Belfast man Teddy Dixon helped liberate Dachau after being drafted into the US Army’s 42nd Rainbow Infantry

It was the smell that stayed with Teddy Dixon, the smell of human despair at the hands of the Nazis that drifted in and out of his memories for the rest of his days – and nights.

Teddy Dixon was a Belfast lad who, by a quirk of fate and birthright, ended up in a regiment of American soldiers tasked with the liberation of Dachau in 1945.

Born in the United States before moving with his family to Belfast, he was drafted at age 24 into the U.S. Army’s 42nd Rainbow Infantry Division and walked through the gates of the Dachau concentration camp, 10 miles northwest of Munich, on April 29, 1945.

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Sixty years later, he walked through those gates once more, this time not to free the dying, but to free the memories he had bottled and preserved so carefully for six decades.

At 85 years old, flanked in love and support by his son Johnston and grandson Ian, the three men walked together in step, silently, without words, minds and hearts racing. It was a journey of acceptance and recognition, of cleansing and renewal, and a time to remember those Teddy had helped into new life, and those who were beyond help.

Johnson said: “Dad was doing well in the camp until he saw the crematorium. Seeing the crematorium brought back all the memories of what he had seen that day in 1945 and he became visibly upset and left.

“During all these years, he had never really talked about what had happened in Dachau and what he had witnessed, but he started talking about it at that time.

“He told us he had suffered from nightmares for years and would wake up smelling the camp. The smell never left him.”

Teddy Dixon was one of Northern Ireland’s last World War II veterans; a quiet, unassuming man and an American soldier who was part of a 12-man squad involved in the liberation of some 33,000 people from the Dachau concentration camp.

Born in New York in 1920, he and his family moved to Belfast five years later. At the age of 24, he was drafted into the US Army, serving in the 42nd Rainbow Infantry Division. They landed in France in December 1944 before advancing to Germany in 1945, where the liberation of Dachau took place.

Teddy returned to Belfast in 1946 and lived there with his wife Margaret and two children, Johnston and Jackie. He passed away in November 2020 at the age of 100.

As a member of the Rainbow Division, Teddy was one of the first servicemen to enter Dachau concentration camp – the original Nazi concentration camp and the prototype from which others were built.

It would be another 60 years before Teddy returned to camp, this time without orders or under command, but with painful memories and that smell as clear in his head as it had been six decades before.

The National Lottery Heroes Return Programme marked 80 years since many of the events that led to the end of the Second World War and 30 years since the creation of the National Lottery.

Heroes Return was an innovative programme that ran from 2004 to 2005 and provided National Lottery funding to enable Second World War veterans, their carers and families to return to the battlefields where they saw action and remember the sacrifice made by their fallen friends and comrades.

And more than £135,000 of National Lottery funding has given 134 war veterans like Teddy the opportunity to go on emotional journeys to heal, remember and help future generations learn lessons from the past.

Johnston believes that new generations must not let the memories and knowledge of the sacrifices and heroism of those who fought against the Nazis disappear.

He said: “Yes, my father was a hero, but so were all the men who were with him that day. That’s how he saw it. Growing up, my father never talked about Dachau, and we never asked him. There was an old photographic book that belonged to his division that we had seen, but he kept those memories to himself until he visited Dachau.”

Johnston recalls his father telling him there were two camps at Dachau, the infamous concentration camp where there were 32,000 documented deaths and thousands more undocumented, and an SS training camp.

At the time of liberation in 1945, about 10,000 of the 30,000 prisoners still held in the concentration camp were seriously ill.

The 42nd Rainbow Infantry Division followed a railroad track and a death train leading to the camp and, knowing nothing about concentration camps, were completely unprepared for what they found.

Johnston explained: “Dad told us there was all sorts of disease in the camp, so they were told to keep everyone inside. They had to spend the night there until the next day, and then head to Munich to meet the rest of the division.

“It’s unimaginable what they must have seen and although it was difficult for Dad to go back to the crematorium, I think he found it cathartic.”

On their return trip to Dachau, Teddy, Johnston and Ian attended a special commemoration service held by a group of Dutch survivors of the camp. Towards the end of the war, the crematorium ran out of fuel and the bodies were taken to a nearby hill and buried, including many Dutch ones.

Teddy’s small group and another Rainbow Division member he met on the visit joined the Dutch group on the hill, where they laid wreaths and later had dinner together.

It was an emotional experience for his father, Johnston says, and one that helped him put some ghosts to rest.

In the DoubleBand Films production From Belfast to Dachau, Teddy spoke of the “desperate” sights, sounds, and smells that met him on April 29, 1945, and the “total chaos” at the camp. The film also captured him meeting an elderly man who had been liberated from Dachau by Teddy and the men of the Rainbow Division.

After the trip, Johnston says, his father began to open up more about what he had witnessed during the war.

He said: “Maybe it’s a generational thing, but he kept it to himself until then. The visit to Dachau definitely helped him, and it was very special for me and my nephew Ian to be with him for that.”

Johnston also remembers a pivotal moment when the trio were leaving camp. A group of children walked by and one boy, recognizing the Rainbow Division cap Teddy was proudly wearing, ran back to talk to him.

When it was explained that Teddy was one of the camp’s liberators, there was a spontaneous burst of applause from the boy and his friends.

“It was emotional,” says Johnston. “It meant a lot to the father that this young lad recognised the hat. That’s why the National Lottery Heroes Return Programme was so important; giving the father a chance to go back and remember the role he and the other men played.

“They were all heroes, and we must never forget that.”

Since The National Lottery began in 1994, billions of pounds have made life-changing projects like Heroes Return possible. Every week, more than £30 million is raised for good causes like this, thanks to people playing The National Lottery games.

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