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Please click here to visit the International Committee of the Red Cross, and make an on-line donation:
Saving lives and our civilization:
Despite the efforts of a great many wonderful human rights organizations,
in including "Doctors without borders", Unicef and other United Nations related groups, there is one organization which
is utterly indispensible, if we are going to maintain some semblance of civility in the midst of the many unnecessary
wars on this planet.
What am I saying - actually, they are all indispensible, except for those
few who manage to profit from the sufferings of their fellow humans. I hope that I have given you some evidence
of this on these few humble pages.
My father was one of those who benefited from The International
Committee of the Red Cross. During the days of the "Third Reich", he was an apprentice in the printing trade. Winning
a major professional competition meant that he would receive a free cruise with my mother, to Norway. There was
a little catch though: The head of his trade organization in Breslau, dressed in his Nazi uniform, congratulated him, and
advised him that there was only one minor problem: "I see that you are not yet a member of the Nazi party. No
problem, we can take care of that right now, just sign here". My father refused, and the free cruise was no longer
his. So he saved his money, and two years later, he and my mother boarded the cruise ship, and both felt very good about
his rather bold refusal.
During World War II, my father served as a Signal Corps soldier
in Italy. After surrendering to Italian partisans, he was interned in an American POW camp. He became the
camp interpreter, and was treated well, but the men in the camp were not: Although there was plenty of food, their captors
decided to limited the food, so that the men were always hungry. My father used the access he enjoyed to all areas of
the camp to save the substantial amount of left-overs and kitchen scraps, which had always been thrown away, and buried
them in a large pot deep in the sandy soil. At night, the hungry prisoners crept out of their tents to the designated
site, and filled their stomachs on these unauthorized rations.
After a few weeks, when the war was finally over, the entire prisoner
population was shipped in cattle-cars on a train to the north, to freedom - or so they thought. There had been
no military guards on the train, nor a need for any. Why would anyone escape, when they were getting a free ride home?
Halfway into Germany, the situation changed drastically. The doors
to the cattle cars were suddenly locked, and during their stops, when the German soldiers were permitted to stretch
their legs, they found American machine-guns set up outside. Still, no-one ascaped, or even tried to do so, since they
still thought they were going home. This illusion was shattered, when they arrived at Erbisoeul, in Belgium.
There, those who were able-bodied, were forced to work in the coal mines.
My father, since he had lost his vision in one eye, was forced to endure the rigors of what was, in fact, by every conceivable
definition, a concentration camp. His weight dropped from 150 to 92 pounds in two months. When he and the
other prisoners were finally released, none of them were able to walk without assistance.
His ultimate release was due to the direct intervention of the International
Red Cross, and to no other organization or governmental entity. A final tragedy was the loss of his friend,
who, despite warnings from Red Cross officials, had gorged himself with too much food - apparently it was pea soup.
He died two days after his release from hell.
The International Red Cross was able to save all of the others, who remained.
They, and only they, have always represented everything which is worth saving in our otherwise often cannibalistic society.
After their intervention, if my father's memory is correct, the camp
commander, a Belgian national, as well as his German collaborator, were tried and executed.
CLick on this link to learn about the often inhumane treatment of German soldiers during World War II:
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Documents of the International Red Cross:
This is an official translation, provided by the International
Committee of the Red Cross, pertaining to my father's illegal incarceration. It is in the French Language
- I suspect that all of their documents stored in their archives in Switzerland are in French. I am quoting it not only verbatim,
but also in the style in which it was drafted. Only the various accents of the French alphabet have been eliminated :
Document 1:
Traduction
WM/TJ
20.6.46
Au Comite International de la Croix-Rouge
G
E N E V E
Suisse.
Je vous transmets,
ci-joint, les resultats d'un examen de l'etat de sante et du poids des prisonniers de guerre du camp d'Erbisoeul, Cage C.
La diminution
de poids de 21.5% des prisonniers de guerre a pris des proportions si menacantes qu'on est fonde a envisager la possibilite
d'une situation pouvant de venir catastrophique.
Il y a peut-etre lieu
d'esperer de la part de la Croix-Rouge de Geneve, ceci avec le concours des Autorites belges, une aide susceptible d'eviter
une aussi triste issue.
(sig.) Johannes Lange
Medicin Major
Document 2:
Traduction
Erbisoeul,
2.6.1946
Cage C Medicin de camp
Dr. Johannes Lange
Medicin Major
Au Commandant du C.C.P.
E r b i s o e u l
Ref. Ordre de camp No.1050 du 28.1.1946
Concerne : Etat sanitaire des prisonniers de guerre du Cage C.
Etat general
Sur un effectif de
1842 prisonniers de guerre, 1341 ont ete examines medicalement et sur ce nombre 216, soit le 21,5% ont presentedes symtomes
denotant un etat de sante d'une extreme gravite (cachexie avances).
Les constatations
suivantes ont ete faites:
Grandeur moyenne 171 cm.
Poids normal
71kg
Poids moyen le 1.6.1946 52.6 kg
18.4 kg
Duree moyenne de captivite au C.C.P. Erbisoeul : 8 1/2 mois.
La diminution de poids
est continue et a atteint, pendant les 8 dernieres semaines, 3,1 kg. en moyenne.
Poids le 3.4.46 55,6 kg.
Poids le 1.6.46 52.6 kg.
En ce qui concerne la perte de poids des prisonniers de guerre, les chiffres maxima releves ont
ete les suivants :
Grandeur Poids
Diminution de Poids
182 cm.
53 kg.
29 kg.
160 cm. 39
kg. 21
kg.
Sans une intervention immediate et sans une repartition de rations supplementaires
aux prisonniers atteints de sous-alimentation, la situation empirera rapidement et il faudra meme compter avec une forte proportion
de mortalite.
La force de resistance des prisonniers contre la maladie est epuisee et, par example, une epidemie
d'enterite pendant les mois d'ete prendrait des proportions excessivement graves.
Proprete
En
ce qui concerne l'hygiene individuelle et la proprete des prisonniers, il n'y a aucune observation defavorable a faire.
Dans
de nombreux cas, les sous-vetements ont ete trouves dans un etat lamentable et si uses que ces vetements n'avaient meme pas
supporter un nettoyage. Quelquefois, les prisonniers ne possedaient meme pas de sous-vetements.
Maladies infectieuses
A part, quelques cas
de gale infectiese, nous n'avons pas constate, avec les moyens mis a notre disposition, d'autres maladies contagieuses.
(sig.)
Johannes Lange
Medicin de camp
I have a lot of other documents, all very amateurishly translated
by me. After so many years without practice, my two years of French in Germany, and one year in Canada, seem inadequate to
the task.
There is, if possible, an even darker side to this story:
The guards at Erbisoeul forced the prisoners to build huge, cavernous holes at least eight feet deep and eight feet in diameter,
to be used as latrines. While squatting over the edge, the emaciated, skeletal remains of humanity, as the document
above this paragraph clearly indicates, sometimes fell into this huge vat of feces, and drowned, to the applause of
the guards. Those prisoners who attempted to help were dissuaded by warning shots.
Bet you, this atrocity will never make the evening news,
since it just doesn't fit in! Besides, all of the Germans were bad guys then, and they deserved this. Everyone knows
that. Just read the stuff in our school text books. It's all there, and there is nothing more to say about the
matter.
Someday, someone dear to you may be in a similar situation
to that suffered by my father. Without the International Red Cross in Geneva, he or she will certainly die. Think
about it!
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The care and feeding of Allies
One of America's problem after the Second World War was that her
entertainment media have continued to push what can only be called wartime propaganda, long after the fighting ended.
When I learned some of my military skills at Armor Officer Basic,
I was ordered to act as lliaison officer for a German Airforce general in Fort Knox Kentucky. I've never really understood
why. Certainly, the German general's english was as not only as good, but actually very much better than mine, so it
must have been an attempt to show that we have happy former German citizens in our armed forces - and we did.
The general had a colorful and exciting career, and quite a few enemy
"kills", mostly, but not all, on the eastern front. As I recall, he was also somehow related to the Messerschmidt
family, which is a legend in flight history.
Before we parted that evening, he said: "How can you stand all this
anti-german propaganda on television. We are either portrayed as vicious butchers or ludicrous bumbling idiots. It's
the kind of stuff you show before you go to war against a nation, and not when you are supposedly allies."
I had gotten so used to this anti-german tone which had permeated
our entertainment industry in the United States - (and still does to this day), that I had become numb to this fact,
and I had to reluctantly agree with the general. Since then, this anti-german tone has been considerably abated, but
it seems that the propaganda machine still kicks into gear whenever we want help from the German nation, such as with the
war in Iraq, and their politicians are reluctant to comply with their demands.
I doubt that anyone has ever rushed to the aid of a "friend"
after being rudely insulted. Perhaps that is our best hope for peace: These maniacs who want war, despite their
enormous wealth, are not really very bright, though they pretend to be, especially when they admire themselves in front of
a mirror. They are forced to do this, since noone else has any sincery admiration for them.
When all of us begin to understand that basic, irrefutable fact,
that indeed they are really pathetic little creatures who inspire contempt instead of admiration, these war criminals will
find most of our world's population yawning: "War, painful death, mutilation? Sounds like fun, but none for me
today please - maybe some some other time. Oh, have you checked our lunatic asylum? This sounds like something
that they might really be interested in!"
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