Page 127 - Witness

Infantrymen of “D” Company, The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, with their Universal Carrier, which is inscribed “Germany Kaput – Italia Tutto Finito – Here We Come Canada,” De Glindhorst, Netherlands, May 5, 1945.
The Most Beautiful Song in the World
“The next morning, we came out to the gate (in Westerbork), and the German soldiers were gone. We went on the watchtower, and we saw them
hopping through the grass. And we saw tanks rolling over the highway.
“I grabbed the hand of a soldier looking out. All I could say – I was out of breath – was,
‘Thank you, thank you.’
So, he pulled me up, and I sat behind him
and he looked through the binoculars, and
he saw all the other people coming. He said, ‘What’s that?’
“I didn’t know the English word for con- centration camp, so I said, ‘It’s a Jewish camp.’ And we rolled in, and the people went bananas.
I mean, I have never seen anything like it. I will never forget that sight.
“They screamed, they cried – all hell broke loose.... And all of a sudden, those soldiers sang a song. We had never heard that song before. But I realized it was an important song because they looked so proud.
“And it was ‘O Canada.’
“That’s the first time I heard it. And I always say that it’s the most beautiful song in the world.
In 1995, the 50th anniversary of WWII’s end, Canada Post issued a Holocaust stamp bearing a montage of Holocaust faces, a yellow Jewish star, and a Jewish identity card of 17 year old Robert Engel.
“And we were free.”
—Robert Engel