71^ST BAR MITZVA ANNIVERSARY

      Goot Shabbas! I welcome everyone to my 71^st Bar Mitzva anniversary, and I thank Hashem for enabling me to share some memories with you today.

This past Tuesday, Tisha Be-Av, we recalled a sad time for the Jews, when both temples were destroyed; and my subject today, Treatment of Jewish American POWs by the Germans during World War II, covers a period of additional sad Jewish history, involving a group of Jewish American veterans. I chose this subject because this history, although sad, is unknown to most people and focuses on a horrible place called Berga. During World War II, over half a million Jews entered the US armed forces. My haftorah, Nachamu, represents a promise by God that he will bring us back from destruction and offers us, along with survivors of a terrible experience, COMFORT, Nachamu, Nachamu, comfort ye my people, saith your God

      Were Jewish American POWs treated by the Nazis in the same manner as their fellow non-Jewish prisoners, or were they treated, first, as Jews?

Ive posed this question to some veterans of my divisio , the 42d Rainbow Division in which some 1100 soldiers were captured by the Nazis. Some of the replies were yes and some replied, no.

 One veteran recalled a German officer issuing an order, All Jews step forward. Those Jews who complied were marched away and never seen again, he told me. Another former POW told me he was questioned for hours about his family background. When I mentioned, You dont look Jewish, he answered, Im not. My name is David Willets; the Germans were worried about my first name.

 Some time ago, I discovered several books and a DVD about this subject, the history of which is almost unbelievable: In February 1945, a German POW commander received orders to send 350 American prisoners to a concentration camp in eastern Germany, a sub camp of Buchenwald, called Berga. Their job was to mine tunnels for an underground fuel factory. The commander was ordered to first select Jewish American POWs. After picking 80 Jewish Americans he filled his quota from POWs who resembled Jews or were trouble makers.

 The group was sent to Berga, where they were ordered to drill holes in rocks. The Germans filled the holes with dynamite and blasted the rocks; and the POWs loaded the rocks in carts and pushed the debris in a river, working 12 hour shifts.

After approximately 2 months of hard labor, including a death march, over 70 of the Berga victims perished.

Following are some memories of former Berga prisoners recorded from four different books. 

Gerald Daub

      I was identified as a Jew and still did not throw away my dog tags (ID tags marked H for Hebrew, P for Protestant, and C for Catholic), because if I died, I wanted somebody to find my body and know who I was.

      Breakfast was a cup of ersatz coffee; a brown liquid lunch was soup with something in it Dinner was brown bread divided among a number of men. We became weaker and weaker. After a week or two in the mines, men began to die .A guy named Goldstein decided to escape and was shot dead.

Norman Fellman

      I was in Berga 100 days, weighed 176 pounds when I went in and 86 pounds when I was liberated. I was in the hospital six to eight weeks. As a condition of my being released from the Army, I had to sign a gag order pledging not to discuss being in Berga. The US government suppressed the POW treatment because it was bringing over many German scientists after the war to work on the American space program in the cold war with Russia. I had gangrene when we were liberated and almost died.

Anthony Acevedo, Medic.

      Berga prisoners were regularly beaten, tortured and starved. We ate snow for water. Some died of flea bites. We were never able to wash ourselves. The one time we received Red Cross packages, we were ordered to clean up and shave, with only a few razors available. We split one package between 10 of us. The German intention was to wear you out, get rid of you.

Doctor William Shapiro (Met him at book presentation; we exchange e-mails)

      I worked as a medic. When men appeared at morning sick call, deathly ill and really unable to work, an officer in charge, , told them to stick out their tongues. He then decided by looking at their tongues, which men did not have to go to work. Those forced to work were often found dead in their beds the following morning.

I learned that I was a part of the greater picture of the Holocaust, and not simply an American prisoner of war who had a terrible work experience under the Germans. My near death horror was because I was a Jewish American soldier, not an ordinary American POW. We were in the same Holocaust.

Morton Brooks (the only POW from my division)

      Brooks pondered what to do with his H dog tags, deciding that as an American soldier, he could not be vulnerable to persecution as a Jew, but without the tags, he might be shot as a spy. On arrival at the prison camp, Brooks was questioned and told that under German orders, he had to register not only name, rank, and serial number, but also religion I tried to say no, but when asked a second time I said , Im a Jew.

      After being separated with his fellow Jews, his group responded to early morning roll calls, ate the same rotten food, and forced to stay outside in freezing weather after the other prisoners had gone inside.

      After a postwar trial Metz, the German commander who treated the prisoners in the worst manner possible, was sentenced to death by hanging. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and, finally, he was released after serving only 9 years. And, although a number of survivors begged for the opportunity to confront this monster, the War Crimes Commission presented not a single survivor as a witness,

      Despite the horrors endured, some of the Berga survivors attended college and went on to successful careers.

Tony Acevedo became a design engineer, Gerald Daub, became an architect; Norman Feelman opened a fine footwear shop..

      Doctor William Shapiro entered Boston University School of Medicine and graduated with honors (second in his class). He became an intern at the Mt. Sinai hospital in NYC, and remained there throughout his career, rising to the role of senior attending physician in Ob/Gyn and associate clinical professor at the medical school. He married his childhood sweetheart and has 3 sons who became physicians in different specialties.

Morton Brooks (further problems after being discharged from the Army)

(From a letter Brooks sent me)

      After completing college, I sent out letters to a few schools requesting applications, because I wanted to attend graduate school. Not receiving replies made me concerned. Some friends told me that I had not heard from the schools because my name was Brimberg. I then sent out requests, using the names Brant, Brent, and Brooks, receiving immediate replies. I changed my name to Brooks and finally graduated from Columbia and became a licensed clinical psychologist in NY, doing private practice .I taught at Niagara University and University of Buffalo.

      After the war, Berga fell under Soviet domination. Also, our countrys priorities changed -- now focusing on recruiting German scientists to help us in the Cold War against Russia. 

      Thus, the experiences of those Americans imprisoned at Berga were buried.

      The Berga history again indicates to me, that anti- Semitism can occur anywhere, to anyone. In a world where there is so much hatred against our people, I realize how important it is for Israel to remain a strong country.

      For those of you who are interested, I have a list of the books on todays subject.

      I would like to close with an interesting experience I encountered when I was in the service: Some Jewish veterans stated they experienced some anti Semitism during their service.

      I never encountered any anti-Semitism during my 3 years in the Army, except for one incident that I found rather amusing:

      One day my First Sergeant (in charge of about 100 men) with whom I had always gotten along, approached me, appearing quite intoxicated. Rosen, he said, You know, you New Yorkers got all the money, I was about 19 years old at that time and had no idea what he was getting at. Serge, I replied, Im from Washington, D.C. and have about $10.00 in my pocket. What are you talking about?

      Anti -Semitism or Ignorance?

Have a Goot Shabbas

References

Soldiers and Slaves by Roger Cohen

American Prisoners of War In German Death, Concentration, And Slave Labor Camps,

By Daniel B. Drooz

Forgotten Victims, by Mitchell G. Bard

Given Up For Dead, by Flint Whitlock

DVD-Video, Berga, Soldiers of Another War documentary by Charles Guggenheim

Available from PBSwww.pbs.org