WATERBORO — What the man at the podium said was enough to make you weep and wonder ”“ weep at the images conjured up by his words, wonder at the brutality of those who created and perpetuated such a horror.

Harry Blumenthal, 87, stood at the podium in the auditorium of Massabesic High School and talked about what he saw on April 11, 1945, the day Patten’s Third Army liberated  Buchenwald concentration camp.

Blumenthal, a surgical technician with the 120th Evacuation Hospital attached to the Third Army, said troops first saw the railroad station on the way into the camp, where prisoners of the Nazis were forced to work as slave labor. The soldiers hadn’t been told about what they were about to encounter.

“It was the first sign of what we were getting into. There were bodies in boxcars, along the road there were bodies. I had no idea why,” said Blumenthal. “You could see some had been shot in the head.”

It didn’t get any better.

“There were bodies everywhere. There was a huge farm wagon, filled neatly and methodically with bodies,” he said. “It is scarred in my mind.”

Blumenthal won’t remember the faces ”“ he can’t let himself, he said ”“ but he remembers the bodies. And the telling of his experiences doesn’t get any easier, no matter how many times he tells it.

He doesn’t sleep before his presentations, and he said Wednesday that he didn’t expect to sleep that night. The images are too vivid.

Blumenthal recounted how he and his comrades saw smoke coming from a building and investigated, finding human bones.

They found prisoners ill and dying, starved and beaten by their Nazi captors. They tried to help, but many, who had waited so long for the liberation, didn’t make it.

The presentation by Blumenthal, of Yarmouth, was the conclusion of a day-long series of events at Massabesic High School Wednesday to mark the Holocaust. The event was  sponsored by the school’s sophomore English teachers in concert with the Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine and made possible through a grant from Irving Oil, said teacher Angela Scully.

Earlier in the day, students heard from Charles Rotmil, a child who had been hidden from the Nazis and taken in by a family in Austria, and Julia Skalina, a survivor of Auschwitz.

“It’s hard to talk about and it was hard to comprehend then,” said Blumenthal. “The aroma was unforgettable. I didn’t eat much or sleep for a week.”

Buchenwald, which was created by the Nazis in 1937, was divided into two sections, one where workers were held, assembling field binoculars and ammunition carts. In the lower section were the others.

“Most were approaching death,” said Blumenthal. “Close to 500 a day were dying.”

One young man, who Blumenthal had estimated was 11 or 12 years old, told Blumenthal that he was being sought by the Nazis so he hid under the barracks all day, coming up only at night.

“He was 19 years old,” said Blumenthal, but was underdeveloped due to malnutrition.

Blumenthal’s unit was at the camp for a week, caring for prisoners, before moving on.

At one point, Patten ordered the unit to bring German civilians from the nearby town of Weimar to observe what had been taking place for so many years just a few miles away.

“They were in denial of what they knew was there,” he said. “They would not admit they knew it was there.”

On April 8, 1945, the Nazis had conducted a partial evacuation of the camp, forcing thousands of prisoners to join the evacuation march, according to historical accounts. Communist inmates stormed the watchtowers, killing the remaining guards.

Blumenthal told the audience Wednesday, made up of students parents and others, to be thankful to the framers of the United States ”“ men like Thomas Jefferson ”“ who fought so hard for democracy.

He cautioned the assembly to be watchful and on guard, pointing to atrocities in Africa and elsewhere and entities like the Taliban.

“All are threats to freedom,” he said.

Students said they learned a valuable lesson from the day’s presentations.

“It shows you how cruel man can be to man and to never let it happen again,” said Emily Schatz of Lyman.

“Maybe if we learn it now we can prevent it in the future,” said Zachary Beal of Waterboro.

“It’s important to hear,” said Casey Irish of Lyman.

It is estimated that more than 238,000 people passed through Buchenwald from 1937 to 1945, and that 56,000 prisoners died there.

Less than a month after the liberation of Buchenwald on May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered, ending World War II in Europe.

At the end of the presentation, a voice from the audience expressed the feelings of many: “Thank you for your courage and thank you for your service,” the man said.

— Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.