Posted on 11/11/2008 8:00:32 AM PST by Red in Blue PA
LOMA LINDA, California (CNN) -- Anthony Acevedo thumbs through the worn, yellowed pages of his diary emblazoned with the words "A Wartime Log" on its cover. It's a catalog of deaths and atrocities he says were carried out on U.S. soldiers held by Nazis at a slave labor camp during World War II -- a largely forgotten legacy of the war.
Anthony Acevedo served as a medic during World War II. He was captured and sent into a Nazi forced labor camp.
1 of 3 more photos » Acevedo pauses when he comes across a soldier with the last name of Vogel.
"He died in my arms. He wouldn't eat. He didn't want to eat," says Acevedo, now 84 years old. "He said, 'I want to die! I want to die! I want to die!' "
The memories are still fresh, some 60 years later. Acevedo keeps reading his entries, scrawled on the pages with a Schaeffer fountain pen he held dear. See inside Acevedo's diary »
He was one of 350 U.S. soldiers held at Berga am Elster, a satellite camp of the Nazis' notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. The soldiers, working 12-hour days, were used by the German army to dig tunnels and hide equipment in the final weeks of the war. Less than half of the soldiers survived their captivity and a subsequent death march, he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Gee, and to think that “Hogan’s Heroes” wasn’t based on fact!! /s
And your point in posting this really ancient history is what, precisely?? The Nazis were bad. They are now mostly dead. Our problems are the NEW “national socialists” (euphemmistically known as “Democrats”).
Today is Veteran’s Day, a national holiday.
He said the movie did justice to the conditions in the camp. Those d@mned NAZI were okay for the most part since the depletion of German men for guard duty meant that the guards were over the age of 50! He said that a cigarette could buy all sorts of stuff and yes there was a radio and tunnel. The rat races were all the entertainment they had but they made due!
Never forget
Never
Actually, it seems one character in Hogan’s Heroes was based on fact: Sgt. Schultz. I had a friend growing up whose father was held as a POW by the Nazis and reported that the unenthusiastic conscript guards, including some NCOs, were basically decent chaps, and a lot of them had the “I know nothing! I see nothing!” attitude.
All of the goofball stuff, prisoners coming in and going out at will, etc etc etc, was not. :-) But someone did their homework when the set was built.
Just sayin'. I always thought that was of interest, why a comedy would do one thing very, very right. Maybe a nod to a "technical advisor", or something?
It’s a story about veterans on Veteran’s Day, in case you didn’t know which day it was......sounds like you didn’t.
Reasons, I can see, for posting this article.
It reminds us of the sacrafices made to preserve our freedom.
It memorializes the victims of the astrocities.
It reminds us that evil does exist.
History could repeat itself unless we remember and are vigilant.
Along these lines, I’d appreciate it if historians could post more information on exactly HOW the German people were fooled by Adolf Hitler and how they became so powerless over the Nazi regime.
It could be helpful to us, as we try to watch over current events.
Werner Klemperer and John Banner, who portrayed Klink and Schultz, were both Jewish. That’s probably the only way they would have gotten away with portraying the Nazis like they did, like Mel Brooks in his movies.
This is most certainly an appropriate post for Armistice Day, a day on which we commemorate the sacrifices of those servicemen who kept bad guys like Hitler from doing us in.
The Germans weren't fooled, Hitler laid everything out in Mein Kampf.
On Memorial Day we honor the fallen. Today, we honor the living.
“I’d appreciate it if historians could post more information on exactly HOW the German people were fooled by Adolf Hitler and how they became so powerless over the Nazi regime.”
Try here (”They Thought They Were Free”):
http://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans/dp/0226511928
My daddy had a ww2 buddy from New Orleans that used to
visit daddy that was a POW in an German Army Stalag.
He like to have starved over a yrs imprisonment there.
I remember him saying that the Germans didn`t eat much
better toward the end of the war
Dont you remember?
The germans were fooled because they didn’t read Mien Kampf...
except, we DID read DREAMS OF MY FATHER, and we even had the audio from it to make our decisions...
You are correct. My mistake.
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