Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble

by Roger Cohen

Book Overview

In February of 1945, 350 American POWs, selected because they were Jews, thought to resemble Jews or simply by malicious caprice, were transported by cattle car to Berga, a concentration camp in eastern Germany. Here, the soldiers were worked to death, starved and brutalized; more than twenty percent died from this horrific treatment. This is one of the last untold stories of World War II, and Roger Cohen re-creates it in all its blistering detail...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385722311
• ISBN13: 9780385722315
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

5 1/2 stars at least!

What a compelling read! In all wars there are stories of atrocities. Some are well known and some not so well known. The author takes us to a virtually unknown Nazi run prison/work camp of WWII. 'Berga' is a name that should be synonymous to 'fear,suffering, punishment and death. Anger will overtake you as you read this remarkable work. Your anger will increase as you learn how and why this terrible part of history was largely ignored and 'swept under the rug' by most, including our own government, mainly for political reasons that might be 'uncomfortable' as the Cold War appears on the horizon. This is a story that is literally screaming to be told. At the end of most books we just overlook the directories, notes, etc. Go a few pages further and you will find the names of the 350 men that were unfortunate enough to be brought to this camp. Read them, one by one, as you ponder what you have just read about the horror they went through: a horror that many of them carried with them the rest of their lives.

Amazing tale of cruelty and survival

Wow! Reading a lot of history (particularly about war) I often feels that nothing will shock me any more. Then I get a hold of a book like Roger Cohen's "Soldiers and Slaves" and find myself gasping in disbelief. Here is a story of incredible bravery. Here is a story of incredible cruelty. Here is a story of the incredible ability to survive against all odds. Here is an incredible story. Hitler's last major offensive of World War II in December 1944 resulted in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Though the Germans ultimately lost the battle they exacted a huge toll in allied casualties and captives. This is the story of how some of those captured -- particularly American Jews -- came to be swept up in the Nazi's Holocaust. Cohen tells the story of the approximately 500 American POWs taken to the Berga prison camp in eastern Germany where many were worked or starved or beaten to death. We are also introduced to a Hungarian Jewish family that was swept up in the latter stages of the Holocaust and how one teen aged son from that family ended up in Berga. Cohen thus exposes readers to many aspects of the war: battle, capture, POW camps, the Holocaust, escape, sadism and the very unique story of Berga. There are two things that makes "Soldiers and Salves" such a riveting read. One is the details. We learn exactly what people had and were deprived of. What they wore, ate, drank. What the weather was, what people spoke of and what they they yearned for. This leads to the second aspect of the book that is so integral to its success. The people. Cohen does what is essential in such a story by fully acquainting readers with the main characters. Through interviews, diaries and letters Cohen has come to understand the central figures of the story and passes that understanding on to the reader. Meet William Shapiro a GI medic from the Bronx who long after the war suppressed his memories of the awful treatment he received and witnessed at Berga. Meet Hans Kasten a German American (whose life even before Berga is worthy of a book) who stood up to his captors, later escaped and sought revenge. Meet Mordecai Hauer the young Hungarian Jew, clutching desperately to life and with equal determination to his family's lives. Meet Erwin Metz, the sadistic sergeant a Berga who cruelly meted out punishment. "Soldiers and Slaves" is an important addition to the ever burgeoning library of good non fiction on World War II.

American Soldiers in the Holocaust

It has been sixty years, and all the stories of World War II are not yet told. Along with the big stories of horrors and triumphs, there are smaller ones on the same themes, and some of them were deliberately covered up or hushed up by the victors. Most of us didn't realize that captured American soldiers who should have been mere prisoners of war were actually shunted directly into the Holocaust and treated with the same sort of brutality meted out at the infamous camps like Auschwitz. In _Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble_ (Knopf), Roger Cohen has brought forth a grueling and difficult story of American soldiers, many but not all Jewish, who were assigned to Berga, a concentration camp in eastern Germany, and worked as slaves, many to their deaths. Instead of becoming part of the history of infamy by the Nazis, the investigation done at the time was hushed up and the victims who lived did not get to testify against the officials in charge of the camp in the war crimes trials. Cohen's book represents a late but essential corrective. The Nazis took thousands of American soldiers prisoner in the winter of 1944, and most went on to the more typical POW camps. Even in the closing days of the war, however, and even against Americans, the Nazis had not lost their particular hatred for Jews. About 350 of the captives were singled out for special transfer to Berga, as were about 350 others, many of them Jewish soldiers, but also others who had been branded as troublemakers at other camps, or those who just looked Jewish according to the prejudices of whatever goon was making the decision. The Berga workers included American POWs as well as Jewish prisoners from other camps like Buchenwald. They were often simply worked to death, digging what was to be, in one of Hitler's last mad plans, an underground facility to make synthetic fuel. They had to endure vicious guards, starvation, infected wounds from their mining work, and more; much of Cohen's book describing the treatment of the prisoners is heartbreaking to read. Berga was in operation for just 52 days at the beginning of 1945, and then there was a dreadful death march as the Germans kept losing ground in the war. Of the 350 prisoners, around a fifth died, a rate far higher than any POW camp in Europe. The trials of the prisoners are in some ways not the saddest part of the book. The men who endured Berga did not get their story told and did not get to give their evidence in the war crimes trials of their brutal slave-drivers. Cohen has looked at the documents from an American war-crimes investigation from 1945, and found them thorough, with many official statements from prisoners. The records, however, became classified and even the existence of the camp was not acknowledged. Family members writing to an official shortly after the end of the war to find out what happened in Berga got a reply that said "... it has been learned that there was no G

The Holocaust Did Happen to Our Boys Too!

I had first heard of Berga and the 350 American GI's - Jewish - but in many cases not, who were herded by the Nazis into the Berga camp on a PBS special last year - and my reaction was shock, anger, but even admiration - NOT for the Nazis but for that gallant German-American Captain who not only defied the Gestapo by refusing to turn over his Jewish personnel but tried to escape several times. There have been stories - even other books written about Jewish-Americans, GIs but also in some cases civilians who were swept into the Third Reich by Hitler's advancing armies.This is the first history of how Americans faced firsthand the Holocaust by a mainstream publisher. While men like Erwin Rommel chose not to differentiate between Jews and Non-Jewish POWs; there were others, including those involved in the Bulge operation who chose to do so. The 350 prisoners at Berga were captured at the Bulge, where the Nazis were known to have committed atrocities en masse - the Malmedy Massacre against unarmed American POWs - and Belgian civilians nearby. While more fortunate than their compatriots butchered by the SS Monster Peiper at the Malmedy crossroads, at least 70 of the Americans - Jews and Non-Jews alike, perished from starvation, exposure - and execution - at the Berga camp. The Americans too, came face-to-face with the horror of Hitler's extermination program, as they were placed in close promixity to starved, slaved Russian and Polish Jews who were also at Berga. When the survivors were liberated they were told to keep silent, and worse, Berga ended up in the Soviet zone - and notwithstanding the Soviet's intense hatred of the Nazis - they chose NOT to expose what happened at Berga - after all, to the Russians they were only ZHIDS - and the Russkies too wanted the former Nazis on board with them to fight us in the Cold War. That is NO excuse however,for our government, especially in the face of Eisenhower's hatred of Nazism, to cover over the atrocities committed against AMERICAN GIs at Berga. Roger Cohen has given us a history that while is appalling - is one that needs wide-exposure, as our GREATEST GENERATION is dying out and anti-Semitism is again rearing its ugly head. The stories of the brave Captain aforementioned; and of the individual Americans who stood up to the bestality of Nazism deserves to be placed in every American school and library.

Soldiers and Slaves

Soldiers and Slaves by Roger Cohen is the story of 350 Americans, captured during the Battle of the Bulge, who end up in a Nazi slave labor camp. A major portion of this group were Jewish. The prisoners were sent from a Stalag, where the Jewish prisoners were separated from their fellow POWs. How these men were treated at Berga was a travesty. What was a greater travesty however was how the Americans allowed those who perpetrated these heinous acts to get away with what, considering how they treated their prisoners, amounted to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Cold war concerns got in the way of justice. The men who were able to survive the camp and the horrific death march after they were forced from the camp by their Nazi guards were heroes in every sense of the word. Those who are alive today still suffer both physically and emotionally as a result of their experiences. Recently, another book on the same subject was published. Although that book was good, this one is a much more interesting read and I recommend it to any WWII buff.