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Heart of Darkness. But though we were tired from the long journey, we were lured on and on and on, from building to building. What lured us was a sound which at first we had thought was the wind in the pines of Dachau. Then after a while we knew it was cheering — the sound of thousands of men cheering and cheering again.
At last we came to a high wooden wall and went through the gates'. Before us stretched the great prison compound of Dachau. This must be at least one square mile in extent. In & out of this vast stretch of open compound studded with low barracks were swarming the liberated men of Dachau. I cannot pre tend to estimate the number with any exactness. But there were many thousand.
These men, cheering as hard as their feeble strength would permit, tore them selves getting through the barbed wire to touch us, to talk to us. Some of them were nearly mad with joy. Here were the men of all nations whom Hitler's agents had picked out as prime opponents of Naziism; here were the very earliest Hitler haters. Here were German social democrats, Spanish survivors of the Spanish Civil War, a correspondent for the Paris Soir, who cried so hard I could not get his name.
Joy in the Inferno. We went into one barracks after another. So many men were sick and possibly dying of starvation and beatings that they merely lay or leaned or sat shoulder to shoulder, too weak to do more than grin glassily. It was here that we even found some Hindus.
All this time the cheering went on, and we were being forcibly mobbed by hundreds of men strong as only the half-insane can be, kissed and kissed again by men who stank like the inferno, obviously sick toward death of all kinds of illnesses.
One giant Russian held me for at least 30 seconds while he kissed all over the U.S. insignia on my coat. They shouted in all languages but sometimes in American phrases; one little Pole ran beside us until he dropped flat, shouting desperately: "Hello, boys!"