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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
American Soldiers in the Holocaust, June 27, 2005
It has been sixty years, and all the stories of World War II are not yet told. Along with the big stories of horrors and triumphs, there are smaller ones on the same themes, and some of them were deliberately covered up or hushed up by the victors. Most of us didn't realize that captured American soldiers who should have been mere prisoners of war were actually shunted directly into the Holocaust and treated with the same sort of brutality meted out at the infamous camps like Auschwitz. In _Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble_ (Knopf), Roger Cohen has brought forth a grueling and difficult story of American soldiers, many but not all Jewish, who were assigned to Berga, a concentration camp in eastern Germany, and worked as slaves, many to their deaths. Instead of becoming part of the history of infamy by the Nazis, the investigation done at the time was hushed up and the victims who lived did not get to testify against the officials in charge of the camp in the war crimes trials. Cohen's book represents a late but essential corrective.
The Nazis took thousands of American soldiers prisoner in the winter of 1944, and most went on to the more typical POW camps. Even in the closing days of the war, however, and even against Americans, the Nazis had not lost their particular hatred for Jews. About 350 of the captives were singled out for special transfer to Berga, as were about 350 others, many of them Jewish soldiers, but also others who had been branded as troublemakers at other camps, or those who just looked Jewish according to the prejudices of whatever goon was making the decision. The Berga workers included American POWs as well as Jewish prisoners from other camps like Buchenwald. They were often simply worked to death, digging what was to be, in one of Hitler's last mad plans, an underground facility to make synthetic fuel. They had to endure vicious guards, starvation, infected wounds from their mining work, and more; much of Cohen's book describing the treatment of the prisoners is heartbreaking to read. Berga was in operation for just 52 days at the beginning of 1945, and then there was a dreadful death march as the Germans kept losing ground in the war. Of the 350 prisoners, around a fifth died, a rate far higher than any POW camp in Europe.
The trials of the prisoners are in some ways not the saddest part of the book. The men who endured Berga did not get their story told and did not get to give their evidence in the war crimes trials of their brutal slave-drivers. Cohen has looked at the documents from an American war-crimes investigation from 1945, and found them thorough, with many official statements from prisoners. The records, however, became classified and even the existence of the camp was not acknowledged. Family members writing to an official shortly after the end of the war to find out what happened in Berga got a reply that said "... it has been learned that there was no German prisoner of war camp by that name." Prisoners who eventually got back to the US found that even the Veterans Administration could not believe that they were concentration camp survivors, and were denied disabilities. Many of the prisoners had to sign a "Security Certificate for Ex-Prisoners of War" which said that POW activities had to remain secret for the duration of the war and into peacetime. A brutal Nazi sergeant remembered as particularly vindictive was imprisoned for less than ten years by the Americans, partially because his victims didn't testify. An SS officer in charge, in contrast, was captured by the Russians in 1951, tried by them, and hanged. While the US Army never compensated the prisoners or gave them disability benefits for the time in the camp, a few years ago the survivors did get compensation under slave labor legislation from Germany. Cohen's dramatic, haunting, and elegantly written book will help ensure that this important story is not lost.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing tale of cruelty and survival, August 2, 2005
Wow!
Reading a lot of history (particularly about war) I often feels that nothing will shock me any more. Then I get a hold of a book like Roger Cohen's "Soldiers and Slaves" and find myself gasping in disbelief.
Here is a story of incredible bravery. Here is a story of incredible cruelty. Here is a story of the incredible ability to survive against all odds. Here is an incredible story.
Hitler's last major offensive of World War II in December 1944 resulted in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Though the Germans ultimately lost the battle they exacted a huge toll in allied casualties and captives.
This is the story of how some of those captured -- particularly American Jews -- came to be swept up in the Nazi's Holocaust.
Cohen tells the story of the approximately 500 American POWs taken to the Berga prison camp in eastern Germany where many were worked or starved or beaten to death.
We are also introduced to a Hungarian Jewish family that was swept up in the latter stages of the Holocaust and how one teen aged son from that family ended up in Berga.
Cohen thus exposes readers to many aspects of the war: battle, capture, POW camps, the Holocaust, escape, sadism and the very unique story of Berga.
There are two things that makes "Soldiers and Salves" such a riveting read. One is the details. We learn exactly what people had and were deprived of. What they wore, ate, drank. What the weather was, what people spoke of and what they they yearned for. This leads to the second aspect of the book that is so integral to its success. The people. Cohen does what is essential in such a story by fully acquainting readers with the main characters. Through interviews, diaries and letters Cohen has come to understand the central figures of the story and passes that understanding on to the reader.
Meet William Shapiro a GI medic from the Bronx who long after the war suppressed his memories of the awful treatment he received and witnessed at Berga. Meet Hans Kasten a German American (whose life even before Berga is worthy of a book) who stood up to his captors, later escaped and sought revenge. Meet Mordecai Hauer the young Hungarian Jew, clutching desperately to life and with equal determination to his family's lives. Meet Erwin Metz, the sadistic sergeant a Berga who cruelly meted out punishment.
"Soldiers and Slaves" is an important addition to the ever burgeoning library of good non fiction on World War II.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Soldiers and Slaves, May 5, 2005
Soldiers and Slaves by Roger Cohen is the story of 350 Americans, captured during the Battle of the Bulge, who end up in a Nazi slave labor camp. A major portion of this group were Jewish. The prisoners were sent from a Stalag, where the Jewish prisoners were separated from their fellow POWs. How these men were treated at Berga was a travesty. What was a greater travesty however was how the Americans allowed those who perpetrated these heinous acts to get away with what, considering how they treated their prisoners, amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Cold war concerns got in the way of justice. The men who were able to survive the camp and the horrific death march after they were forced from the camp by their Nazi guards were heroes in every sense of the word. Those who are alive today still suffer both physically and emotionally as a result of their experiences. Recently, another book on the same subject was published. Although that book was good, this one is a much more interesting read and I recommend it to any WWII buff.
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