Page 98 - Anthology

Author’s Note

On 8 April 1945, the gates of Stalag XVII-B were unlocked; an estimated four thousand grubby,
emaciated, and starving men were force-marched for eighteen days; they were marched for 281 miles to
Braunau, Austria. POWs strong enough to make the march, traveled in eight groups of five hundred. An
1
American leader was in charge of each group. Twenty German Volkssturm guards with two dogs
marched the Americans an average of 12 miles each day. They were unknowingly being marched toward
American troop units and away from approaching Russian soldiers.

Some of the American POWs reported having received Red Cross parcels to last about seven days; other
reports indicate they were given only bread on the day they began the eighteen-day march.

Who really knows what the men were thinking as they struggled to stay alive and keep up with the
others? They were weak and hungry, but they continued; freedom awaited them, many later told stories
of how they “felt” freedom was near; soon the war would be over, at least for them. They slept in the
woods, open fields, and an occasional barn; food remained limited; uncooked potatoes were the norm.
The able-bodied prisoners combed nearby fields and farms for anything palatable.

Tired, wet, cold, thirsty and hungry; it got worse each day. Then, the astonished Americans watched in
revulsion as they witnessed about 200 Jewish prisoners also being marched to unknown places. The
Jews were mere skeletons of men. They too, were starving and maltreated.

Eighteen days later, many near death; the nearly four-mile-long group of POWs rested in the woods of
Leach Forest, Austria. The nearby sound of Sherman tanks of the American 13th Armored Division
signaled the arrival of a new day. American forces liberated the POWs and transported them across the
river to an American airfield. The POWs were flown to Camp Lucky Strike, Janville, France, where they
boarded a freedom ship to England and on to New York, USA.

An estimated nine hundred men were too ill to make the march. They were abandoned and left behind in
the camp hospitals. These men were liberated on 9 May 1945, by the Russians.

The physical war ended for the men of Stalag XVII-B. The emotional and psychological wounds would
remain a lifetime.

1 The German guards were made up of People's Militia soldiers, not the much feared and reportedly
malicious Waffen-SS soldiers. The Waffen-SS was created as the armed wing of the Nazi Party's
Schutzstaffel (SS, "Protective Squadron"), and gradually developed into a multi-ethnic and multi-national
military force of Nazi Germany.