70 years after bombing Dresden, Tulsa World War II veterans connect with grateful survivor

More than anything, Eva Unterman remembers the flames.

"There was fire - fire all around," said the Tulsa resident, who as a 12-year-old Jewish prisoner in 1945 survived the Allied bombings of Dresden, Germany.

But while the bombs were frightening, she added, they were also welcome.

"It was the first time I knew that someone out there knew about us and was trying to bring this war to an end, and liberate us," Unterman said.

On Thursday, more than 70 years after the Dresden bombings, Unterman, a longtime Tulsan and Holocaust survivor, was given an opportunity she never thought she'd have:

She got to thank those liberators personally.

In an event at Legend Senior Living arranged by members of the All Veterans Association of Tulsa, Unterman met with Jack Babbitt and Roland Kinzer, two Tulsa-area World War II veterans who were part of the raids on Dresden.

Unterman first became aware of them through the Tulsa World's World War II Veterans Remember series, in which Kinzer was featured. She reached out to him and then learned about Babbitt. From there, members of the All Veterans group set up a special event for the three to meet publicly.

"It's incredible," said Unterman, now 83. "To be still living and meet two of the Americans who flew that mission. Here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's beyond anything I would've imagined."

As members of the 8th Air Force, Babbitt and Kinzer, a pilot and tail gunner respectively, were part of B-17 units that flew raids on Dresden in February 1945. Babbitt flew on Feb. 13, Kinzer on Feb. 15.

Over the three-day air assault, British and American planes combined to drop nearly 4,000 tons of bombs and incendiary devices on the city. An estimated 25,000 people were killed, and more than 1,600 acres of the city destroyed.

"I always worried when we were dropping bombs who might be below us," said Babbitt, 93. "To hear Eva's story brings a great deal of relief."

After the war, the Dresden bombings would become the focus of criticism, including as the subject of Kurt Vonnegut's antiwar novel "Slaughterhouse-Five."

But while some feel the bombings were not justified, Unterman has a different take.

As she told a high school class in Dresden a few years ago, "Had the Germans not invaded, occupied and killed millions of innocent people in Europe, the bombings would not have happened."

"There are consequences," she added.

Unterman's route to Dresden began in 1940 when she was 7.

Taken prisoner when the Germans rounded up her family and other Jews in Losz, Poland, she would eventually find herself held at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

In November 1944, Unterman and her mother were transferred to Dresden. There, as slave labor, they were put to work in a munitions factory. Unterman sorted bullets on a conveyor belt.

They were still in Dresden a few months later when the bombers came.

Reflecting on it all Thursday, Unterman told the All Veterans group, "I seldom get emotional, but seeing all of you guys, I have to fight back tears. Every veteran of World War II, whether you were ever near a concentration camp, you are my - our - liberators."

Kinzer, 90, was appreciative of the opportunity.

"I'd never met anyone who survived the Holocaust before Eva," he said afterward. "This has been wonderful."

After surviving Dresden, Unterman and her mother soon were freed from captivity by Russian troops. She later married a U.S. solider, came to America and eventually settled in Tulsa.

A frequent speaker on the Holocaust, Unterman said she is sometimes asked if she wanted revenge on the Nazis, who among all their atrocities were bent on annihilating her people.

"I always reply, 'My grandchildren are my revenge,'" she said.

For making that possible, she credits Americans like Babbitt and Kinzer.

"I am most grateful to both of you," she told the men. "If you had not done what you did, I certainly would not be speaking to you today."