Mar

15 2020

Letters from Dachau

12:00PM - 2:00PM  

Kol Shalom Community Room 1509 SW Sunset Blvd Suite 1E
Portland, OR 97239
503-459-4210 info@kolshalom.org
http://www.kolshalom.org

Contact
503-459-4210
info@kolshalom.org
http://www.kolshalom.org

Clarice Wilsey, from the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education Speakers Bureau, will tell the story of her late father, who was a liberator of and a physician for the people at Dachau Concentration Camp.

Captain David B. Wilsey, M.D., served as an Army physician during World War 11 in the front lines of Germany and France. At the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp, he was one of 27 physicians that treated survivor patients in extreme conditions for over a month. The American physicians and medical staff risked their lives to bring healing to the 30,000 survivors experiencing deadly diseases, torture and malnutrition. Dr. Wilsey's family knew very little about his wartime experience. In 2009, when his children were cleaning out the family home, they found for the first time a box of letters Dr. Wilsey had written almost daily to his wife Emily while at Dachau and during his war experience. The letters had survived several moves and even a house fire. Dr. Wilsey asked his wife in several letters "to tell  thousands so that millions will know what Dachau is and never forget the name of Dachau." 

Clarice's presentation will outline the discovery of the letters and will read graphic excerpts from the  letters that her father wrote from Dachau.

This event is free and open to the public.