Charlotte Chaney

Charlotte shares her experience as a U.S. Army nurse who participated in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in May 1945. Charlotte Chaney was born Charlotte Ellner on October 15, 1921, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Charlotte was trained as a nurse and then volunteered for the Army Air Corps in 1944. That same year she married United States Navyman Bernard Chaney. In May 1945, Charlotte was sent to Europe as a part of the Red Cross, not knowing she was about to take part in the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. Charlotte, who was Jewish, was among a group of nurses who accompanied American soldiers when they entered Dachau concentration camp. There, she helped clean up the camp and nurse survivors back to health. Charlotte returned to the United States in August of 1945, where she continued her career in nursing. At the time of her interview in 1995, Charlotte was living with her husband in Miami, Florida, and had one daughter and two grandsons.

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