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Interview with Clarice MacLeod 3 July 15, 1998

A: Well, that was aft -- no, that was after I'd gone through basic training and they just sent us there. You had no idea that -- what you would be doing, you know. No, they just all of a sudden said, "You're going overseas," and you accepted that, well, I think you probably expected it at one time or another, but no, no special --

Q: Where did you do your basic?

A: Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Q: What was that like?

A: Hard. Did lot of marching, up and down the boardwalk.

Q: Marching on the boardwalk?

A: Oh yes, but they were very strict, I think because you were in basic training. But enjoyed it really and -- enjoyed it.

Q: What other kinds of things do you -- do you remember from basic training?

A: Nothing much, really. I can't remember that we went any place special. I can't even remember what the meals were.

Q: Must not have been too good, if you can't remember.

A: Or else it must have been real good. I don't know how to answer [indecipherable]

Q: Okay. And when -- when did you go overseas and -- and how did you find out about that?

A: Oh, let's see, we had -- I was sent to South Carolina. Well, I guess it was then that they told us that we were preparing to go overseas, because we had to learned how to

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 4 July 15, 1998 pitch tents and do all -- dig trenches and all this. And I think was about November maybe, they told us that we were going overseas. And we -- I can't remember what the date we got on the boat, but I remember we arrived December 22nd, in Scotland. And that's about it.

Q: Do you remember very much of the crossing? About the boat, or what -- what it was like on the boat?

A: Yes, there was 19 of us in a stateroom that normally held two people. I remember we were told that we might be -- the -- the Germans were hitting -- with submarines, might do damage to our boat and we had to sleep one night fully dressed and with our helmets on, we were told that. Life on the Queen Elizabeth was just casual because everything certainly was different than it was in peacetime.

Q: Was it crowded?

A: Mm-hm, mm-hm, very.

Q: And then you landed in?

A: 22nd of December we landed in Greenock, Scotland. From there we went to England. Alteringham | think it was. And that was -- and then from there we just kept moving with the flow. We went to France and we went to Belgium and then on to Germany.

Q: And when you were in Germany then, you were treating men who were coming back from battle?

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 5 July 15, 1998

A: Yes, some, but mostly when -- they were patients right off the field, because we were the first unit to get them right off the field. And we were treating some -- and sometimes we had to do temporary duty at other hospitals.

Q: And what was your specific job? Were you in a ward or in a operating room?

A: I was in the operating room, anesthetist.

Q: Anesthetist.

A: So I'm kind of lost as to -- I feel kind of sorry, because I liked the contact with the patients and of course I didn't have much of that, you know, it was [inaudible]

Q: So they would come in and you'd knock them out and that would be it.

A: Yeah, that's about it, that's about it.

Q: Uh-huh, uh-huh. And did you ever get much contact with them later?

A: No, no.

Q: Or were you just in doing that over and over and over?

A: Mm-hm, mm-hm, no. In fact there were very few times that you would have -- well I -- maybe you were so busy that you didn't, I don't know, but you didn't contact them at -- on the ward after they left the operating room, as a rule.

Q: What kind of anesthesia was used?

A: Retrous oxide and Sodium Pentothal. I can't remember about ether. I think probably that was initially -- started a patient out maybe on ether, but didn't give it to him for the full surgical operation.

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 6 July 15, 1998

Q: Why was that?

A: Well, cause it's a little bit too heavy, I think, for a long operation. Or else it was the doctor's choice. I don't remember [inaudible]

Q: Mm. And it -- that -- was that the same job you always did? Did people rotate in and out of different jobs, or --

A: No. Prior to that, I had worked in hospitals before we went overseas. Like there was Halloran General in -- in Staten Island. I was at Mason General, which was a psychiatric hospital in New York. No, anesthesia was only when I was overseas.

Q: And did you have special training for that?

A: No, the -- the anesthetist taught me how to -- you know -- I had worked on the operating before, but not as an assess -- an anes-anesthesiast, when I working not -- not --

Q: D-During that job, do you stay there, in the operating room the whole -- during the whole procedure and --

A: The surgery?

Q: Yeah.

A: Mm-hm.

Q: You do?

A: Mm-hm.

Q: What do you do during the surgery?

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 7 July 15, 1998

A: You monitor the patient. I mean that's a constant thing, you have to do that until a surgery's over. And of course you'd go from one patient to the next -- I mean it was like, today, they schedule their -- your surgery and --

Q: So you were constantly monitoring their vital signs, is that --

A: Mm-hm, mm-hm.

Q: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Were those quick surgeries, or --

A: No, a lot of them were repair surgeries. Mine explosions and fractures. No, I wouldn't call them -- I think maybe what you mean is you did the initial thing there and sent them on to a major general hospital, yes, that's true, likely.

Q: Mm-hm.

A: Yeah.

Q: But they weren't necessarily like an emergency room situation where you just --

A: Well, yes and no. They're emergencies because they have to be done right away, cause they're right off the field. Yes, I guess probably you would say they were emergencies, yeah.

Q: Mm-hm, Mm-hm.

A: Yeah. But then they were sent to the wards afterwards until they could be transported to a -- a major hospital.

Q: And what was it like when you were off duty? What kinds of things did you do?

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 8 July 15, 1998

A: Just -- I guess walking, you'd play ball, you'd read. You'd do anything to pass your time away. I don't think there was any specific thing and like I said, you made your own fun. Cause you naturally didn't watch TV and listen to the radio and all that jazz.

No, I just -- camaraderie I guess, with your roommates and --

Q: You all get along?

A: Oh, yeah. I -- I can't remember ever having an argument with -- that's why I said it's a good training, a good learning.

Q: Being in the service, you mean, or --

A: Well yes, but I'm -- even in the hospital you see when you're -- when you're in training to be a nurse, you're pretty much in with a block of other nurses and you learn -- course most of us knew how to get along with other people, but I think being in that close proximity, you are more aware of it, maybe. But you asked what we did, I don't even know what we did, but the time went fast. And -- and we couldn't be out by ourselves, you had to -- like when we were at the concentration camp, or in Germany, you had to have an armed guard and there weren't enough available because they were guarding the camps. So well, you didn't get to see too much.

Q: Did you mingle with the men at all very much?

A: Yes, we had parties for the enlisted men and -- and you'd go to the officer's lounge for either eating or having a drink or whatever. Yeah, you mingled, not -- you know, not all the time, but yeah, yeah.

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 9

July 15, 1998

Q: Mm-hm. And how long do you figure you were in Germany?

A: Not very long.

Q: You were there for VE Day?

A: Yup. I remember that one. I think we might have left -- I think we might have gone

in there -- I know at Easter time we were in -- in France or in Belgium, one or the

other. So it might have been May til I'd say maybe sometime in July. So it wasn't very long, really.

Q: Mm-hm.

A: We were there for the liberation, we were there for -- well, they liberated the camp

and -- and that's when our colonel said that we could go. We were left behind, all the

boys went over to --

Q: Your unit --

A: -- |-liberate the -- yeah --.

Q: This is the 113th -- we didn't say this.

A: This is -- no, 13 1st.

Q: 131 st, ""m sorry.

A: Yeah, 131st.

Q: And what's -- the full title is?

A: 131st evacuation unit.

Q: Uh-huh, and it -- they split off and they went ahead to Austria and left you behind?

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 10 July 15, 1998

A: No, we were already -- th-th-they went -- now where were we? I think we were like in Kern and they left and went to Austria. And -- no, there were still some there, because they couldn't leave women alone in that area. But they -- most of them left and liberated the -- I think I have a thing downstairs that tells about that. And our colonel said when he came back that he was not -- what's the word? Forcing any -- any of the nurses to go. We could go if we wanted to and everybody but one elected to go. And course, when we got there, it was quite a sensation, but --

Q: Do you remember arriving?

A: Mm-hm, mm-hm.

Q: What was that like?

A: Well, we all went up in trucks of course and when we got there, there were patients intermingled. Some of them were dead and some of them were still living. All on one room. There might have been some bunks in there and I guess several maybe in a bunk, but I think the sad part was that some were alive and some were dead. And we had a fine chaplain who buried them, put crosses on every one -- in fact I have pictures of that too, downstairs. But that's about it, I guess.

Q: And what did you do there? What was your assignment while you were there?

A: That's when I worked in the operating room and when we would get -- well, I just had to do what patients were there, what necessarily had to be done, but you'd also be getting patients from outside in the interim. I mean they were always coming in. But

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 11 July 15, 1998 we did do some work on some of the patients that were there as far as -- well, we called them patients, they were really prisoners.

Q: Did you s -- did you set up your tent hospital there, is that what you were working in?

A: We -- we were -- no, we were in the -- we were housed in houses, regular houses.

Nice -- fact, it's the nicest place we stayed. But, in the hospital itself, they were like long wooden -- they weren't tents. We -- we were set up in tents three or four different times, but when we were there, this was a long, wooden building with --

Q: And the name of this camp was Gusen?

A: Gusen, mm-hm.

Q: A sub-camp of --

A: Mauthausen.

Q: Mm-hm. Do you have any sense of how many people were there -- how many when you got there, how many former prisoners there were?

A: No, and I don't know whether I have a record of that.

Q: W-Would have been hundreds or thousands or --

A: Oh, hundreds, I'm sure. Thousands, no, I don't think so, because a lot of them -- when I say a lot, some had just taken off. Heavens knows where they went, but they -- when they were liberated, they just went. But there were still a lot of them there.

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 12 July 15, 1998

Q: And you would then, every day, go into the surgery -- into the operating room and that was your job?

A: Mm-hm.

Q: Uh-huh. What kinds of it -- what kinds of injuries were you seeing? Or what -- what kinds of things were --

A: Well, like I said, mine blow ups or whatever. Not too much gunfire problems.

Sometimes you'd get a patient in who'd been shot or whatever, but n -- a lot that I can remember were mines.

Q: Land mines?

A: Land mines that exploded by people walking over them or whatever.

Q: A-And this was after the fighting had stopped, though? Or were these people who were injured before?

A: No, this was -- the fighting had stopped, yeah.

Q: But people were still --

A: Still coming in because those land mines weren't deactivated for a long time after, even after we left, I'm sure. So --

Q: And what about -- I'd heard that there were people in that camp who had been experimented on surgically by the Germans.

A: I read that.

Q: Did you see any of that?

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 13 July 15, 1998

A: No, no.

Q: You never saw that? People like that --

A: But I believe from what I read that that probably happened, yes. I think too that the major one I read about was Dachau and of course that was earlier than when we went over there, so [indecipherable] I read all that, yeah. But no -- not that I know whereof.

Q: Did you get out and see much of the camp itself?

A: Mm-mm.

Q: Did you see -- for example, there was a quarry there where a lot of prisoners were f

A: Yeah, when we went to work, there was a long s -- line of steps or whatever in the quarry and many mornings when we'd go, naturally, to have breakfast and whatever and then go to work, the Russians or the Germans had put a whole mess of stones in front, so they had to be removed before the nurses could walk up to get to the camp.

Q: Uh-huh. So you had to go up those stairs?

A: Mm-hm.

Q: Did you know at the time that that -- prisoners had been forced to walk up and down those stairs? Did you know about that?

A: No, I didn't know about that.

Q: Hm. And the crematorium, did you see that?

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 14 July 15, 1998

A: We ah -- yes, we saw that. We did not see it in op -- I didn't see it in operation.

Before we arrived there, there was the stench of the crematorium, which was sad. But as far as being in use when we were there, I never saw that. I don't know. But I'm sure that it had been used.

Q: Mm-hm. Did you -- were you aware of local people in Linz coming there for any reason to the camp or to work or just to see it, or --

A: No, not to be aware -- daily. They used to bring in a truckload of personnel that they would go and pick up off the street.

Q: US Army would do that?

A: Would do that. Local, I mean people from our working area. And many times the patients would recognize some of these people that were picked up as being SSers, abusive people -- which we weren't aware of until this, you know, they started coming in. No, as far as viewers, I can't ever remember people just coming to look around, but that -- that could happen, I suppose. But I don't -- I don't know. I wouldn't think so at that stage of the game.

Q: It's pretty early.

A: Yeah, I don't think there would have been people coming in just to view the area, if you know --

Q: But you mentioned that some of the patients would recognize people and -- do you remember any -- any specific incident like that, when somebody said something or --

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 15

July 15, 1998

A: No. I think probably I was told this, because I was not on the wards and probably some of my nurse friends told me about this. No, I did -- I was -- I did not see this.

Q: Yeah. You were in the operating room all the time, right.

A: Operating room, yeah, but --

Q: What about some of the people who -- the former inmates there who were well

enough to walk around? Did you see those people?

A: Yes. They were skin and bones. Well, many, many days they would -- like when

we went there, we s -- naturally fed them. There were two doors to each one of those

barracks. They would come in one door and go out the other door, so they were really

overfed. But they would take their food and bury it outside of the -- the barracks,

because they thought some time that they might need it -- if there -- they didn't know

that they were liberated. They didn't know too much. You could see in a week's time

how they improved and all that, but they really were mentally and physically -- I don't

know the word to describe it.

Q: But they would bury their food in the ground?

A: Bury their food in hopes that one -- they could get out of there. I suppose they

constantly had in their mind that they would -- were going to get out, you know, or

would get out some way or another. And they would bury their food so that they

would have something to take with them, until we finally got them educated, that they

could have food every day and three times a day and that they didn't have to do that, ontectrefteanneGaushariarg er hither btrmedortabnattfiexaliaton

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 16 July 15, 1998 that they were liberated. But here again, where could they go? They had no place to go, really.

Q: Did you know at the time where those people were or who they were? Did you know if they were Jewish people or not?

A: Mm-mm.

Q: Did you know anything about them?

A: Mm-mm.

Q: Did you learn, after time went by?

A: No, I'm sure that whatever records -- and they did have some records, I'm sure that others could tell you about this, like Colonel Case was our chaplain and he did a lot of this. Maybe a lot of the nurses that worked on the wards could tell you this, because they certainly got what information they could from them. And names and numbers, if they had any numbers. But I'm sure a lot of them didn't even have names or numbers and probably couldn't remember. I know that there were -- I think more Polish, maybe they were Polish Jewish, I don't know, than there were actually just Jewish people.

You see, this was quite awhile after the Holocaust, really. The Holocaust started in what, *42? "43? And we were there in early "45. So a lot of this happened before we even arrived, I'm sure -- having watched the movie.

Q: You learn about it afterwards.

A: Yeah.

ontectnetonancedjusietneey for tarher blommatierabouttfisotecion

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 17 July 15, 1998

Q: When -- when did you get out of the service, do you remember?

A: October "45, I had a separation. That was -- yeah, 1940 -- October "45, in -- some time in "51 I was recalled.

Q: Really?

A: Because I didn't realize that when you were separated, that you were supposed to take two weeks training every year or they could recall you. Which they did. Cause at that time it was maybe --

Q: What is a separation, I don't -- I don't know the word separation?

A: You were just separated -- nobody -- at the time I got out, nobody actually had a so- called discharge. Everybody was just separated. You got your discharge later, but -- and I think at one time there was a choice too, as to whether you were discharged or just separated and I think, for some reason, I chose not to be discharged. And I think that I did this because -- thinking of retirement. Well, I was uneducated and in order to -- to do this, you had to spend two weeks training a year, which I didn't know. So they recalled me, to make up I suppose for the time that I should have spent or I say should have, I -- yeah, I guess it would be. So -- and at that time, I was married, but I was stationed at Massachu -- in Massachusetts and eventually I got transferred to Fort Drum, which is very -- 10 miles within my home, I could live at home except when I was on call in the OR and that was probably two or three nights a week that I had to stay on call. And the rest of the time I could live at home and I had it made.

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 18 July 15, 1998

Q: That was pretty nice.

A: Yes.

Q: Yeah, yeah.

A: Yes.

Q: Well, it's been 50 years, that's a long time and it's ha -- I know that memories fade, but what sticks with you about that service that you did? Especially at -- at Gusen, at that concentration camp?

A: I think it was very important and I'm not sorry a bit that we went or that I went, no.

I think it was necessary. I think it was good experience, a good training. I think that I did a part to help. I guess that's it.

Q: And how do you think you're different as -- for having witnessed what you witnessed?

A: I don't think "m any different than a lot of people. I don't understand it. I don't understand how it could be done. I don't understand a lot of things that are going on today, like in Bosnia and wherever. I cannot believe that some one man could be so cruel as Mr. Hitler. But that's the way it was. There will always be wars, there will always be people like him. So, I don't know -- you say, how different? I guess I was more educated in that line and that's about all. I just never gave it any thought before and I still just can't believe that those things happened, but they did.

Q: You never gave it any thought, what do you mean? Be-Before what?

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 19 July 15, 1998

A: Before I went in the service, I never -- I guess I probably was aware of it reading the papers, but never -- maybe then I just didn't believe it. I don't know, I don't know.

Never as aware as I was when I was there and witnessed what we did.

Q: Since that time, have you had people -- have you been in conversations with people who don't believe that it happened?

A: No, no. In fact my niece did a theme when she was a senior and at that time there had been a lot of news in the paper about people not believing it happened and she had cut some of those out and sent them to me. But no, I've not talked with anybody who said it couldn't have happened, no. I think everybody felt that it was true and maybe not to the severity of it, but they -- because I don't think you could believe it until you saw it, really. Except if you had family or whatever, you know. Then it's -- would be a different story.

Q: Mm-hm.

A: But --

Q: Okay. Anything else you want to say, or [indecipherable]

A: No, I can't think of anything --

Q: Okay.

A: -- "m sure that a lot of these girls that you have interviewed could offer you a lot more than I can, as far as that, because I wasn't in contact with them.

Q: Yeah. Some people were working on wards, ha-had a lot more --

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 20 July 15, 1998

A: And that made a lot of difference

Q: Yeah. They have different memories, yeah. Okay. Thank you, let me say this is the end of the interview with Clarice MacLeod, July 15th, 1995. This is Nina Ellis in West Park --

A: West Park.

Q: -- New York.

End of Tape One, Side A

Conclusion of Interview

Interview with Clarice MacLeod 21 July 15, 1998