Band of Brothers speaker to discuss her father’s experiences at Dachau

Clarice Wilsey, who speaks about World War II and the liberation of the Dachau Nazi death camp, will visit the McMinnville Band of Brothers meeting on Thursday, March 7.

The free meeting, open to veterans, starts at 11:30 a.m. in the Evergreen Aviation Museum.

Wilsey’s father, Capt. David Wilsey, M.D., served during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII’s European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.

On April 29, 1945, he was one of 27 physicians who entered the Dachau concentration camp. The medical team was charged with providing compassionate medical care to survivors, his daughter said.

Half a century later, Clarice Wilsey found the letters he’d written to his wife describing the atrocities he’d witnessed.

She and her siblings had known where their father had served, she said, but he would not tell them the details. Only when he heard that someone was denying the Holocaust would he reveal his emotions.

But in the letters Wilsey read, her father told his wife, “I want you to tell thousands so that millions will know what Dachau is and never forget the name of Dachau.”

Clarice Wilsey has spoken about her father’s experiences many times since then. She is on the speakers’ bureau for the Holocaust Center of Humanity in Seattle and the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in Portland.

A retired university teacher, administrator and counselor, Wilsey also is the co-author with Bob Welch of “Letters from Dachau: a father’s witness of war, a daughter’s dream of peace.”

For more information about Band of Brothers, send email to bcgrill7@gmail.com.