David Cohen (December 11, 1917 – April 10, 2020) was a soldier in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

and a schoolteacher. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Cohen was a liberator of the

Ohrdruf concentration camp Ohrdruf was a German forced labor and concentration camp located near Ohrdruf, south of Gotha, in Thuringia, Germany. It was part of the Buchenwald concentration camp network. Operation Created in November 1944 near the town of Ohrdruf, sout ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

as a member of the 4th Armored Division as a

radio operator A radio operator (also, formerly, wireless operator in British and Commonwealth English) is a person who is responsible for the operations of a radio system. The profession of radio operator has become largely obsolete with the automation of ra ...

Early life

Cohen was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, and was Jewish. His parents Samuel Cohen and Eva (Blackman) Cohen were Jewish immigrants from Latvia.

World War II

Cohen fought in

in France, Belgium, and Nazi Germany as a soldier of the 4th Armored Division, for whom he was a

. He then entered the

outside

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the Gotha (district), district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine House of Wet ...

, Germany, in April 1945, as one of its liberators. At Ohrdruf concentration camp, he said: "We walked into a shed and the bodies were piled up like wood. There are no words to describe it." He said the smell was overpowering and unforgettable. He then helped liberate Buchenwald concentration camp, where the

Nazi concentration camp commandant The commandant (german: KZ-Kommandant, Lagerkommandant) was the chief commanding position within the SS service of a Nazi concentration camp. He held the highest rank and was the most important member of the camp unit. The commandant directed ...

's wife painted on a 'canvas' made of human skin. His photography during the liberation and an oral history interview with him are displayed in the permanent collection at the

United States Holocaust Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust his ...

in Washington, DC, and serve as a permanent documentation of the atrocities of

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. He spoke about his experiences during the war many times in classrooms as a speaker and educator.

Post-war life

After his service in World War II, Cohen returned to the United States, moved to

Queens, New York Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, and taught history in junior high school in

South Jamaica South Jamaica (also commonly known as "The Southside") is a residential neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City, located south of downtown Jamaica. Although a proper border has not been established, the neighborhood is a subsection ...

, Queens, for many years. He married his wife, Muriel (née Brown), in the summer of 1942 and raised two daughters, and they had six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. The later moved to

Longmeadow, Massachusetts Longmeadow is a town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, in the United States. The population was 15,853 at the 2020 census. History Longmeadow was first settled in 1644, and officially incorporated October 17, 1783. The town was originally farm ...

. On April 10, 2020, Cohen (102 years old) and his wife (97 years old), who had met in 1942 in Brooklyn, died on the same day after 78 years of marriage at the Longmeadow Jewish Nursing Home in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

References

External links

"World War II Vet David Cohen Shares Photos from Concentration Camp,"
Connecting Point, April 11, 2018 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, David 1917 births 2020 deaths American centenarians United States Army personnel of World War II 20th-century American educators Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts People from Brooklyn People from Queens, New York People from Longmeadow, Massachusetts American people of Latvian-Jewish descent United States Army soldiers Military personnel from New York City Men centenarians