A hidden chapter of World War II reveals
From the start of America’s involvement in World War II, members of our Armed Forces were held in numerous prisoner-of-war camps in Central and Eastern Europe. Through the advances of the Soviet Union and the United States, the Nazis refused to allow Allied soldiers to be easily liberated and often moved them away from these friendly forces. At the end of the war, to be held by the Germans was a dangerous proposition, as they were attacked from all directions and had few supplies of food and medicine to care for weakened prisoners. A camp that is rarely spoken about is Stalag IX-B at Bad Orb, which was thirty miles northwest of Frankfurt-on-Main, where by 1945 there were at least 4,000 American prisoners held.
When American soldiers were taken from the Battle of the Bulge, they were told to step forward if they were Jews. Many of these men had already disregarded dog tags that had an “H” for “Hebrew,” and they were warned by the Germans that if they were caught lying about their faith, they would be shot. Some wore different dog tags marked, for example, with a “C” for Catholics to conceal their religion. Once captured, many Americans feared being targeted for their religious beliefs. Wearing a dog tag was important, even if it was a fake one; the Germans executed some prisoners without this identification, considering them to be spies. There were Jews who shielded their identity, but when they observed fellow Jews being segregated, many requested to be united with these targeted American soldiers.
Over 500,000 Jewish Americans served in the military to fight the Germans and Japanese during World War II. In the European Theater of Operations, many members of the Armed Forces had European family members who were persecuted and killed by the Nazis. Many did not know about the murder in the extermination camps, but they were determined to defeat Hitler’s forces, end the war, and save their family members from the horrific policies of the Third Reich.
Some of these Jewish airmen kept tags with the “H” to show the Germans that American Jews were responsible for the aerial bombing of their cities, military targets, and infrastructure. There were numerous risks for Jewish veterans, as Lieutenant Irwin Stovroff was interrogated by a German officer who was from his native city of Buffalo. American Jews were fearful of being denounced by their own side and by the enemy, as this officer could have remembered Stovroff as his paperboy.
Berga was a subcamp of Buchenwald, where American prisoners saw the horrors of the Holocaust through the treatment of starved and beaten European prisoners. Many of these soldiers—sergeants, Jews, and Christians—were, on February 8, 1945, sent in the same boxcars that transported Jews to the concentration camps. They were chosen because of labor shortages, and it was believed that these Americans were troublemakers by the German authorities. For five days, these Americans traveled to this prison and were not given food or blankets to shield them from the cold. The train stopped at the town of Berga, home to 7,000 people on the Elster River, where the camp’s existence was rarely known by Western forces. These Jewish prisoners at Berga were a fraction of the 9,000 held by the German government. Unlike other ruined German cities and towns, Bad Orb was a spa town spared from air and land fighting during the war. It had a church, town hall, and attractive homes that presented a warm community. These prisoners were detained in “hellish” living and working conditions only a short distance from this appealing town.
Being away from the fighting, German civilians did not act in a violent manner toward the Americans, where it was common to be attacked by enemy populations. Rather, they watched the Americans with curiosity as they walked through the streets of Bad Orb. In an unfamiliar area, these prisoners faced harsh conditions and treatment by their captors, working twelve hours in tunnels established in a mountain to secretly house a German armaments factory. There were seventeen mine shafts with no protection from inhaled toxins, and the prisoners were repeatedly beaten by German guards and civilians.
American prisoners saw lifeless survivors of Auschwitz who were beaten, starved, and humiliated by the Nazis. A prisoner from the 28th Infantry Division, Private Sidney Lipson, remembered, “…They were looking at you. But they just weren’t. They were an entity that really wasn’t an entity. They just weren’t…. I remember thinking: Is that going to be us? I knew I had been singled out for transport to Berga because I was a Jew, but I don’t believe I put it together with the Jews of Europe.” It did not take long for the Americans to estimate that the excessive working conditions, lack of food, and poor treatment would make them resemble these dying prisoners.
After completing forced labor, the prisoners marched back to camp, where they lived in four one-story barracks that had bunks, one latrine each, a bucket for the night, and an outside trench for relief. The men lived closely together, sharing food and blankets. Although the Germans were close to losing the war, these American Jews received scorn from SS Commandant Lieutenant Hack. A former engineering student, he was wounded on the Eastern Front and ordered to Berga to run the concentration camp and armament manufacturing mines. Hack was not pleased with the lack of productivity from the weak prisoners of Buchenwald, who were unable to handle the demanding work. He was a cruel officer, often setting his dog on defenseless prisoners and beating and kicking them.
Soldiers were forced to work in two different shifts, one during the early morning hours and the second from the afternoon to late night. At times, they worked 150 feet below ground, with poor visibility and breathing conditions from heavy dust, especially after the Germans used dynamite. The soldiers often coughed blood and were viewed by guards as expendable. These prisoners were given only one piece of bread and perhaps a cup of coffee. A soldier kept a diary describing the men as “skin and bones.” They faced constant beatings, and soldiers were lost at an alarming rate from pneumonia. The camp did not allow the Red Cross to contact their families or deliver food parcels. One prisoner admitted that “survival” was always on their minds and that he was certain he would go to “heaven,” declaring, “I knew I’d go to heaven if I died, because I was already in hell.”
Next week will feature a second story focusing on the experiences of these American soldiers.