WWII veteran is keeper of Holocaust history

Students crowded around the speaker as his talk ended at Everett Community College. They lingered, asking if they could take pictures and posing with him to capture the moment.

Leo Hymas is no hip-hop artist or reality TV star. At 87, the U.S. Army veteran is a keeper of history and a bearer of truth.

“Those who say it didn’t happen are wrong,” said Hymas, who spoke Wednesday as part of the college’s Holocaust Survivor Forums.

He lives on Whidbey Island with his wife, Amy, and is a speaker with the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.

His audience was rapt, hanging on every word, as Hymas shared memories with Joyce Walker’s Humanities 150D class. This is the 14th year Walker has presented the Holocaust series, which is open to the public. Most speakers have been Holocaust survivors, or lost ancestors during Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of 6 million Jews.

Hymas is not Jewish. His Holocaust story is from the point of view of an American soldier during World War II, a 19-year-old fresh off his family’s Utah dairy farm.

He was with the 97th Infantry Division, H Company, part of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army. In the spring of 1945, they marched through a nearly defeated Germany. “We fought our way across Germany, village to village — sometimes man to man,” Hymas said.

They were preparing to attack Weimar, a picturesque German town, when they came upon a wire enclosure. Hymas recalls the fence, topped by barbed wire mounted on electric insulators. There was a brick building with a tall chimney, and a guard tower. The guards were gone.

The place was Buchenwald, a concentration camp near Weimar. What the liberation forces found there is seared in Hymas’ memory.

“I have seen hundreds and hundreds of naked, rotting bodies stacked like cord wood,” he said. “The smell, I cannot describe. It was burning human flesh.”

There was no fighting. “Suddenly, our fighting force became a humanitarian force,” Hymas said. “You’ve seen the pictures. The people were so emaciated, just skin and bones.

“An order came to touch nothing, but help if you can,” he said. Three generals came to the death camp with their staffs — Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and Patton. Hymas said troops had nicknamed Patton “Old Blood and Guts — his guts, our blood.”

From camp survivors, Hymas heard horror stories of torture, of subsisting on a half-cup of turnip soup mixed with sawdust each day, and of dogs trained to go for the throat.

The Allied forces made townspeople from Weimar carry bodies from the camp to a common grave. “They told us, ‘I’m not a Nazi,’” Hymas said.

Kathleen Bergin is the speakers bureau coordinator for the Seattle-based Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center. While most speakers are Jewish, she said, “Leo offers another perspective. He is one of our most prolific speakers.”

He also is among a dwindling number of people still alive to tell what they saw of the Holocaust firsthand.

“The survivors are elderly, and the liberators tend to be even more so,” Bergin said. “We do have videotaped accounts, but a big part of Holocaust education is preparing for when there aren’t survivors. We have to make this real to kids. When there’s not proof of it standing right in front of them, it’s a challenge.”

Hymas was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for valor. He said he helped capture 91 Germans, “most sent to Nuremberg for war crimes.”

Near the end of his talk, he asked for volunteers. Audience members Terry Myer and Cory Palmieri came forward. First, they held up a Nazi banner, bright red with a huge swastika on it.

“It’s a symbol of the worst evil we have record of,” Hymas said, then asked the volunteers to “wad it up and throw it on the floor.” They then held up a 48-star American flag, “the flag I fought for, and my dear friends died for,” Hymas said. “I hope you love and respect it.”

Retired from an aerospace industry career, he makes time to tell as many people as he can about what hate can do.

“I know what I saw. I am a witness. Now that I have told you, you are witnesses, too,” he told the students. “I’m hoping to influence people like you, so that it can never, ever happen again.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

Olivia Vanni / The Herald 
The Mukilteo Lighthouse. Built in 1906, it’s one of the most iconic landmarks in Snohomish County.
The Mukilteo Lighthouse. Built in 1906, it’s one of the most iconic landmarks in Snohomish County. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Mukilteo mayor vetoes council-approved sales tax

The tax would have helped pay for transportation infrastructure, but was also set to give Mukilteo the highest sales tax rate in the state.

Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring gives the state of the city address at the Marysville Civic Center on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, in Marysville, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Marysville council approves interim middle housing law

The council passed the regulations to prevent a state model code from taking effect by default. It expects to approve final rules by October.

x
State audit takes issue with Edmonds COVID grant monitoring

The audit report covered 2023 and is the third since 2020 that found similar issues with COVID-19 recovery grant documentation.

Bothell
Bothell man pleads guilty to sexual abuse of Marysville middle schoolers

The man allegedly sexually assaulted three students in exchange for vapes and edibles in 2022. His sentencing is set for Aug. 29.

Larsen talks proposed Medicaid cuts during Compass Health stop in Everett

Compass Health plans to open its new behavioral health center in August. Nearly all of the nonprofit’s patients rely on Medicaid.

Snohomish County Health Department Director Dennis Worsham on Tuesday, June 11, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Snohomish County Health Department director tapped as WA health secretary

Dennis Worsham became the first director of the county health department in January 2023. His last day will be July 3.

Police Cmdr. Scott King answers questions about the Flock Safety license plate camera system on Thursday, June 5, 2025 in Mountlake Terrace, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Mountlake Terrace approves Flock camera system after public pushback

The council approved the $54,000 license plate camera system agreement by a vote of 5-2.

Community members gather for the dedication of the Oso Landslide Memorial following the ten-year remembrance of the slide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
The Daily Herald garners 6 awards from regional journalism competition

The awards recognize the best in journalism from media outlets across Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen talks with Volunteers of America leadership to discuss the consequences of the federal cuts on Monday, June 30, 2025 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Federal cuts to LGBTQ+ youth hotline to hit Everett center

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Everett, visited the call center Monday to discuss impacts of the cuts, including longer wait times and staff layoffs.

U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, right, goes over a Chinook Marsh Project map with Snohomish County Surface Water Management’s Michael Rustay, left, and Erik Stockdale, center, at the project site on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024 in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
County receives $10 million grant for floodplain management

The state Department of Ecology funding will go toward 13 projects across the county working to restore habitat and support climate resiliency.

The Washington state Capitol. (Photo by Jacquelyn Jimenez Romero/Washington State Standard)
These Washington laws take effect July 1

Fee hikes for hunting and fishing licenses, workplace protections for immigrants and… Continue reading

Everett
Everett could levy fines for non-emergency lift assists at care facilities

The ordinance intends to discourage licensed care facilities from calling 911 to perform lift assists in a non-emergency situation.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.