Existing comment:
ARMY AIR FORCES VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST:
Terrorflieger:
As Allied air forces took control of the skies over Europe in the summer of 1944, Adolf Hitler ordered the immediate execution of Allied flyers accused of committing certain acts. Named a Terrorflieger (terror flyers), the unfortunate Allied flyer would not be given a trial. However, the German Foreign Office expressed concern about shooting POWs and suggested that enemy airmen suspected of such offenses not be given the legal status of POWs. Following this advice, the Gestapo and Security Police informed captured Allied airmen that they were criminals, not POWs. Using this justification, the Gestapo and Security Police sent 168 captured Allied airmen (including 82 Americans) to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. These airmen had been shot down over France and turned over to the Gestapo and Secret Police by traitors in the French Resistance.
Arriving at Buchenwald on Aug. 20, 1944, these men received the same horrible treatment and beatings as the other inmates. After sleeping outside for the first three weeks, the 168 Allied airmen were moved into an overcrowded, 150-foot-by-30-foot hut along with another 757 inmates, including about 350 Gypsy boys aged from 8 to 14. Most of the Gypsy boys were removed (probably executed) to make "room" from the 168 Allied POWs, but they still slept five men to a bunk. With medical care being essentially non-existent, the injured and sick Allied POWs suffered immediately. On the night of Oct. 18-19, 1944,156 of the 168 were transported from Buchenwald, and they arrived at Stalag Luft III on Oct. 22. Earlier that year, the Gestapo had murdered 50 Allied POWs who had escaped from Stalag Luft III. Too sick to travel, 12 POWs remained at Buchenwald. Two of them died, including one American who died of pneumonia, and the other 10 were transported to the POW camps later.
Postscript:
In 1999 the German government paid 34.5 million Deutschmarks in reparations to various survivors of the Holocaust who were U.S. citizens -- both civilian and military -- interned in German concentration camps during World War II. American POWs who had been sent to Buchenwald were among those receiving reparations. |