Pat Buchanan's courageous
column inspired me to help end the
cover-up of the atrocity I had
witnessed. I wrote letters to several
newspapers which were, of necessity,
short and incomplete. Now
I would like to finally free more
of my painful memories, hoping
to be heard, so that this will
help us to acknowledge our share in
the "banality of evil", cleansing
ourselves with the truth. Perhaps
we as a nation may then put this behind us
with some integrity
and with some hope for redemption.
In October 1944, at age eighteen, I was drafted into the army while
a student at the NYS College of
Forestry. Largely due to the "Battle
of the Bulge", my training was cut
short, my furlough cut in half,
and I was then immediately sent
overseas. Upon arrival in Le Havre,
France, we were quickly loaded
into boxcars and shipped to the front.
By the time we reached it, I had
developed mononucleosis severely
enough to be sent to a hospital in
Belgium.
By the time I left the hospital, the unit I had trained with in
Spartenburg, South Carolina was so deeply into Germany that
I warn placed in a "repo depo" (a
replacement depot) despite my
protests. I then lost interest in
which units I was assigned to because
non-combat units were generally
not respected. My separation
qualification record states that I served
mostly with the 14th
Infantry Regiment, during which time I guarded
prisoners of war
and served as an interpreter.
During my seventeen month stay in
Germany, I was transferred to
other outfits also.
In late March or early April 1945, I was assigned to
help guard a
POW camp near Andernach along the
Rhine. I had four years of
high school German, so I was able
to talk to the prisoners, although
this was forbidden.
Gradually, however, I was used as an interpreter and asked to
ferret out the S.S. (I found
none.)
In Andernach, between 50,000 and 65,000 prisoners, ranging in
age from very young teens to very
old men, were crowded together
in an open field surrounded by
barbed wire. The women were kept
in a separate enclosure which I
did not see until later. The men
I guarded had no tents or other
shelter, no blankets and many had
no coats. Inadequate numbers of
slit trenches were provided for
excrement, and so the men lived
and slept in the mud and increasing
filth during a cold, wet spring.
Their misery from exposure alone
was evident.
It was even
more shocking to see them eating grass, sometimes
throwing it into a tin can
containing a thin soup. They told me they
did this hoping to ease their
hunger pains. Soon their emaciation
was evident. Dysentery raged and,
too weak and crowded to reach
the slit trenches, they were
increasingly sleeping in excrement. I saw
no sign of provision for water, so
the thin soup was their food and
water for the day. Some days there
was bread, less than a slice each.
Other days there was nothing.
The sight of so many men desperate for food and water, sickening
and dying before our eyes, is
indescribable. Even now, I can only
think of it momentarily.
We had ample food and supplies that could have been shared more
humanely, and we could have offered some medical assistance, but
did nothing. Only the dead were
quickly and efficiently taken care
of: hauled away to mass graves.
My outrage reached the point that I protested to my officers, but
I was met with hostility or bland
indifference. When pressed,
they explained they were under
strict orders from "higher up".
No officer would dare to
systematically do this to over 50,000
prisoners if he felt he was
violating general policy and subject
to court martial. The term "war
criminal" was just beginning to
come into fashion.
Realizing my protests were useless, I asked a friend working in
the kitchen if he could slip me
some extra food for the prisoners.
He too repeated that they were
under strict orders to severely
ration the prisoners' food, and
that these orders came from
"higher up". But he said they had
more food than they knew
what to do with and would sneak me
some.
When I threw this food over the barbed wires to the prisoners
I was caught and threatened with
imprisonment. I repeated the
"offense", and one officer
threatened to shoot me. I naturally
assumed this was a bluff, but I
began to have some doubts after
I encountered a captain on a hill
above the Rhine shooting down
at a group of German civilian
women with his .45 caliber pistol.
When I asked, "Why?" he mumbled,
"Target practice," and fired
until his pistol was empty. I saw
the women running for cover,
but, at that distance, couldn't
tell if any had been hit.
This is when I more fully realized I was
dealing with some
cold-blooded killers filled with
moralistic hatred. They considered
the Germans sub-human and worthy
of extermination; another
expression of the downward spiral
of racism. Articles in the G.I.
newspaper, Stars & Stripes,
played up the Nazi concentration camps,
complete with photographs of
emaciated bodies; this amplified our
self-righteous cruelty and made it
easier to imitate behavior we were
supposed to oppose. Also, I think,
soldiers not exposed to combat
were trying to prove how tough
they were by taking it out on the
prisoners and civilians. At least,
many combat soldiers told me
later they would not have
tolerated this, for they combined hatred
with respect for a courageous
enemy.
The prisoners I spoke to were mostly simple farmers and
workingmen,
as ignorant, albeit nationalistic, as many of our own troops. I
heard
many versions of "my country, right or wrong, my country," which
we still hear in our own country
today.
As time went on, many of them lapsed into a Zombie-like state
of listlessness. Others, maddened
by thirst, tried to escape in a
desperate or suicidal fashion, running
through open fields in broad
daylight towards the Rhine to quench their
thirst. They were mowed
down.
Some prisoners were extremely eager
for cigarettes, saying they
took the edge off their hunger.
Accordingly, some enterprising
G.I. "Yankee traders" were acquiring hordes
of wrist watches and
rings in exchange for handfuls of cigarettes or less.
When I began
throwing cartons of cigar-ettes to the prisoners to ruin this
trade,
I found myself threatened by rank-and-file G.I.s also. At least this
taught me an indelible lesson: how wrong majorities and authorities
can
be.
A bright spot in this gloomy picture came, oddly enough, one night
when I was put on the "graveyard shift", from two to four A.M.
Actually,
there was a graveyard on the uphill side of this enclosure,
not many yards
away. My superiors had forgotten to give me a
flashlight and I hadn't
bothered to ask, being disgusted with the
whole situation by that time. It
was a fairly bright night and I soon
became aware of a prisoner crawling
under the wires to the graveyard.
We were supposed to shoot escapees on
sight, so I started to get up
to warn him to get back. Suddenly I noticed
another prisoner crawling
from the graveyard back to the enclosure. They
were risking their
lives to get to the graveyard for something; I had to
investigate.
When I entered the gloom of this shrubby, tree-shaded
cemetery,
I never felt more vulnerable, but
somehow curiosity kept me going.
Despite my caution, I tripped over the legs
of someone in a prone
position. Whipping my rifle around while stumbling and
trying to
regain composure of mind and body, I soon was relieved I hadn't
reflexively fired. The figure sat up, moving erratically. Gradually
I could see the beautiful but
terror-stricken face of a woman with
a picnic basket nearby. German
civilians were not allowed to feed,
nor even come near, the prisoners,
so I quickly assured her I approved
of what she was doing, not to be
afraid, and that I would leave the
graveyard to get out of the way, telling
no one.
I left the graveyard as quickly as possible and sat down,
leaning
against a tree at the edge CF the cemetary to be inconspicuous and
not frighten the prisoners. I imagined then, and often since, what it
would be like to be a prisoner under those conditions and meet a
beautiful woman with a picnic basket. I never saw her again, but I
have
never forgotten her face.
While I watched, more prisoners crawled to and
from the enclosure.
I saw they were dragging food back
to their comrades and could only
admire their courage and devotion. As I
walked back to my quarters
at the end of my shift, a
nightingale and I were singing -- both felt a
touch of spring.
(I
originally did not intend to reveal the following incident, for it
moves
into a realm termed "mystical". However, for me, it was an
extremely
significant experience, changing my life, providing a light
no darkness can
extinguish. It must be told, hoping it will foster
understanding.)
On May 8, V.E. day, I decided to celebrate with some prisoners
I was guarding who were baking
bread, meager amounts of which
the other prisoners occasionally
received. This group had all the
bread they could eat, and shared
the jovial mood generated by the
end of the war. We all thought we
would be going home soon, a
pathetic hope on their part. We
were in what was to become the
French zone, and I later witnessed
the brutality of the French
soldiers when we transferred our
prisoners to them for their
slave labor camps (see below).
However, on this day we were happy.
After chatting with them
about the potentials of peace for the rest
of our lives, I decided to risk a
gesture of trust that objectively
would seem foolish. I emptied my rifle and
stood it in the corner.
They tested me further by asking to play with it,
and I agreed.
Intuitively I felt I could rely on their sense of honor not to
attack
me, for they knew they too were being tested. This thoroughly
'broke the ice', and soon we were
singing songs we taught each
other or I had learned in high
school German ("Du, du, liegst mir
im Herzen"). Out of gratitude,
they secretly baked a small sweet
bread and insisted I take it,
explaining it was the only possible gift
they had left to offer. Expressing
my gratitude with a lump in my
throat, I put it in my tight
"Eisenhower jacket" so I could sneak it
back to my barracks. I later found
an opportunity to eat it outside.
Never had bread tasted more delicious,
nor conveyed to me a
deeper sense of communion while
eating it. A wonderful feeling
pervaded me, gently opening me to
an intimation of the Oneness
of all Being. Through those
prisoners I sensed the ~cosmic
presence of what has been called
the Christ, Buddha-nature, or,
perhaps most aptly, the Ineffable:
cosmically present, but hidden
and apparently separate, until
revealed in the wholeness of the
giving of the self. Even within
the horror humans had created,
I was taught a path to redemption
may open by taking a first,
tentative step in the direction of
love, understanding and forgiveness.
This above all the prisoners
taught me: not only are we all potentially
humane humans, there is divinity
within us waiting for us to dissolve
the defensive shield of ego. I was
pleased to discover later the words
of Matthew 25:34-46, expressing
the potential within prisoners and
all who are at our mercy.
Shortly after this experience I was plunged into even greater horror.
Some of our weak and sickly prisoners were being marched off by
French
soldiers to their camp. The truck we were on first passed
another truck
picking up bodies along the side of the road, and then
came up behind a
slowly moving column of men. Temporarily we
slowed down and remained behind,
perhaps because the driver was
as shocked as I was. The French
soldiers were apparently incensed
at the poor condition of our
prisoners, not only for labor but for
marching to another camp. Whenever
a prisoner staggered or
dropped back, the French clubbed
him to death and then dragged
him to the side of the road. For
many, this quick death might have
been preferable to their prolonged
suffering. Even gas would have
been more merciful than our murder
by neglect in our slow 'killing
fields'.
When I saw the
German women held in a separate enclosure, I asked
why we were keeping them. I was
told they were "camp followers",
selected as breeding stock for the
S.S. to create a super-race. We
provided them with tents but they
were extremely hungry. I spoke
to some and must say they were
still spirited and attractive. However,
I believe I was objective enough
when I told all concerned that I didn't
think they deserved our treatment.
As an interpreter, I was able to prevent some particularly
unfortunate arrests. One somewhat amusing incident occurred
during a pre-dawn raid we
conducted on a town to discover Nazis
or arms. An old farmer was being
dragged away by some soldiers.
I was told he had a "fancy Nazi
medal", which they showed to me.
Fortunately, I had a chart
identifying such medals. He had been
awarded it for having five or more
children! Perhaps his wife was
somewhat relieved to get him "off
her back", but I didn't think one
of our 'death camps' was a fair
punishment for his contribution to
Germany. The soldiers agreed and
released him to continue his
"dirty work".
Famine was
spreading amongst German civilians also. It was a
common sight to see German women
up to their elbows in our
garbage cans looking for something
edible -- that is, when they
weren't chased away.
When
I interviewed mayors of small towns and villages, I was told
their supply of
food had been taken away by "displaced persons"
(foreigners who had worked
in Germany), who packed the food
on trucks and drove away. When I
reported this, the response was
a shrug or an expression of
helplessness.
Although the Red Cross coffee and doughnut stands were
available
everywhere for us, I never saw any Red Cross in the prison camps
or helping the civilians. While my
girlfriend had all the "contraband"
doughnuts she could eat, most Germans
had to share their meager
hidden stores and wait until the next harvest.
This hunger undoubtedly made many German women more "available",
but, despite this, rape was
incredibly prevalent and often accompanied
by additional violence. I
particularly remember a charming eighteen
year old girl who had several
unsuccessful suitors and was "just friends"
with me, who had the side of her
face smashed with a rifle butt and
was then raped by two G.I.s. The casual
shooting of German civilians
also continued, usually by drunken soldiers who
would tell of this as
something amusing. All too many G.I.s gave the
impression they were
1ike animals released from cages, free to do what they
liked because
they were dealing with yet a lower species of animal, a
reverse
racism, inflamed by our propaganda. However, even the French
complained to me that our rape and drunken destructive behavior
in their country was excessive.
When we had arrived in Le Havre,
we had been given booklets
instructing us that the Germans had
maintained a high standard of
behavior with French civilians who
were peaceful, and that we should
do the same. In this we failed
miserably.
So what? we
might still say. The enemies' atrocities were worse
than ours. Certainly my
experiences were only of the last phases
of the war, when we were already
clearly the victors. The Nazi
opportunity for atrocities had
faded and ours was unleashed.
But we might have learned the
simple lesson that two wrongs do
not make a right. Perhaps we might
even have broken the cycle
of vengeful retaliation and
unbridled hatred, fed by racism, that
has plagued human history and
blighted human potential all to
long. Instead, we committed our
own atrocities and now are
clinging to a cover-up. That is
why I am speaking out now,
forty-five years after the crime.
We can never prevent individual
war crimes, but we can, if enough
of us speak out, influence
government policy. We can reject
government propaganda that
depicts our enemies as subhuman and encourages
the kinds of
outrages I witnessed. We can
protest the bombing of civilian
targets, which still goes on
today. (I will never forget the sickly
sweet smell of rotting human flesh
rising from the shattered
remains of the cities and towns I
entered.) And we can refuse
ever to condone our government' s
murder of unarmed and
defeated prisoners of war.
I realized it's difficult to admit witnessing a crime of this
magnitude, especially if implicated oneself. Even G.I .s sympathetic
to
the victims told me they were afraid to oppose so massive a
policy that would surely seek to
cover its tracks. I never heard this
directly from an officer, but it was
the belief of the rank-and-file
G.I.s I spoke to that we were not to "talk"
because, first, no one
would believe us, and second, we would surely get
into trouble.
They all insisted it was better
not to talk, and slowly I too realized
it would be futile and dangerous.
That is, until now, thanks to
James Bacque and Pat Buchanan.
This is not to say the danger
has passed. Since I "spoke out"
recently, my mailbox has been
smashed and I have received
threatening phone calls. But I believe
it is worth the risk. Writing
about these atrocities has been a
atharsis of feelings suppressed
too long, a liberation, and perhaps
will remind other witnesses and
citizens -that "the truth shall make
us free, have no fear." And, in
any case, "the truth shall out".
We may even learn a supreme lesson from
all this: Hate is self-
destructive; only love can conquer and evolve all as
One.
Martin Brech
(Adjunct Professor,
Philosophy & Religion,
Mercy College;
Ex-G.I., Finally
Free)
*****************************************************************************
LET'S STOP KIDDING
OURSELVES! 9-11 was an Israeli-backed spanking on our
collective
American bottom! A Boeing 757 DIDN'T pierce through six walls of the
Pentagon (impossible + no aircraft debris), a late model cruise missile did
the job;
the Twin Towers DIDN'T collapse due to heat (impossible),
demolition charges
did the job; there were NO Arab hijackers (the jets
were guided electronically);
and the Zionists/Judeo-Christians now in
control of the United States are traitors
to the U.S. Constitution... as
well as being mass murderers.This has been a Zionist
WAG THE DOG operation
from the start, deadly serious for our elected leaders
WHO KNOW WHO'S
GUILTY, and an Arabian Nights charade for Mom and Pop
in Littletown, U.S.A.!
It's an info war! Forward this to the world!
henri@alaska.net