Mounted on the wall.

The Soldiers of the 120th Evacuation Hospital (Semimobile (SM)) of Third U.S. Army took pride in themselves as the Battered Bastards of Buchenwald. This unit was activated in March 1944 in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, under the command of Colonel William E. Williams of Austin, Texas. They deployed through the United Kingdom and France into Germany in early 1945, before their first and most significant operational employment, rendering medical and surgical aid to political prisoners and displaced personnel during the liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

When the unit arrived near Buchenwald on 15 April 1945, there were an estimated 21,000 detainees there, and over 140 died each day due to the prevalence of dysentery, malnutrition, and tuberculosis. The unit established its base site on the grounds of Schloss Ettersburg and began clearing buildings and transferring the worst cases from the Concentration Camp. A mess was set up in the Buchenwald camp to help feed the inmates. Food consisted of soft and liquid diet (i.e., soup, milk, oatmeal, and meat stew). Within the first few days, the unit worked effectively to reduce the detainee death rate to under 30 per day. Reportedly, French, German, Czech, Hungarian, and other doctors among the detainees also helped unit personnel in this mission.

On 25 Apr 1945, as the First US Army assumed control of the occupation of the Weimar area, the unit remained under Third US Army command and redeployed to Kersbach, northeast of Nürnberg, and then further east to support another former liberated detainee camp near the Czech border in Cham, Bayern. Returned to the US in July 1945 and disbanded at then-Camp Polk, Louisiana.

In April 2002, a stone plaque was dedicated on a wall on the grounds of Schloss Ettersburg in memory of the efforts of the 120th Evacuation Hospital (SM) in April 1945.

Source of information: www.mit-eyk-unterwegs.de, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia, www.buchenwald.de, antifa.vvn-bda.de, time.com

Source of photos: www.mit-eyk-unterwegs.de, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia

Dedication

Dedicated to the two hundred seventy-three men and women

of the 120th Evacuation Hospital, Third U.S. Army, who were

assigned to Buchenwald Concentration Camp on April 15, 1945,

as the first major medical unit to relieve the suffering and

indignities inflicted on their fellow man, to save their emaciated

bodies, and to restore hope in their lives.

May there be no more such inhuman degradations.

May we never forget.

Further, may the memory of all those how served and whom we

served - those who are with us today, and those who are

no longer with us - be inscribed in our minds and hearts from

this day, and forever more.

120th Evacuation Hospital, Third U.S. Army

Buchenwald, October 2001

Zur Erinnerung an die 273 Männer und Frauen des 120. Feldlazaretts der 3. U.S. Armee,

die im April 1945 die befreiten Häftlinge des KZ Buchenwald medizinisch versorgten

und in Ettersburg stationiert waren.

U.S. Veterans Friends Germany e.V.

English translation:

In memory of the 273 men and women of the 120th Evacuation Hospital of Third U.S. Army, who in April 1945, rendered medical care to the freed prisoners of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, who were stationed in Ettersburg.