A Midwest Family, A Southern Boy, A Journey to Hell

I remember, as a child, going downtown with my grandfather and one of my cousins to watch the Veteran’s Day parade. As we walked down a side street in downtown Indianapolis, a sketchy-looking white man approached us. “Hey man, hey man, you wanna buy a watch?” he said.

“No man, no man, I don’t wanna buy a watch,” Papaw said with a laugh, and we walked on past.

My cousin and I cast backward glances after the man. Papaw walked straight ahead without looking back. When we had turned the corner, he said, “Never buy anything from someone who approaches you on the street like that. He probably just wants to see where you keep your wallet.”

Whether the man was a thief on the make, I’ll never know, but the street-savvy presumption of danger—and the cheerful laughter in the face of it—was characteristic of my grandfather. He was larger than life to me, six feet tall with a head full of white hair and a booming voice. He commanded any room he entered—and I saw him enter a lot of rooms. He spoke at every school I attended; he talked to my history classes every single year. And to my cousins’ classes, and my brother’s and sister’s classes, and to civic groups—anyplace he could find an audience.

What he talked about was the Holocaust.

My grandfather, J. Ray Clark, was a veteran of World War II. He fought with Patton’s army in Europe, and he was there at the liberation of Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, and Ebensee. Some veterans don’t like to talk about their experiences in war. My grandfather was not one of them. He had seen the Holocaust firsthand, and he believed that it should never be forgotten.

He talked about it everywhere, including over lunch. Meals at my grandparents’ house could be uncomfortable things, when Papaw dragged out his photos from the concentration camps over ham sandwiches and potato salad. He talked about it so much that Holocaust deniers threatened to kill him, in letters and phone calls. He turned the notes over to the FBI.

And he went on talking.

So, I don’t suppose it’s any surprise that he seemed, to me, completely fearless. Unshakeable, even on a deserted city street with a sketchy looking potential thief and his grandchildren in tow.

I wish you could have met him.

Like so many veterans of that war, he is gone now, but he left a memoir. The same story that he told over and over again, every year at my school: the truth as he lived it, a front-row seat to evil, a detailed record of what it took to beat it back. And, right alongside that, the story of the crucible that formed one young man into an old man who seemed capable of looking anything, however terrible, right in the eye.

He included his photos.

My father and I have republished Journey to Hell: A Soldier’s Story, with a new cover, as part of the Flyover Country series.

Finish your lunch before you start reading.