‘Bud’ Gahs helped liberate a concentration camp. He speaks out so others will never forget.

Lockered “Bud” Gahs walked into a Loyola Blakefield auditorium , carrying the boots he wore when he served with the 42nd Infantry Division that liberated the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

He will turn 100 in June, the last man alive of the 165 infantrymen of the 42nd who crisscrossed Germany and France toward the end of World War II as part of the famous Rainbow Division.

Back then, he was barely out of high school, just a kid from Parkville drafted to serve his country.

A few times a year, he stands in a place like this one, usually a military event or a commemoration of sorts, to tell the story of how he helped liberate the death chamber where Nazis killed 41,000 Jews — just a fraction of the 6 million they would eventually slaughter at similar camps throughout German-occupied Polish territory.

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“Read anything you can read about that,” Gahs advised the 40 tie-clad young men in the auditorium, part of the school’s Rho Kappa National Social Studies Honor Society led by AP History teacher Michael DelGaudio. “It was thousands upon thousands of Jewish people murdered, and before they were murdered, they were skeletons. And how anyone can do that …”

Lockered Gahs, who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp during World War II, shared this photo of himself as a serviceman with Loyola Blakefield students on April 25, 2024. (Kaitlin Newman, Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner)

Gahs’ latest talk comes as Jewish Americans are enduring an unprecedented level of hatred in modern history. According to the Anti-Defamation League, incidents of anti-Jewish hatred increased 361% between early 2023 and early 2024. The spike is attributed to the Israel-Hamas war, which began when the Islamic militant group launched a surprise terrorist attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 Israelis, including women and children.

Hamas also took 240 hostages; Israel says about 100 are still being held. In response, Israel has launched airstrikes and offensives in Gaza that local health officials say have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, also including women and children. Some, including a United Nation expert, have called the Israeli response genocide.

The U.S. deemed Hamas a terrorist group in 1997.

The situation in Gaza continues to prompt attacks on American Jews and protests at colleges and universities. Outside of Columbia University, protesters yelled, “Go back to Poland, go back to Belarus” to a group of Jewish students. Nazis exterminated nearly the entire Jewish population of Belarus, killing about 751,000 Jews.

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Lockered Gahs, who helped liberate a concentration camp during World War II, shared this archival photo with Loyola Blakefield students on April 25, 2024. Gahs is in the center. (Kaitlin Newman, Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner)

Gahs, who managed greenhouses before retiring, said he’s distressed about such ignorance of the Jewish experience at an Ivy League school.

“They’re airheads,” he said of protesters expressing antisemitic views. “They got a lot to learn. They sound really stupid to me.”

The Loyola students were far more impressive to him, asking if he had ever encountered Hitler — “No, and I wasn’t particularly anxious to” — and about General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous order for the townspeople to enter Dachau and see the atrocities for themselves so they could not deny the slaughter there.

They also asked about the hardware affixed to his immaculate uniform. Honors include a Bronze Star, a combat infantry badge, and a Legion of Honor Presidential Citation. He finished three days short of his third stripe for three years of service as a private first class.

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Lockered Gahs, who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp during World War II, spoke to Loyola Blakefield students about his experiences on April 25, 2024. (Kaitlin Newman, Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner)

Joining Gahs onstage was a Holocaust survivor from Dachau, who did not want to be identified in the press for privacy reasons. She showed the students a Hebrew necklace that her mother gave her before her death. She said she wears it every day, but now keeps it hidden because of antisemitism. She met Gahs a year ago at Dachau, when both attended a ceremony commemorating the liberation. Now, they occasionally share the stage.

“When I look at you, I get a chill,” she told him. “Because I know it was you, your guys, who saved us.”

Loyola Blakefield students listen to 99-year-old Lockered Gahs discuss his role in liberating the Dachau concentration camp during World War II. He spoke about his experiences on April 25, 2024. (Kaitlin Newman, Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner)

DelGaudio connected with Gahs through a Loyola parent, Cynthia Boyd, who is his doctor at Johns Hopkins Bayview. Though a Jesuit institution, Loyola has employed a number of Jewish teachers over the years and enrolls some Jewish students. The graphic novel ”Maus” by Art Spiegelman is part of the curriculum (though other schools have banned it), and the students learn about World War II in 9th grade and in AP History. But nothing beats an in-person visit from a primary source.

“I’m a big fan of firsthand accounts that the kids can connect with, and that’s why being able to hear his humor, and what he saw, and how he got through it” is important, said DelGaudio.

Loyola junior Antoni Irazoqui said he and his friends have been discussing the increase in antisemitism. Reports of students drawing swastikas at middle and high schools have increased to alarming levels in recent years.

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“I just don’t understand why there’s such a deep-seated hatred for people who have never done anything. I mean, they’ve been kicked out of countries since the beginning of time — Spain, Russia, Germany, all over the place,” he said, referring to Jewish people. “It’s terrible how people have treated people who just wanted to survive.”

Gahs’ oral history, recorded for the Library of Congress, can be viewed here.

Rona Kobell

rona.kobell@thebaltimorebanner.com