The Grateful

Yesterday, I was shown a picture on an Iphone taken late last summer.

The old woman was severely hunched over her walker as she made the difficult journey up a very steep hill. She was not to be deterred from her mission. She spoke only six English words, but that was all she needed to say.

She was 6 years old in April 1945.

When going through his father's belongings, he found eight canisters filled with undeveloped film. He, like most of us, had never asked his father much about his military experience before it was too late. In going through the belongings, he found all of his military paperwork detailing his unit.

After hours and hours of research he found those aging soldiers who had served in the same unit as his father. He could follow the trail the unit had made. While America was planning the invasion of Normandy, there were thousands of soldiers also advancing from the south. His father's unit was among them.

He traced out the path those soldiers took and discovered that every year there was now a dwindling group that would tour the bloody path of war those soldiers trekked, through France and into Germany.

Sixty years later, those battles were resurrected from the eight canisters of film being developed between someone's recent trip to Disney World.

The pictures of the young weary soldiers were also joined by pictures of the atrocities of mankind.

In April 1945, his father's unit helped liberate Dachau. The Americans found 32,000 prisoners alive, 1,600 housed in each of the 20 bunkers designed to hold 250. The Germans had fled to avoid the advancing American troops.

Imagine finding images of the concentration camp along with hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies discarded along the ditches.

Bringing with him the pictures that now had been released from the canisters, he joined the small group that followed the path of the soldiers. Sadly there was now only three of them that remained healthy enough to make the trip.

The young Dachau tour guide was busy explaining to the group the standard memorized words when he was handed a picture of one of the buildings from 1945. He stopped and stared at the picture for a long time in amazement. Suddenly the young man could see the concentration camp as it appeared when the Americans arrived. He took the soldier's son to the building which was still standing, placed him in the precise location where his father had stood and the son took the exact picture his father had taken 65 years ago.

As the small group toured the rest of the camp, the aging bent woman finally made her way to them. She found one of the aging soldiers that arrived there on April 29, 1945.

She lowered herself from the walker and kneeled in front of the old man. She slowly took his hand, kissed it and uttered the only English words she understood.

She said in her extremely broken English, "Thank you for liberating my village."