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Former Ohio Educator Who Helped Liberate Dachau Shares His Story

WCBE 90.5FM | By Ohio Public Radio

Published May 18, 2017 at 6:28 AM EDT

A former public school teacher and principal shared his stories of being a liberator of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, as part of the state's annual commemoration of the Holocaust. Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.

Former Lakewood Public Schools principal Richard Dutro was part of the 42^nd Rainbow Division that arrived at Dachau, Germany on April 30^th, 1945, one day after the Americans invaded. He says he will never forget what he saw there.

“I was at Dachau for five days but I witnessed some of the most cruel, inhumane activities that I have ever seen in my life.”

Dutro says he didn’t speak about the horrors he witnessed at the concentration camp until a few years ago when he realized if he doesn’t talk about what he saw, people will never realize the atrocities and the climate that led to them. Dutro was part of the Governor’s 37^th Annual Holocaust Commemoration at the Statehouse.

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