Birnbaum

First Lieutenant Meyer Birnbaum, an Orthodox Jew, was among the first American troops to liberate the death camps.
In Buchenwald, a gaunt Jewish survivor approached Birnbaum and asked him if he had heard of Rabbi Elhanan. Lt. Birnbaum told him that he had, indeed, known of Rabbi Elhanan from his United States visit in 1938-39.
Gratified to find such a fellow Jew, the survivor told Lt. Birnbaum that he had been with the Rabbi during the final days in Kovno, and that during that frightful period, fellow fugitives had asked the Rabbi to explain why these horrors were befalling them.

On Kol Nidre night in 1945, the Klausenberg Rebbe addressed survivors from Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia in the Feldafin Displaced Persons Camp , and Lieutenant Meyer Birnbaum reported that he “had never heard so powerful a speech and never will again.
When he finished, more than two hours later, I was both emotionally drained and inspired for the best davening [praying] of my life.”