Forgotten Victims

The Abandonment Of Americans In Hitler's Camps

Mitchel G Bard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367009175
• eBook ISBN: 9780429720451
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 put tens of thousands of American civilians, especially Jews, in deadly peril, and yet the US State Department failed to help them. Consequently many suffered and some died. Later, when the United States joined the war against Hitler, many American and, in particular, Jewish American soldiers were captured and

1
The Tragic Untold Story

IT WAS THE LATTER PART OF 1944. The war was turning in the Allies' favor:

The fact that Pfc. Morton Goldstein was an American did not save him when he was sent to the slave labor camp at Berga. He was a Jew and that was all that mattered to the Nazis at Stalag IX-B who segregated the Jewish POWs. When Goldstein attempted to escape, he was shot. The other American Jews who died at Berga were shown no more consideration. Looking at the pictures of American POWs liberated from Berga, you could not distinguish them from other Holocaust survivors.

Park Chapman was on his 54th mission when his B-26 was shot down over Paris. He parachuted to safety and contacted the French underground. A man posing as a British intelligence agent betrayed him to the Gestapo. He was taken to Fresnes Prison in Paris where he found 167 other Allied airmen. They were loaded into boxcars and taken to Buchenwald concentration camp where they experienced what it was like to be a European Jew. Before they were to be executed, the men were taken to a POW camp, but by then a British and American officer had died.

Lt. Jack Taylor led a team of OSS agents into Austria to collect intelligence. Taylor was captured and taken to the Mauthausen concentration camp. His job was to help build a crematorium. He and the other prisoners tried to work as slowly as possible because they knew the Nazis' ability to murder Jews would increase exponentially with the new oven. When the SS guards told them they would be the first to test the crematorium if they did not finish their work, Taylor and the others completed the task.

Sixteen-year-old Mary Berg was also an American citizen. But when the Germans decided to confine all Jews in Warsaw to a ghetto, her family was not exempt. Though her citizenship ultimately saved her life, it did not spare her from living in the hell of that ghetto for three years.

Goldstein, Chapman, Taylor and Berg were American victims of the Nazis.

Goldstein, Chapman and Taylor were soldiers who knew they faced risks when they confronted the enemy, though none of them could have anticipated they would fall prey to the Nazis' campaign to exterminate the Jewish people. But Mary Berg did not go to Europe to fight. Like thousands of other Americans visiting or living in Europe during the war years, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Berg became subject to the "Final Solution," and though her American citizenship ultimately saved her, other American Jews were less fortunate.

One explanation given for the world's failure to prevent the Holocaust is that the information about the Nazi extermination program was too incredible to believe. Now, fifty years later, Americans also may find it difficult to believe U.S. citizens were among the 12 million people murdered by the Nazis.

In his book, The Abandonment of the Jews, David Wyman documents how the U.S. government failed to save European Jewry. He concludes with a quotation from the Committee for a Jewish Army:

We, on our part, refuse to resign ourselves to the idea that our brains are powerless to find any solution. ... In order to visualize the possibility of such a solution, imagine that the British people and the American nation had millions of residents in Europe. ... Let us imagine that Hitler would start a process of annihilation and would slaughter not two million Englishmen or Americans, not hundreds of thousands, but, let us say, only tens of thousands.... It is clear that the governments of Great Britain [and] the United States would certainly find ways and means to act instantly and to act effectively.¹

The assumption was understandable, but this book will show it was also incorrect. Tens of thousands of Americans were in peril, but their government did not act instantly or effectively. Consequently, many suffered, some died.

Hundreds of books have been written about the Holocaust, yet none have examined the fate of Americans who for one reason or another fell into Nazi hands. Remarkably, virtually no mention of Americans is made in any of the major or even minor works concerning the Holocaust. One of the few references appears in Martin Gilbert's Atlas of the Holocaust, which lists 17 American-born people who were deported to Auschwitz, 10 of whom he says were United States citizens. Apparently, none survived. The Berga slave labor camp, which figures prominently in the story of American Jews caught up in the Holocaust, does not appear in any of his 245 pages of maps.

One reason for the lack of attention is that the number of American victims— probably a few thousand—was relatively small when compared to the total number that perished. Another is the perception of the Holocaust as a European phenomenon; most people assume Americans could not become victims. But the main reason so little has been written is that much of the evidence has been kept quiet. This should no longer come as a surprise after the revelations that the Pentagon did not disclose all the information it had about POWs in the Vietnam War or the mistreatment of those taken in the war with Iraq.²

The U.S. government has had good reason to cover up the story of what happened during World War II, because revealing that Americans were mistreated would raise new questions about what this country did to rescue the targets of the Nazis. Sufficient documentary evidence exists, however, to prove American officials knew U.S. citizens were in danger, were being mistreated (including being placed in concentration camps) and were murdered but were willing to do little and, in some cases, nothing to protect them.

Americans who became victims fall into two general categories: civilians and soldiers. Neither had to be Jewish, though the victimization is clearer for those who were.

Concerning civilians, this book will show that the United States government knew:

1. Anti-Jewish laws in territories occupied by Germany applied to Americans;
2. The public would be outraged and blame the government if news of the mistreatment of Americans was disclosed;
3. More than 30,000 Americans were in Europe during the war;
4. American Jews in Hungary were being mistreated;
5. American Jews were in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the Warsaw Ghetto;
6. An American Jewish citizen was paraded through Frankfurt with a sign reading: "I am a member of the race which started the war."

Despite this knowledge, the government refused to take many steps that could have saved American lives. Specifically, the book will show that U.S. officials:

1. Would not check records of passports to find Americans trapped in Europe;
2. Exchange Germans for Americans because of a fear that repatriates might be spies when, in fact, returning Americans were valuable intelligence assets;
3. Were inflexible in verifying citizenship claims. In some instances, the U.S. government expected Americans in concentration camps to have proof of citizenship, though officials refused to send documents to help them establish citizenship;
4. Declined German terms to save Americans because of the fear the Nazis would try to force the United States to recognize their occupation of Europe;
5. Failed to show sympathy toward Americans who failed to take advantage of earlier opportunities to leave when conditions worsened.

American soldiers were also deserted by their government. These victims expected to be treated according to international conventions on prisoners of war and were not—but their government did nothing to help them. Moreover, given the government's knowledge of the "Final Solution," U.S. officials should have known Jewish soldiers in the American armed forces were at risk if captured. Nevertheless, Jewish GIs were sent into battle with an "H" on their dog tags to identify them as "Hebrews."

One crucial source of information about the treatment of both civilians and POWs was the Red Cross. Much has been written about the failure of the Red Cross to take steps to save European Jewry. Officials said they were afraid to jeopardize their access to POW camps where they could help save prisoners' lives. But when the Red Cross learned of Jewish POWs being segregated, it accepted as legitimate German explanations that this was consistent with Geneva Convention provisions allowing prisoners to be separated by nationality and race. Furthermore, little was done to pressure the Germans to investigate allegations of mistreatment of POWs. Thus, the U.S. government's "eyes" in German-occupied territory often proved myopic. Abuses went unreported or were minimized. American officials still received sufficient information to know POWs were being mistreated, but neither the Red Cross nor the government was prepared to do more than lodge occasional weak protests.

In the case of civilians, the U.S. government usually had contemporaneous knowledge of their mistreatment. By contrast, American officials generally did not know POWs were abused and sent to concentration camps until after the fact. Upon liberation, hundreds of former POWs were debriefed about their experiences. Despite this, war crimes trials were prosecuted without much of the available evidence from those investigations. The accused were subsequently either acquitted, given minimal sentences or convicted and, upon review, given substantially reduced sentences due to "lack of evidence"—proof that was lacking only because of government inaction in the first place.

Unwilling to face what happened to servicemen overseas, the American government refused to believe the former POWs. In some cases, American soldiers who said they were in concentration camps or slave labor camps were sent to psychiatrists. As with the Holocaust in general, most people inside and outside the military found claims that Americans had been in concentration camps— and had experienced the horrors that took place therein—just too incredible to accept.

This book examines what the United States government knew about the treatment of its citizens, when it knew it, what it did to help and what it could have done. Using original documents and interviews with survivors and experts, I will show the government could have saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives but chose not to.

Chapter 2 focuses on the plight of thousands of American civilians trapped in Europe by the outbreak of war. The following chapter focuses on one dramatic case, that of Mary Berg, the American teenager who spent more than three years in the Warsaw Ghetto. Chapters 4 through 10 examine the treatment of American POWs. The disproportionate amount of space devoted to POWs is a function of the available information. Chapter 4 provides a general overview of the treatment of the prisoners. The next two chapters tell the story of the POWs who were sent to Buchenwald, Mauthausen and other concentration camps. Chapter 7 discusses the conditions at Stalag IX-B, considered the worst of all the POW camps, and the segregation of American Jewish prisoners. Chapters 8 and 9 recount what happened to these Jewish prisoners and the others sent to the Berga slave labor camp. Chapter 10 offers insight into the impact being a POW had on some survivors. Chapter 11 reviews the war crimes trials and the failure of the government to bring many perpetrators of crimes against Americans to justice. The final chapter details how the U.S. government has covered up its failure to protect American citizens during the war and what might still be done to make amends for this inaction.

We must remember the Holocaust to honor the memories of the victims and to see that such a crime against humanity never happens again. But we cannot honor American victims whom we do not know. Nor can we learn the lessons contained in their tragic experiences. For their sakes, and our own, their story must be told.

2
Sorry, You Missed the Boat: Americans in Europe

AMERICANS WERE KILLED in concentration camps. American Jews were subject to the same anti-Semitic regulations and dangers as any other Jews who came under the control of the Nazis. Non-Jews did not face the same peril; however, thousands were sent to internment camps.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives could have been saved had the United States government taken action to rescue people claiming American citizenship. Often it did just the opposite, creating obstacles that impeded Americans from obtaining the necessary documents to escape from the Nazis.

The Roosevelt Administration knew Americans were trapped behind enemy lines. In 1939, more than 80,000 American citizens were believed to be living abroad.¹ That year, the State Department established a little-known "Special Division" for handling matters related to the whereabouts and welfare of Americans abroad, including civilian internees and POWs—evidence that the United States anticipated the problems that would later arise.²

The State Department's initial position was that every effort should be made to get Americans out of Europe, but that no money should be spent paying citizens' expenses to return home. The United States did provide some financial assistance through the Swiss government and the Red Cross, but this was primarily for meeting basic needs of food, clothing and shelter in Europe. It was not for repatriation.³

On November 25, 1939, Assistant Secretary of State George Messersmith wrote that Americans in danger zones were given the opportunity to return home but for business or private reasons did not do so. State Department officials held that citizens who chose to live abroad without any apparent intention of returning to the United States could not expect their government to feel any obligation to protect them. An even deeper prejudice lay behind this viewpoint: the belief that citizens returning from abroad would become "welfare" cases. "Their real status," Messersmith wrote, "does not differ very much from that of the many thousands of unfortunate persons deserving of our sympathy, and having no claim to American citizenship, who would desire to come to this country in order to escape from danger zones or for other reasons and who seek immigration visas and passport visas to that end." The attitude that would condemn hundreds of Americans to death was expressed in the same letter:

This government considers that by reason of having already met this particular responsibility, no situation should arise, even if conditions should become more aggravated in certain places, that would warrant it in providing further special facilities to enable Americans to return to this country.⁴

The State Department was not sympathetic to Americans who were caught in the Nazi net. Although it acknowledged the U.S. obligation "to facilitate in every way possible the return" of U.S. nationals during an emergency "from places where danger may exist," State also maintained that...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Tragic Untold Story
• 2 Sorry, You Missed the Boat: Americans in Europe
• 3 Americans in the Warsaw Ghetto: The Diary of Mary Berg
• 4 The Meaning of Fear: Soldiers in Captivity
• 5 Bodies in the Mirror: POWs in Buchenwald
• 6 End of the Line for Spies—Mauthausen
• 7 Jewish POWs Are Singled Out
• 8 "We're Building the Pyramids Again"—Berga
• 9 The Death March and Liberation
• 10 The Meaning of Survival: Life After the Camps
• 11 The War Crimes Trials: Justice Half-Served
• 12 Recognition of the Victims
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• Index