In the shadow of Dachau, the man they called 69970 finally fell.

"Go ahead. Shoot me," the Jewish prisoner defiantly told the German soldier bearing down on him.

"Shoot me."

By the end of April 1945, the 21-year-old had made it through three concentration camps. At Sachsenhausen, his uncle and cousin were killed. At Auschwitz, his father was shot, his mother was gassed to death and he was tattooed with the number that would follow him the rest of his life.

In the nearly six years since his arrest, he had seen women and children tortured and had lost everyone he knew. He had seen thousands of walking skeletons, then became one.

After being marched around the massive Dachau complex for days, 69970 was ready to die.

"Get up!" commanded the German soldier.

The prisoner looked back, confused. For the rest of his life he would wonder why he was given a second chance.

"It won't be long, now. The Americans are almost here," the soldier told him.

"The Americans are right around the corner."

In the shadow of Dachau, 69970 slowly stood, and continued to walk.

Soldiers smelled death

About a mile from the barbed wire, 27-year-old Lt. Col. Felix Sparks received a call on his military radio.

"You are to proceed immediately to the concentration camp at Dachau. Once inside, you are to secure it and let nobody in or out."

By the end of April 1945, Sparks and the 157th Infantry Regiment had slogged through thousands of miles, all the way from North Africa. At the end of the war, the 157th — which had it roots in the Colorado National Guard — spent more time in combat than almost any other unit.

On the afternoon of April 29, Sparks and his men smelled death. Then it glared back at them, from boxcars filled with bodies.

The trains had arrived from Buchenwald, where, weeks earlier, the Nazis had sent prisoners away in an attempt to hide them from the advancing Allies. Very few prisoners survived the trip. None survived Dachau.

At the edge of one of the railroad cars, Sparks saw the body of a man who managed to crawl a few feet from the train. A guard had crushed his head with a rifle butt.

As they passed each rail car, the soldiers' anger boiled. If they found the men who did this, a few swore, there would be hell to pay.

Honoring men of the 157th

Inside his home in Lakewood, 58 years after he got the order to take Dachau, Sparks watched as an old friend rolled up his sleeve to expose a tattoo. The Nazis called him 69970. His name is Jack Goldman.

As they sat together last week, the two men talked about the day that would end the war for both of them and about the people who weren't there to see it.

"These are the ones in railroad cars," Sparks said as he took out a stack of photos.

"This girl. I can still remember her face. Boy, I remember her face," Sparks said.

"There were a lot of photos taken of that young girl. She just happened to be on top of the other bodies."

Though they never met each other at Dachau, the two men have spoken out for years about their experiences from both sides of the prison gates. This year, to commemorate the 58th anniversary of Dachau's liberation, Goldman suggested another honor.

At a special ceremony, the Hebrew Educational Alliance plans to remember the men of the 157th and their successors in the Colorado Army National Guard. Tonight, the group plans to unveil a memorial boulder designed by Goldman, etched with the logo of the 157th alongside a Star of David. The symbols are joined by barbed wire.

Inside Sparks' home last week, the two veterans — Sparks is now 85 years old, Goldman is 79 — continued to look through the stacks of pictures. Their memories are nearly as tangible.

In another famous photo, a young lieutenant colonel stands with his pistol raised in the air.

He is screaming at his men to stop shooting.

Veteran soldiers crack

Once inside the gates at Dachau, Sparks and his troops quickly rounded up most of the German soldiers that had not already deserted. Members of the SS were taken to a coal yard, and a young private was told to guard them with a machine gun.

"I told him to just keep 'em there," recalled Sparks, who then left to secure the rest of the camp.

"Then the machine gunner cut loose on those prisoners. Why he did that, I don't know.

"I ran back as fast as I could, I kicked him down with the back of my foot. I grabbed him by the collar and said, 'What the hell were you doing?' He said, 'But, colonel, they were trying to get away.'

Sparks shook his head.

"They weren't trying to get away."

At that point in the war, the troops had seen 511 days of combat. Dachau was different. For a few of them, it was too much.

"I'll tell you a story that I haven't told, but I can tell it now since the guy's dead," Sparks said.

"At one point, I came around a corner and saw my company commander running after a German, hitting him in the head with the barrel of his carbine. He kept chasing him and hitting him and saying, 'You sons of bitches. You sons of bitches. You sons of bitches.' That's all he could say.

"I ran forward, and he wouldn't stop, so I hit (the GI) with the butt of my .45 and knocked him down.

"He laid down there and started crying. Just crying."

Inquiries into killings of SS

"Q: Do you remember the taking of the Dachau Concentration Camp?"

"A: Yes."

So begins the questioning of dozens of American soldiers, during a military investigation following the camp's liberation. After the war, the documentation of the incident was filed away for decades in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

"About 20 years ago, I decided to hire someone to find that report," Sparks said. Books had been written about what did or did not happen during the liberation — most of them inaccurate, Sparks said. By then, Sparks had retired from the military as a brigadier general and served as a justice on the Colorado Supreme Court.

These days, Sparks is known as an outspoken advocate for the prevention of handgun violence — a cause he took up after his grandson was shot and killed. Meanwhile, veterans from his unit — along with others in the National Guard — are asking the government that he receive the Medal of Honor for his achievements during the war.

Each year, about this time, it all returns. In his home, he still keeps the stacks of investigations he was never shown.

"Q. Who ordered the killing of these SS men?" one of the investigators asked one of the soldiers during the inquiry.

"A. Well, I don't think there was any orders given, but it was the general feeling of the troops when we saw those bodies and one or two skinny fellows that came out that no prisoners would be taken among our own troops."

"Q. What did (another officer) tell you about what happened?" a different GI was asked.

"A: He told me that some of our men had lined some SS troopers against the wall and used their machine guns to kill them with. He said that some of the SS troopers were not killed by the machine gun fire and that one or two had cut their own throats. He said it was the worst thing he had ever seen since being in the Army."

After the war, Sparks was called into the office of Gen. George S. Patton to account for the incident.

"(Patton) said, 'Colonel, I have some serious charges here against you and some of your men,' " Sparks remembered.

"I said, 'Yes, and I'd like to explain them.'

"He said, 'I've had these g-damned charges investigated, and they're a bunch of crap. You've been a damn fine soldier. You go on home.'

"I never heard another word about it. Never heard another damn word."

Accounts differ on how many German prisoners were killed after surrendering. Sparks says his men killed 30. Others, Sparks maintains, were killed by other troops not under his command.

Some of the Germans were literally torn apart by the newly liberated prisoners:

"Testimony of Walenty Lenarczyk, Inmate No. 39272 at Dachau, formerly of Warszaw, Poland.

"After the shooting, prisoners swarmed over the wire and grabbed the Americans and lifted them to their shoulders among many cries. I helped to lift the soldiers . . . And while this was going on, other prisoners caught the SS men . . . The first SS man elbowed one or two prisoners out of his way, but the courage of the prisoners mounted, they knocked them down and nobody could see whether they were stomped or what, but they were killed. All we cared about was the Americans. For the past six years we had waited for the Americans, and for the moment the SS were nothing. We were, all these years, animals to them and it was our birthday. It was ordered by Himmler that the SS kill all prisoners before the Americans arrived and so when they came fast it was truly our second birthday."

Out of tears

Over the years, historians and authors have debated the impact of what happened during the liberation at Dachau. As a U.S. veteran of the Korean War (he enlisted shortly after emigrating), Jack Goldman says he understands the importance of following the Geneva Conventions, the necessity of remaining above the level of the murderers.

He also wants to make sure nobody forgets the real prisoners in the camp and the millions who died before them.

"I don't blame (the Americans) for shooting (the German soldiers). They deserved it," Goldman said. "They should not feel bad for having done it."

"If I was there (in the machine gunner's position), I suppose I could have done it. I don't know if I would have. I don't know. I just don't know."

When Goldman heard about his father being killed at Auschwitz, he said he didn't cry. By then, he said, he was out of tears. Instead, he clenched his hand into a fist. He didn't hear about his mother's death until after the war. By then, his fist had begun to open.

"Vengeance is . . . " he began, and then stopped to think.

"I knew men in camp who had sworn by everything that was holy to them that if they ever got out that they would kill every German in sight. They had to watch their wives mutilated. They had to watch their babies tossed in the air and shot."

He stopped again.

"My philosophy is that I will not blame Germans for something that their parents may or may not have done.

"I have never preached hatred. Just the opposite. Hatred doesn't get you anywhere."

One vivid memory

In the shadow of Dachau, Jack Goldman still stands.

When survivors are asked about their memories of the liberation of the camp, some prisoners remember the cheers as the Americans arrived. Some recall their first time outside the gates. For the man who was once 66970, all of that remains a blur.

As he stood near one of the liberators nearly six decades later, Goldman uncovered a memory he holds above them all.

"After the Americans arrived, they took our names. For the first time, we were no longer numbers," he said.

"They asked for our names."

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