berga concentration camp

Abstract: Includes a list of 350 American soldiers (most captured during the 1944 Battle of the Bulge) held in the Berga am Elster concentration camp, a subcamp of Buchenwald, which also had the code name "Schwalbe V." Many of those listed perished from malnutrition, disease and maltreatment. ... World War, 1939-1945 --Concentration camps--Germany --Berga --Registers. Berga/Elster is a town in the district of Greiz, in Thuringia, Germany. They were placed in trains under conditions similar to those faced by European Jews deported to concentration camps. 1909. A compelling narrative-driven nonfiction book has not been written that takes the reader deep into the dark story of Operation 'Swallow' and Berga Concentration Camp—until now. During this march another 36 Americans died. "I can remember their … [7], Berga was run by a reserve army sergeant named Erwin Metz, who was ultimately responsible for the inhumane conditions, and gave the order to take the prisoners on the death march. Workers were supplied by Buchenwald concentration camp and from a POW camp, Stalag IX-B; the latter contravened the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention and the Hague Treaties. Berga an der Elster was a slave labor camp where 350 U.S. soldiers were beaten, starved, and forced to work in tunnels for the German government. The men were being used as slave laborers to build an underground armament factory. “You were so worn down you didn’t even think of all the death that was around you.” He said his faith sustained him. The soldiers were singled out for "looking like Jews" or "sounding like Jews," or dubbed as undesirables, according to survivors. Item View . The camp at Berg was founded upon an initiative in the fall of 1941 from the Norwegian fascist Nasjonal Samling party, and with some opposition from the German occupying authorities, Wilhelm Rediess in particular. The Berga forced labour camp was located on the outskirts of the village Schliben. Later, the case was reviewed and the verdicts upheld. I appreciated the slowness, as the information is graphic and frequently disturbing. About 350 American POWs who either were Jewish or appeared to be to their German captors were imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II, according to survivors who have begun telling their stories in a series of special reports on CNN. [3][4], The labor camp formed part of Germany's secret plan to use hydrogenation to transform brown coal into usable fuel for tanks, planes, and other military machinery. [5] The U.S. military authorities never acknowledged the incident. The material is presented concisely and because it is history being related it can seem a bit slow at times. [4], "After 63 years, vet learns of brother's death in Nazi slave camp", "New photo: Nazis dig up mass grave of U.S. soldiers", "Berga - Soldiers of Another War: Berga and Beyond", "Berga am Elster: American POWs at Berga", "Personal Narrative: Johann Carl Friedrich Kasten IV", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Berga_concentration_camp&oldid=1009818243, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2021, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with multiple identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 2 March 2021, at 12:44. After a few days in a German POW camp, he and other American Jewish POWs were taken to Berga, a sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. .Berga was a concentration camp where Nazis held Allied POWs. This was a camp that had been built for inmates who were forced to dig some seventeen tunnels that would lead to an underground ammunition factory. After a 2½-week forced march they were finally liberated. Fewer than 300 men survived the 50 days they had spent in Berga. During his time as a POW, Sydney wrote on the back of family photographs he… During his time as a POW, Sydney wrote on the back of family photographs he… American Jewish soldiers had to decide what to do. Many prisoners died as a result of malnutrition, sickness (including pulmonary disease due to dust inhalation from tunnelling with explosives), and beatings,[2] including 73 American POWs. This secondary purpose of extermination was carried out until the war's end, when the prisoners were subjected to a forced death march in order to keep ahead of the advancing allied forces. The U.S. Government never publicly acknowledged they were mistreated. It is the only extermination camp that was not operated by the Germans during the war. a small group of American soldiers risked their lives to save their fellow American soldiers who were Jewish or of Jewish origin. While thousands of POWs were captured on that ill-fated day, the Nazis held a subset of 350 American soldiers at Berga beginning February 13, 1945. … labor camp Berga an der Elster, a sub-camp of Buchenwald concentration camp. Berga an der Elster was a slave labor camp where 350 U.S. soldiers were beaten, starved, and forced to work in tunnels for the German government. This was not the only case where American Jewish soldiers were segregated or otherwise mistreated, but it was the most dramatic. Death March - Berga: Hitler's GI Concentration Camp Allied Forces Closing In Forces The Death March In April of 1945, Nazi guards forced Berga prisoners to walk many miles each day to escape the fast approaching allied forces. Location of Berga Concentration Camp James Watkins, 20, of Oakland, CA, was found at the prison hospital in Fuchsmuehl, Germany, by the U.S. Third Army after surviving the death march from the Berga concentration camp. The Germans had a quota of 350 for a special detail. They were freed when KZ Buchenwald was liberated. Workers were supplied by Buchenwald concentration camp and from a POW camp, Stalag IX-B; the latter contravened the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention and the Hague Treaties. Was the Berga concentration camp the only American Jewish POW camp during WWII? Some had disposed of their IDs when they were captured, others decided to do so after the commandant's threat. Workers were supplied by Buchenwald concentration camp and from a POW camp, Stalag IX-B; the latter contravened the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention and the Hague Treaties. The group of 350 American men were selected from Stalag 9B POW camp. Conditions at the Berga camp were reported as some of the worst conditions in any of Hitler's concentration camps. However, the camp's additional purpose was Vernichtung durch Arbeit ("annihilation through labor"), and prisoners were intentionally worked to death under inhumane working and living conditions, suffering from starvation as a result. Berga an der Elster was a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, more than 4,000 American GIs were imprisoned at Stalag IX-B at Bad Orb, approximately 30 miles northwest of Frankfurt-on-Main. All the remaining Jews were taken, along with prisoners considered troublemakers, those they thought were Jewish and others chosen at random. Berga an der Elster was a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. The Fossoli camp was an internment camp in Italy, established during World War II and located in the village Fossoli, Carpi, Emilia-Romagna. All Jews were ordered to take one step forward. Some 50 noncommissioned officers from the group were taken out of the camp, along with the non-Jewish NCOs. The main advocates for the camp were Minister of Justice Sverre Riisnæs, mayor Bjerck of Tønsberg, and head of the Hird in Vestfold, Eivind Wallestad. Background. On April 4, 1945, the commandant received an order to evacuate Berga. The men did what they could to sustain each other. So many of the prisoners died along these marches that they coined the name Death Marches very quickly. Camp photo courtesy of Mack O’Quinn Acevedo's 'moral obligation' chronicled daily life at Berga, a sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and a death march in the final weeks of World War II in Europe. This group left Bad Orb on February 8. As a result of the appalling conditions, malnutrition and cold, as well as beatings, 47 prisoners died. in the Berga am Elster concentration camp, a subcamp of Buchenwald, which also had the code name ... Jewish, who had been specially singled out and taken from other prisoner of war camps, such as Stalag IX ... Berga (Concentration camp) --Registers. [4], POWs were put to work, together with concentration camp inmates, digging 17 tunnels for an underground ammunition factory, some of them 150 feet below ground. All had gone into battle with dog tags bearing an H for Hebrew. Many prisoners died as a result of malnutrition, sickness (including pulmonary disease due to dust inhalation from tunnelling with explosives), and beatings, including 73 American POWs. This was but the end of a chapter of the Americans’ ordeal. Dr. Mark Felton offers readers the little known story of US Soldiers that were captured and placed in a Concentration Camp after the Battle of the Bulge. During World War II, a slave labor camp called "Berga an der Elster" was operated here to dig 17 tunnels for an underground ammunition factory. After their identities as POWs were confirmed they were taken to Buchenwald and placed in detention cells. Word ran through the ranks not to move. Five days later, the POWs arrived in Berga, a quaint German town of 7,000 people on the Elster River, whose concentration camps appear on few World War II maps. Source: © Mitchell G. Bard. A wonderful and interesting book about a daring escape from Berga, a German concentration camp where American POW's were used for slave labor. The group was taken by train to the Berga slave labor camp. It is situated on the White Elster river, 14 km southeast of Gera. Berga: Soldiers of Another War is an elegy in two senses. Prisoners there had come from two other Shortly afterwards, the selected 350 men were marched to the boxcars. The Berga forced labour camp was located on the outskirts of the village of Schliben. They were segregated and placed in a special barracks. Then they were sent in trains to Berga. You kept each other warm at night by huddling together, said Daniel Steckler. This is their story. “I knew I’d go to heaven if I died, because I was already in hell.”. Anthony Acevedo, a medic in the 70th Infantry Division during the war, was the first survivor to step forward with the grisly … Thus Metz was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, though in the end he only served nine years before being released back into Germany as a free man. There, under the direction of brutal civilian overseers, the Americans were required to help the Nazis build an underground armament factory. In fact, one survivor was told he should go to a psychiatrist. It began as a prisoner of war camp in 1942, later being a Jewish concentration camp, then a police and transit camp, a labour collection centre for Germany and, finally, a refugee camp, before closing in 1970. The Jasenovac concentration camp was an extermination camp established in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. In the camp of 5,000, Tony Acevedo, a Hispanic medic who was captured with thousands of others at the Battle of the Bulge kept copious diaries about the camp and how they were treated. They don’t think of American GI’s themselves being victims in the Nazi’s Final Solution. When the allied forces closed in on the retreating Germans, Metz deserted his post and attempted to escape by bicycle, fearing the consequences of being captured in possession of the remaining Berga prisoners and having to answer for his war crimes. They were found guilty and sentenced to hang, despite the fact that none of the survivors testified at the trial . Operation Swallow is the story of how a small group of American soldiers, led by a charismatic but reluctant leader named Hans Kasten, tried, as camp leaders, to save hundreds of fellow servicemen from a diabolical Nazi plan to turn US prisoners-of-war into concentration camp slaves. The commandant said the Jews would have until six the next morning to identify themselves. They were leaving friends behind and returning to the unknown. [1] The Berga forced labour camp was located on the outskirts of the village of Schliben. “We maintained each other’s welfare by sharing body heat, by sharing the paper-thin blankets that were given to us, by sharing the soup, by sharing the bread, by sharing everything.”, “Surviving was all you thought about,” Winfield Rosenberg agreed. Officials at the VA told him he had made up the whole story. The prisoners were told, moreover, that any Jews in the barracks after 24 hours would be shot, as would anyone trying to hide or protect them. The camp was known as Berga an der Elster. place in which Acevedo was sent to, a camp in Berga, Germany, or to give it its full Deustche title "Berga an der Elster". They were placed in trains under conditions similar to those faced by European Jews deported to concentration camps. Berga concentration camp is similar to these topics: Artern Subcamp, Gelsenberg Lager, Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex and more. … The Dachau concentration camp was established in 1933 and operated continuously until the end of the war in 1945. It was also one of the largest camps in Europe and located in the German occupation zone of the Independent State of Croatia. Two of the Nazis responsible for the murder and mistreatment of American soldiers were tried. The camp was liberated on April 2, 1945 by a task force comprising the 2nd Battalion, 114th Regiment, U.S. 44th Infantry Division, reinforced with light tanks and armored cars from the 106th Cavalry Group and 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion. Berga an der Elster, a subdivision of Buchenwald, was a Nazi slave labor camp that held and tortured 350 American Prisoners of War (POW) after their capture at the Battle of the Bulge on December 16, 1944.. 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