Forgotten Victims
Forgotten Victims
The Abandonment of Americans in Hitler's Camps
Mitchell G. Bard
First published 1994 by Westview Press, Inc.
Published 2018 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bard, Mitchell Geoffrey, 1959
Forgotten victims: the abandonment of Americans in Hitler's camps / Mitchell G. Bard.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-2193-X
1. Jews, AmericanCrimes againstGermanyHistory20th century. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) 3. World War, 1939-1945Prisoners and prisons, German. I. Title.
D805.G3B284 1994
940.53' 18dc20
94-745
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00917-5(hbk)
This book is dedicated to Marcela,
whose good heart reassures me about the future
and whose support keeps me going.
And to Ariel, who is my hope for the future.
The book is also dedicated to the American victims
whose names will never be known.
When our country called for men
We came from forge and stone and mill
From workshop, farm, and factory,
The broken ranks to fill.
We left our quiet, happy homes
And the ones we loved so well
To vanquish all the Union's foes
Or fall where others fell.
Now as in prisons drear we languish
It is our constant cry,
O, ye who yet can save us
Will ye leave us here to die ?
The voice of slander tells you
That our hearts were weak with fear,
That all, or nearly all of us
Were captured in the rear.
The scars upon our bodies,
From the musket ball and shell
The missing legs and shattered arms,
A truer tale will tell.
We have tried to do our duty
In the sight of God on high
O, ye who yet can save us,
Will ye leave us here to die?
From out our prison gate
There's a graveyard near at hand
Where lie ten thousand Union men
Beneath the Georgia sand.
Scores on scores are laid beside them
As day succeeds today,
And thus it will ever be
Till they all shall pass away
And the last can say when dying,
With upturned gazing eye,
Both love and faith are dead at home,
They have left us here to die.
Anonymous Union soldier in the Confederate POW camp at Andersonvilie, Georgia
AMERICANS IN HITLER'S DEATH CAMS? Who ever heard of such a thing? The Holocaust was a European phenomenon that affected only the Jews who lived in areas occupied by the Nazis. Could it be true that American Jews were also subject to the "Final Solution"? Scholars have documented how the U.S. government abandoned the Jews of Europe: Could it be that this same government forsook its own citizens? If it is true, how could it happen?
These were the questions I sought to answer in this book. The disclosures will shock most people who never had any idea that Americans died at the hands of the Nazis other than in combat. Even Holocaust scholars will be surprised to learn how many American Jews suffered. Most Americans are likely to find it disturbing that U.S. citizenship was not a reliable shield; scholars already know that Jews could not depend on anyone or anything to save them.
My interest in this subject was provoked by the 1987 television documentary P.O.W. Americans in Enemy Hands. In it, one World War II veteran gave a startling account of how he and his fellow Jewish prisoners had been segregated from their comrades in a prisoner of war camp and sent to a slave labor camp where they were beaten, starved and many literally worked to death.
This was the first I had ever heard of American victims of the Holocaust, and it stimulated me to investigate whether there indeed had been American Jews among the six million exterminated by the Nazis. I contacted Holocaust research institutes, survivors' organizations, military archives and veterans' groups and discovered only a few oblique references to American Jews who might have been killed as part of the "Final Solution." Rather than indicating that no American Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, the lack of information reflects the sad fact that these victims' stories have gone untold.
In spite of these difficulties, I wrote a short article, "American Victims of the Holocaust," for the now defunct Present Tense magazine. It took nearly three years for that article to actually appear in print. That day, I received a call from a radio talk-show host who wanted me to speak about it. At that point, I had not even seen the article. At midnight on a Sunday, I went on the air to talk about the article. One caller asked if I planned to write a book. I had not given the idea much thought because it had been so long since I worked on the project, but after reading the article over I became convinced it was a story that demanded a fuller investigation. And so it began.
If it were easy to find documentation on this subject, others would no doubt have already written books. In fact, material is scattered throughout various archives, and I spent hours sifting through thousands of documents to find even one relevant piece of evidence. Often, key documents were missing. This was particularly frustrating when a document mentioned an American who was believed to be in a concentration camp but no other leads were to be found. Undoubtedly, a great deal more can be learned about this tragic story, and I hope this book will encourage others to probe for additional information about American victims.
Ideally, historical studies rely to some degree on eyewitness accounts. In this case, however, such accounts were hard to find. Given the passage of more than four decades, it was next to impossible to locate American survivors. Those I did find were often hesitant to speak. During a training session for interviewers I attended, Linda Kuzmack, formerly director of the oral history project for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, gave three reasons for the reluctance of survivors to talk about their experiences: a) they could not cope with the trauma; b) no one believed them; and c) they wanted to get on with their lives. I found this to be true of many of the civilians and ex-POWs I spoke to as well.
The memories of people who went through a traumatic experience forty-odd years ago are not always reliable. Fortunately, contemporary documents written during the war and after liberation could often be found to resolve discrepancies.
Initially, I had wanted this book to be titled American Victims of the Holocaust. A debate has long raged about the definition of the Holocaust. Some universalists believe that it should apply to the 12 million people who died at the hands of the Nazis, whereas the majority opinion is that the term "Holocaust" should only be used in reference to the six million Jews murdered as part of the "Final Solution." I have always taken the latter view, being convinced by Emil Fackenheim's explanation of the unique character of what happened to the Jews: