Letters from Dachau

You never know what you will find when cleaning out your parents’ house. What you find may change the direction of your life.

In October 1944, Dr. David Wilsey left his wife Emily and their infant son to serve in France with the 116th Evacuation Hospital. Dr. Wilsey was a brilliant anesthetist and a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honorary medical society. He was among the first doctors to provide medical care for the liberated survivors at the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. While serving there and elsewhere in Germany, Dr. Wilsey wrote more than 300 letters to his wife, documenting his often-horrific experiences treating patients who had
been tortured and starved by the Nazis. As one letter said, “Dachau change lots of things that you will have to just see for yourself.” His prophesy proved true; when he returned, he was a changed man, unable to share in person the stories of his experiences.

Clarice Wilsey, his daughter, was born after World War II. In 2009, while clearing out the family home, she found the box of her father’s letters. With these letters as a primary resource, she writes of Dachau, war, and the heroic man she never knew. It is a story of great courage in the face of cruelty and how the wounds of experiencing the aftermath of such atrocities may never heal. Dee Simon, executive director of the Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle, writes, “Wilsey shares with startling openness the deepest thoughts of a man plunged into one of the world’s most horrific crimes. She reflects on this crucial history as a daughter raised in the shadow of trauma.”

Ms. Wilsey will describe the discovery of the letters and share excerpts. She will explain the impact of the letters and the important work she is doing at the Holocaust Center to educate people about the horrors her father saw.

Bob Welch will discuss the process of writing this memoir with Ms. Wilsey and the lessons he learned from this process. We must prevent this from happening again—anywhere.