan Eisenhower. She is the granddaughter of President Eisenhower and is an author, policy analyst, and historian. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Also joining me today is the Senior Historian at Arlington National Cemetery, Allison Finkelstein. Hi, Allison. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Thank you both for joining me. And thank you, everyone in the audience, for joining me. We are fortunate to have some great questions that have been submitted already by our audience and I will be sharing some throughout the conversation. So, Susan, let's start with you. By April 1945, American troops have made it through brutal years of fighting. They have fought through North Africa, they have fought through Italy, and now fighting through Western Europe after the D-Day invasion. And now they have finally made it to Germany. As Supreme Leader of the Allied Forces, Eisenhower was more than just a figurehead. He was well respected, he was admired by the people around him, and those—especially those who fought under him. How was his leadership style—how did it influence the people on the ground who were fighting the war? Well, I think Dwight Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander had a leadership style that was different than many of the other commanders. He really liked to get out into the field and to walk among the GIs and others who were fighting in the war. And of course, there's that very famous picture of him just before D-Day with the paratroopers. He's out actually talking to them about home, trying to instill in them optimism about their future. Because those poor guys were so frightened. They knew that their fate was really very unsettled. And that was the kind of thing that brought him so much support, not only for the decisions he had to make, but also for the troops. Yeah, he had to be frightened too before D-Day and was I think humble about what he was doing. Which... I don't think we're ever going to know whether he was frightened or not but he was certainly humbled by the overwhelming scale of this invasion. And if you think about it, it's the first time in military history that one person commanded army, navy, and air forces in a multinational coalition. And everything he was doing had never been done before. So that and a weather forecast that nobody agreed on, you know, was a pretty difficult set of circumstances. But he got a lot of spiritual substance from his GIs and the people he interacted with. Yeah, his decisions really mattered. I mean, this was a a really grueling war. And as the troops moved through Germany, they reached concentration camps—sites where Nazis had imprisoned Jews and others that they considered enemies on a mass scale. On April 4th, 1945, Americans discovered and liberated Ohrdruf. It was a sub-camp of the larger Buchenwald concentration camp, and the first camp that the Americans found that still contained living prisoners. The SS had evacuated thousands of Ohrdruf prisoners on foot in the days before the liberation. Some who were too ill were murdered before the Americans arrived. The surviving prisoners at Ohrdruf were sick, they were emaciated, and they were in desperate need of medical care. Allison, can you tell us a little bit about the camp's liberation through the eyes of somebody who was there? Yes. So, one of the officers who was in charge of the battalion that was involved in the liberation of Ohrdruf was Lieutenant Colonel Albin Irzyk. Lieutenant Colonel Irzyk was in charge of the 8th Tank Battalion of the 4th Armored Division. And he is actually buried in section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. And that's really important, because section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery is commonly known in the media and popular culture as being the burial ground of fatalities from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it actually contains the graves of veterans from many different time periods in American history. And Lieutenant General, at the time of his death, Albin Irzyk is buried there, in section 60. What did Lieutenant Colonel Irzyk see when he got to Ohrdruf? Well, we're really fortunate to know exactly what Lieutenant Colonel Irzyk found when he got to Ohrdruf because he recorded his experiences and recollections in several oral histories. So he talked about how he had been given a mission by his commander to go find what they believed was some sort of underground German communication center. And that's what they thought they were supposed to be looking for. But as they approached this area on the map he had been studying, he started to hear over his radio chatter about bodies. Talk, over and over again about bodies. And he really didn't understand what his men were discussing. So the next morning, when daylight broke, he headed over to a clearing where he was told those bodies were. And he got out of his jeep, and he looked around, and he eventually stumbled upon a circle—a circle of what he described in his oral history as looking like stacks of items that were, maybe, placed for donation at Goodwill. And as he approached and got closer to that circle, he found out to his horror and disbelief that these were the remains of human beings—stacked up, one on top of another. And he was just in shock. He could not understand what he had found. Let's hear Lieutenant Colonel Irzyk explain what he saw that day in his own words, from an oral history in the museum's collection. It's really hard to watch. And one of the things that always strikes me is, we think about oral histories with liberators, Americans who witnessed concentration camps, and they're always older people. But he was in his 20's at the time when he was there. So many of these soldiers were so young when they were witnessing this sort of thing. Exactly. And I think looking at him, in this oral history, as an elderly gentleman who remembers with such clarity and deep emotion what he saw so many years ago, that, to me, demonstrates the impact of this experience. And in preparing for this event, I spent a lot of time watching and listening to his oral history. And I almost feel like I know him, which of course I never did. But when I watch that video and I look into his eyes on the screen, it's as though he's talking just to me. And I think that's what's so important about these testimonies and the power they have to teach new generations about the Holocaust. Well, I've talked to many veterans over the years, and I don't think it's very easy for Americans today to really understand the impact that war had on their lives. But then you add to that, going into sites that we now call the Holocaust. And to see what barbarity human beings are capable of. I think it must have changed his life forever, as it did so many others who went through that whole period and experience. So many. And there were so many camps that American soldiers liberated that were a complete surprise. But there were bigger ones, like Dachau and Buchenwald that had been reported on in the American press since the 1930's when they opened. And so those camps were known, but the actual horror, I think, could never have been known to anybody who was in the United States. Yeah, I'd like to add to that too. If you look at the timeline, there were all kinds of things going on that were almost existential for the outcome of this war. Including, by the way, the Battle of the Bulge, which goes into December 1944 just into this particular period. Exactly. Lieutenant Colonel Irzyk himself fought in the Battle of the Bulge. And I just want to also mention for some of our younger viewers and students out there—this was a time long before the internet, which seems obvious to us but but maybe for some of our elementary and middle school and high school friends that's not as clear. Without the internet, without fast communications, the newspapers were not readily available to these service members. They were truly cut off from so much of what the normal American population was reading, as Becky mentioned. Could I add, no computers either. Exactly. So all of this was being done by typewriter and handwritten communication. So, thank you for that point. I think that's one of the most awesome, surprising things about the study of this war, is how they managed to deal with all of these factors without the tools we have today. Well, and because they couldn't put the military handbook in some sort of Google Doc or some sort of shared thing, they can't update it to say, "How are you going to deal with concentration camps? How are you going to deal with the liberation?" And so there's nothing in a military handbook that says that your grandfather needs to see Ohrdruf. How does how does he come to the conclusion, that his soldiers have heard these things and he is determined to see it for himself? How does he make that decision? Well, I think he makes that decision because he had heard rumors about this, of course. And rumors is not an adequate word for it but the intelligence was only beginning to come in. Also on that day, which was April 12th, he had another shock in the morning, but nothing like the one in the afternoon. In the morning he went with General Bradley and General Patton to the Merkers salt mines, and discovered a lot of the Nazi loot that had been stolen from the Jewish community and others in Germany. And there were probably the the last resources of gold bullion there for the Third Reich. That was one more example of something that was sort of extra warfare. But then in the afternoon, the Supreme Allied Commander was deeply shocked in every way by what he saw. And I don't know—I can just say that I knew him well as a person. I was fortunate to do so. I was almost 18 when he died. He had a very expressive face. So much so, that he was hard to paint and hard to sculpt. But I never saw that look on his face, the one in the video of that particular visit. Even his valet had never seen that look on the general's face before, despite all of the stress all of the pressures of commanding forces in the west. And it was just the kind of face that—I have to internalize all this. As a matter of fact, General Patton, who was known to be a big uh military risk-taker in terms of combat and everything else, was terrified of going into some of these facilities, because he was afraid he was going to get physically sick. But that that jaw, that look of his fixed jaw is Dwight Eisenhower saying "I don't care whether I get sick or not, I'm going to," as he said in his memoirs, "visit every nook and cranny." Because he said someday, you know, he said to himself and told General Marshall that evening, someday people are going to say this didn't happen. He did go into every nook and cranny and it changed his life. That I know. And and his visit was really important. It was the first on the ground impression that any American leader, really any military leader would have about the Holocaust. I think something that gets lost when we talk about the Holocaust is its scale. Nazi Germany occupied most of Europe when it was at the peak of its power. There were thousands of these camps spread over its territory. And by the end of the war, 6 million European Jews had been murdered. That scale is really difficult to comprehend. And so it's really important when Eisenhower goes in, that he is acting as a witness. He and the other general's insights would have a huge impact on how Americans and their allies responded and remembered these sites of persecution. And the responsibility to explain what had happened to the generals fell on two men—and I'm going to ask you about them, Allison—Lieutenant Alois Liethen and Ohrdruf prisoner Ignaz Feldmann. So Allison, Feldmann was one of the survivors of Ohrdruf. And it's really fitting that he is the one who is touring the generals—Bradley and Patton and Eisenhower—because he had had so many different experiences during the Holocaust. Can you tell us a little bit about him? Yes. So, Felmann's experience in the Holocaust was really wide ranging. He actually was a fairly well-known soccer player in Austria before the wa,r and he left Austria after the Anschluss, when Germany took over Austria, and he fled to the Netherlands. And it was in the Netherlands at the Westerbork refugee camp where his experiences with the Holocaust really started to begin. That camp was not a killing center. It was initially a refugee camp. In 1940, of course, Germany invades the Netherlands, and the Netherlands was no longer a safe place for Feldman to try to survive. And this is where his story becomes very complex, and takes him throughout Europe to different ghettos, camps, and killing centers, in places like the Czechoslovakia and Poland. So he eventually goes to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. And it's there that an SS officer recognizes him from his time as a soccer player, and that officer, instead of sending him to do the hardest of labor outdoors, sends him to the Canada warehouse, where he joins other prisoners to sort through the belongings that were confiscated from those who were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This helps him be able to survive. Eventually, he ends up at Ohrdruf, just about a month before liberation. But because he had such a good command of the English language, he was selected to lead these generals around the camp. And I just wish I could have heard what he told them. Did he focus on the experience at Ohrdruf? Did he tell them about all of the other camps and killing centers and ghettos that he saw? I'm not sure that we'll ever really know what was spoken between those men, that day, at Ohrdruf. But seeing those images and those moving pictures of Feldmann with these generals, with General Eisenhower and General Patton and General Bradley—General Bradley whose legacy we remember since he's buried at Arlington—it's a very, I think, stirring example of the Holocaust being encapsulated in one man, who's being a representative for all of those victims to those generals. I think that's really important because, you think about, like, he must have been very nervous to be doing this. But they were so lucky to have him, and that he spoke English, and could share his experiences with them. The generals also had a military man with them as well. Alois "Al" Liethen was alongside Eisenhower and Feldmann throughout the tour. You see him in a lot of photos. He's the man with the mustache. And he provided further English translations whenever the generals wanted to talk to another prisoner besides Feldmann. The Museum has copies of an extensive collection of letters that then-Lieutenant Liethen wrote to his family while he was overseas, including photos describing his experience touring the generals at Ohrdruf. He wrote that he was quote, "more or less the conductor of a tour of this famous party for high-ranking officials," and that, "all in all there were 21 stars present," which must have been very daunting for him. He also described what they all witnessed at the camp together, and told his family that this was not an exaggeration. That's something that is really common when soldiers are describing the liberation of concentration camps. They emphasize to their families that none of this is an exaggeration. It's kind of a, "you know me, you know I would not tell you something that is a lie." Soldiers emphasize this again and again and again. And he took firsthand pictures of the visit as well. It definitely made an impression on him, as much as it was making an impression on the generals. Susan, can you walk through a little bit about your grandfather's reaction to this tour—what he saw when he was at Ohrdruf? Well, first of all, you mentioned earlier the sense of smell. And this is when he first understood that he was going to be seeing something different than what he had imagined. The smell apparently, even from a mile away, was overwhelming. Which leads him later to wonder very much how it is that the locals could say that they didn't know what was going on there. Because you couldn't have been in that environment without this pervasive smell. So, he got there, he went through the camp with these individuals, who were indispensable for explaining how this fit into a larger picture. And again, the look on his face only says how deeply shocked he was in every way. What I think is really interesting is, he just didn't leave it there. This was a very big day for him. It was also the same day that they got the news that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died. But despite that, Eisenhower writes to Marshall that evening and says, "I want you to send journalists, members of Congress, to see this network of camps that we're liberating," almost on a daily basis. He orders Patton to be sure to communicate with his office as they discover these along the way. And I think the other noteworthy thing is, is he gave orders that the locals had to go into these camps and to give those who were deceased a dignified burial. Actually, that evening the mayor of the small town next to Ohrdruf, he and his wife committed suicide after they went through the camp. This was Eisenhower his toughest. And went on to write to Winston Churchill and request that members of parliament, and the news media go into these camps, so that they, too, could chronicle this. And this particular set of incidents was something he discussed regularly throughout this period. When you look back on it—and let me just say this from a personal standpoint—I wonder today if we have that many people who look at something horrific like this and say, "in 50 years, no one will believe this happened." And he had an extraordinary way of managing his inner space that gave him enough leeway to be thinking within that time frame. And how grateful we are that he did. I want to bring in a question also, and I want your take, and your take on it, that was submitted from our audience. John asked, "Were the local towns people required to visit the camps in the cities that were liberated?" And Helge followed up by saying "Was that decision spontaneous or deliberate?" What do you think about that? Oh it was deliberate. It was under orders. And also, General Eisenhower sent orders to commanders in the field to assure that their troops would go bear witness and take photographs. My father, John Eisenhower, my grandparents only surviving child, was—graduated, by the way, from West Point on D-Day. Quite coincidentally. Then he ended up in in combat in Europe too. And he was ordered into Buchenwald, and he took extensive photographs of Buchenwald, not only under orders, but also to assure that every one of his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren had a chance to, not only see what he had witnessed but to understand the gravity of it. And that's such a big deal, to have the troops go through, not just to have the town's people go through, because, as you said, the smell is so overwhelming. There's no way that people living locally couldn't have known about it. Many of them were benefiting from the economic location of the camp. But to have soldiers go through and bear witness—the war is not over yet, right, so they are still fighting their way into Germany. And taking the time to come and bear witness to Nazi atrocities. After visiting Ohrdruf, Eisenhower sent a cable to General George C. Marshall who was then Chief of Staff of the US Army. And here's some of what he wrote, and these words are actually on the wall here at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He wrote, "The things I saw beggar description ... the visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering ... I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things, if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations to propaganda." Now, Allison, I keep saying we're going to come to you. What do you think about those words? As I listen to these words today, thinking about so much of what you hear at the Museum experience, in terms of people's reactions to learning about the Holocaust, it's almost as if he knew that there would be debate over how much of this was true. And he wanted people to know that all of it was true. Yeah. And it really boggles my mind, but I think it shows the intelligence that he had, to be able to survey such a traumatic situation. And we can't know the emotions that he was experiencing, but clearly, Susan, you've indicated that you can tell from those photos there was emotional trauma of some type that he was undergoing. Yet still, he was able to think that far ahead, and consider what the implications of this would be, not just for his time period but for future generations. It's astounding, really. Yeah. We got this as a question, actually, directly from one of our viewers, Melani, who asked and I think this is appropriate for you, "Why did he believe that Holocaust atrocities would be denied at some point?" And so, can you speak to that and how his commitment to bearing witness really helped shape how we Americans remember the Holocaust? His commitment, as you said, went long beyond that day. Well, it did go long beyond that day. And I will get to Melani's question. But very few people realize that he was involved in trying to bring Jewish victims of early Nazi power, to get them out of Germany, when he was in the Philippines. He was part of a group of people who met on a regular basis, and he was one of the people who helped persuade President Quezon to allow thousands of Jews to immigrate to the Philippines, to leave Nazi Germany before the Holocaust occurred. So, he was very sensitive to this issue. And I think that the question that she raises is an interesting one. I think he just felt strongly that humanity is now, in his mind, a question of good and evil. Mhm. He came from a deeply religious background, and I'm not sure how much of it took in the early years, but I think this was one of those moments where he understood things in a completely different way. I don't know if that answers her question. But he was very very sensitive to what the Jewish community was suffering from, without knowing these horrific details. I also wonder whether he's also reacting to the—he's not just thinking ahead, which he obviously was, but he's also thinking to that moment. Allison, you study World War I. And in during World War II, there was a lot of discussion about how there had been rumors during World War I, that apparently turned out to be false, that the Germans were committing atrocities. And Americans during World War II were like, "Well those hadn't been true. And so all of these rumors that we're hearing about German atrocities today, in 1944, I don't know, it couldn't possibly be that bad." And so I wonder whether, what do you think, Allison, do you think he might be reacting to that as well? I think it's certainly possible. I think the other thing that we need to understand is that, so many images of the Holocaust are so iconic to us today, but this was just simply so unbelievable. It can't be compared to the kinds of atrocities that Germany was accused, falsely, of doing during World War I. This was a totally different situation that none of these commanders or rank and file troops had been prepared to encounter. You know, this is very different than what was experienced in World War I. And, of course, you know, World War I was devastating to civilian populations, but civilian populations were not targeted specifically the way they were during the Holocaust. I'd like to just add another thought here. First of all, he was a long- range thinker. He said during the occupation just after World War II, when he was leading that effort, he said to his staff that day, "If 50 years from now, Germany is a prosperous democracy, we will know we did our our job correctly." Some people are, you know, oriented towards long range thinking. But this was something else. This this got to another talent he had that I I noticed myself firsthand. He had a tremendous capacity to analyze things from other people's point of view. And if you are running a major war effort like that, one of the things you have to do is to try and think about how it looks to the other guy. Not because you sympathize with them, but you've got to be prepared for anything they're likely to do. And I'm sure in an instant he said to himself, "Nobody would ever accept responsibility for this unless we hold them responsible." And some of the evidence that the soldiers gathered and that the Signal Corps gathered, which was the the kind of military's photography and videography units, gathered were used at the Nuremberg trials. Exactly. And speaking as a Holocaust historian, I'm so grateful for this decision, because so many letters and photographs were sent back to Americans. Because, I think he also realized, you know, people might read about it in the papers, but when you hear about it from your son, right, it's a completely different thing. So, I want to come back to that influence that Eisenhower had on his troops at the ground. And one of the best ways to do that. is to look at one of the letters that Al Liethen wrote to his family. Liethen who accompanied the generals on the tour. He wrote, "As for General Eisenhower, well, I've met a lot of men in my life, but here's one that is tops. He's just as comfortable to meet as if I came to the home of an old friend. And let me add one more thing, this man is sharp as a tack, and that is putting it mildly." Which I think you have absolutely illustrated. It speaks to the admiration that his troops had for him, and the example that he was setting as a leader. So, Allison, you've talked with many World War II veterans and you study their experiences as part of your role at Arlington National Cemetery. How can we understand the legacy of Eisenhower's order to American service members to visit Ohrdruf and the other concentration camps? Eisenhower's order was essential in creating this historical record about what these men saw at Ohrdruf and so many other concentration camps. Because of his order, it meant that years from that date, we have the wartime letters, the recollections, and the oral histories of so many service members who had the opportunity to witness the Holocaust firsthand. And for us, as scholars and historians, this is evidence that is irreplaceable. And Albin Irzyk is really an example of this. He had a long career in the army. He actually stayed in the army through the Vietnam War, and he retired as a Brigadier General. And throughout his life, after his retirement, he spoke on many occasions about his experiences, both in his military career and as a Holocaust liberator. Lieutenant Colonel Irzyk actually spoke about this in his interview with the Museum. Let's watch. I think it's really striking that he switches to the present tense at the end. It's just part of his life. It is a constant part of his life, what he witnessed on one day, when he was in his 20's. I don't know what you all think about that. He talks about in another oral history, he says that it didn't change his life, But when I look at him in that video, it's clear that, maybe he couldn't recognize how it changed his life, but it certainly stayed with him. And it transformed him, like so many of those other men who witnessed Ohrdruf, into a person who could provide testimony—someone whose experience was so important to the historical record, that it would live on after their passing. So even if he didn't recognize it, I think we can see now after his passing that his experience and his willingness to talk about it certainly changed how we view him, and how we view so many of these other service members. They were combat veterans. They were World War II survivors. But they were also witnesses to this unthinkable atrocity. Susan, do you think it changed your grandfather's life? I think it did. I think it changed his life and it changed the lives of the others of as we've just discussed. I've gotten to know many World War II veterans now—and I'm sure this is true of other wars as well—as you get older, especially as you feel that your time is running out, you allow your mind to think about things that you might have put out of it earlier on. And this might explain why people are not certain how much it had an influence, but in the final analysis, recognize that it was really central to the way they thought of so many other things. I don't think your grandfather put it out of his mind. I mean, he talks about it later. He visits displaced persons camps. I think this was something that he kept pretty close. I mean, he was also older than many of these soldiers. Well, he was. And I think it is something that had a very big impact on his life. It's interesting though, in his later years, he didn't talk about the war unless you asked him a question. And that's so typical, too, of so many of the people you interview. Correct. And the fact that they're even willing to talk about it now in oral histories like this is a tremendous gift, actually, to future generations. One of my last questions is for you, Allison. Arlington National Cemetery is a sacred space. It is the the nation's space that commemorates and honors the men and women who have served this country. And that's something that Eisenhower understood and respected, as a general, as a leader, later as president. He played a really important role in honoring the men who served under him who fell during World War II. Can you talk a little bit about that? So, Eisenhower after the war, in his dual position as the former Supreme Allied commander, and later on as the sitting president, he had a really important impact on America's commemoration of World War II. And I like to think of him as a memory maker. So, the most important example of that at Arlington National Cemetery, was in 1958, with the dual funeral of one unidentified service member from the Second World War and one unidentified service member from the Korean War. And as president, Eisenhower had a really important part to play. We see in these images that he was presenting the Medal of Honor to these service members. And then at the actual internment, at the plaza, at the tomb of the unknown soldier, there's these images of him standing in front of a casket, and then-Vice President Nixon standing in front of a casket. And Eisenhower received the flag from the casket of the World War II unknown service member. He was standing in symbolically as the next of kin. So, when we look at these images of Eisenhower at the unknown soldier's funeral, I don't think that the memory of the Holocaust is evident there. But in researching for this program, it became clear to me that the memory of the Holocaust and Ohrdruf in particular, is part and parcel of remembering World War II, for men like Eisenhower who witnessed those camps. And when we talk about this 80th anniversary that we're in right now, it's an important reminder that because of Eisenhower's order to those men to visit the camps, we're not just commemorating the battles, but we're also commemorating those atrocities. That we can't separate the two. And I think that because of his keen observations, and impact as someone who thought about history, we're able to hold those two things together. I mean, he left such an enduring legacy in the ways that he served. I mean, I think, that moment that you just described of standing in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier. Susan, you talked earlier about his relationship with his troops. He is thinking, probably, about the fact that he commanded this man into battle, likely. And he didn't take that lightly. And he didn't take lightly the request to have these soldiers tour. He knew they were young men, that this was going to be deeply traumatic for them, but that they had to see it anyway. Because he, I think, was a truth-teller. He he saw the importance of being a truth-teller. And I'm wondering if you can reflect on that, Susan, 80 years later, 80 years after this moment, you know, the importance that your grandfather had, and the insights that he had as a truth-teller. Well, I think he was, but he was not afraid to say what he saw. And he wasn't afraid to express himself. He had a very deep sense of serving something larger than himself. And this is where his childhood merged with his West Point experience. And I think that serves as some inspiration for all of us now. Maybe this is an opportunity for our country and other parts of the world to begin to think about what it is to be human, and and what service really means. That it's to others not just to our own self-interest. So, there's so many messages for your visitors there at Arlington, and so many messages that are here for your visitors at the Holocaust Museum. It's been a tremendous honor to be with you. I'm so glad that you've been with us. So, we've talked a lot about how just one visit, to one camp shaped history moving forward, but this was just the start. 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. And we can't honor this moment without also mourning what was lost in the war. From the lives of so many service members, to millions of innocent Jews and other victims who were killed in the Holocaust. In the final month of the war in Europe, April and May 1945, thousands of camps would be discovered by the Allied troops, including Buchenwald, Dachau, and Mauthausen. With every liberation, hundreds of service members would witness the tragic and horrible results of Nazi ideology. The German government and others had made efforts to keep it secret, but it could not remain secret as the Allies moved in. And when the truth finally came out, after so much fighting, and so much bloodshed, Eisenhower summed it up best: "We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Well, now at least he will know what he is fighting against." Thank you so much for watching.