He was hesitant to do it.
But nearly 20 years ago, when his granddaughter asked him to help with her fifth-grade project on the Holocaust, Arthur Seltzer knew he had to share his story.
The 88 year-old recounted personal experiences and vivid details of the Holocaust to Alyse, now 29. Of course, he said, she received an “A” on the project, which led her elementary school teacher to ask where she got her facts.
Seltzer’s granddaughter told her teacher her grandfather had not only lived through World War II and D-Day, but also played an instrumental role in liberating thousands of people from the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945.
From there, Seltzer was inspired to share his message with students throughout the region in the hopes of passing on the stories of trial and triumph to the next generation.
“Too many people were saying this didn’t happen,” Seltzer said.
Pre-war
From his 18th-floor apartment off of Route 70 in Cherry overlooking Center City Philadelphia, Seltzer flips through old photos and articles, recollecting on a long and storied life.
Seltzer moved to the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia when he was 6 and played basketball, football and tennis at Olney High School. After graduating, he spent one year at the University of Pittsburgh.
Seltzer was drafted into the U.S. Army in February 1943.
Somewhere between college and being drafted, Seltzer met his wife Mildred, 84. He remembers meeting her as if it were yesterday, he said.
“I saw my friend coming down with Mildred and we introduced ourselves to each other’s dates. My friend said he couldn’t see her anymore because she lives in Camden and he had no car. I said, I’ll take the number down and we had a date,” Seltzer said. “I didn’t have a car either!”
After being drafted, Seltzer said he took his basic training with the 99th Infantry Division at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi.
But he said he knew he wasn’t in the right place, because he had previously received a letter to join the Signal Corp. He said the commander told him he might not ever get to where he was hoping to go.
After basic training, Seltzer was transferred to the 4th Signal Armored Battalion at Camp Poke, La.
He soon left for Camp Shanks, N.Y. on March 31, 1944.
From there, troops boarded the Queen Elizabeth, en route to Glasgow, Scotland.
Along the way, Seltzer was trained to use radio relay equipment. The equipment, he said, was a highly secretive radio transmitter, which helped guide American invasion forces into Europe.
The high-frequency equipment was not prone to interception and kept up, he said, with fast-moving troops on the ground.
Once overseas, troops practiced using the equipment in Bristol, England on the Isle of Wright. Seltzer found himself attached to the 4th Signal Battalion, a troop made up of specialists who were assigned to different units.
Leading up to D-Day, the 4th Signal Battalion perfected radio communications along the English Channel.
Seltzer said he had 65 pounds of radio equipment he needed to bring on the landing craft that was charted to touch down on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France.
D-Day
As troops were on the ships waiting to land on the beaches of France, they got word they would invade the French coastline on June 6, 1944, rather than June 5, Seltzer said.
The first wave landed on Omaha Beach around 6 a.m. that morning, leaving 70 to 80 percent of the troops wounded or killed, Seltzer said.
He said he got a message on his radio to notify the second wave to walk off the sides of the boats rather than to wait to reach land.
“I thought, I can’t swim and with a 65 pound radio and 40-pound pack, I went down to the bottom. I dropped the pack with food and clothing,” Seltzer said. “When we came up, there were a lot of guys who couldn’t swim and we helped each other out.”
He said he and many others would hide behind dead and wounded soldiers to avoid death. Soldiers, he said, also didn’t evacuate the beach until 5 p.m., much later than they had anticipated.
Seltzer said many engineers were lost in the first wave, and were trained to drop dynamite on the buff and hills to create a safe passage for troops and tanks. Instead, many soldiers had to climb over the steep incline.
In total, Seltzer said six waves of soldiers swept through Normandy. About 5,400 ships carrying 6,603 soldiers were involved in D-Day, with 1,465 American lives lost and 2,800 wounded.
From there, troops embarked on a march across Europe to defeat Hitler.
1945
By late April 1945, Seltzer and the infantry he was attached to had arrived near Munich, Germany.
The soldiers thought they had stumbled upon a POW camp about eight miles northwest of Munich.
“We were told if we found soldiers to get the hospital care,” Seltzer said. “We had never heard of concentration camps.”
Before entering the camp, troops thought they had found a town with a factory. But what loomed before their eyes was a crematory.
Seltzer was told to contact Army headquarters to get a hold of General Eisenhower, he said, when troops realized what they had found.
Seltzer said he will never forget the gate at Dachau Concentration Camp, which read “Work makes one free” in German.
He said he remembers seeing heaps of clothing left outside the barracks, remnants from those who came arrived at the concentration camp after being taken from their homes. He also remembers lines and lines of trenches and graves and piles of human bones.
Seltzer said 36 soldiers arrived at the camp, and he was the only one who was Jewish.
Seltzer was one of the few soldiers to have a camera with him during the war. He had the photos developed when he arrived back in the United States. Many of the photos show the extreme tragedy and sorrow the soldiers witnessed at the camp.
“We couldn’t believe what we saw. How could anyone do this?”
But he also has a few photos he holds close — photos that show something different.
When troops arrived in late April, it was only a matter of weeks before the war ended on May 16. The camp was liberated on April 29, 1945.
“The inmates were lined up against the fence … all smiles, knowing they were free,” Seltzer said.
Seltzer said nearly 31,000 people were liberated from Dachau in total. At the height of the war, he said, more than 66,000 people were kept in that concentration camp.
Eisenhower came to the camp, and sure enough, Seltzer caught the moment on film when he met the thousands of newly liberated.
Seltzer finished serving in the Army that September, but wasn’t sent home until January 1946.
After the war
After being discharged, Seltzer received a degree in electronic engineering from Temple University. He went on to work 45 years with Almo Electronic, a wholesale distribution group.
He has also served as past commander of JWV Post 126 Cherry Hill, the New Jersey Jewish War Veterans of USA, the National Museum of American Jewish Military History, American Legion Post 372 Cherry Hill, as well as numerous other local and national groups.
In 2010, Seltzer, a decorated war veteran, returned to Europe with his wife to retrace his steps.
He went back to Omaha Beach, Normandy, to collect a sample of sand from the beach, which now sits perched next to a sample he collected on June 6, 1944.
He went back to the barracks at Dachau to find trenches covered with gravel and marked with a plaque honoring the Army division he was serving with in 1945.
In recent years, Seltzer has also connected with some of the very people he helped to liberate in 1945.
“It was a shock. Unbelievable,” Seltzer said about hearing the voices of those held in the German concentration camp more than 60 years ago.
Here and now
Seltzer said he looks back on his life with much to be proud of. He’s been married for 63 years, with three children and four grandchildren.
He has an entire room dedicated to housing and showcasing his awards, medals, patches, photographs, articles and letters of thanks.
He said he will keep speaking to middle school and high school students for as long as he can. But it’s still a struggle, he said.
Seltzer is being treaded for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“When I came out of the army, nobody knew about PTSD. Shell shocked, that’s what we called it,” Seltzer said.
He said he wants to continue to spread his story and has learned with ways to get him through his presentations.
“As long as I talk about this, I’m going to have problems. When I speak, I wear rubber bands. When I feel I’m going to break down, I snap the rubber band,” Seltzer said. “I try to think of something funny that happened while I was in the Army.”
Even though it’s a challenge to continue to relive and share his own personal history, Seltzer said he’s often reminded of why he continues to do it.
“A mother told me, when her son came home from school (the day Seltzer spoke), it was the first time she didn’t have to ask him what he did in school that day. He was so interested,” Seltzer says with a smile.
