Given Up For Dead: American GIs in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga
In December 1944, many American soldiers were captured in the Battle of the Bulge. Most prisoners were treated according to the rules established by the Geneva Convention, but 350 POWs who were Jewish or from other "undesirable" ethnic or religious groups (including Catholics) were sent to the slave-labor camp Berga, outside Bad Orb, Germany. They worked in the mines and surrounding forest; the camp was crawling with lice, there was very little food, they were beaten, and they suffered from mental cruelty. On April 3, 1945, the survivors were marched south toward Bavaria, and on April 22, American soldiers liberated them. Some of them had died "on the route to nowhere." After the war, the U.S. Army told some of them not to disclose any details of their captivity. Whitlock interviewed survivors, and his book, with 95 black-and-white photographs and 11 maps, chronicles their story for the first time.George CohenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.