Thank God for their service and their sacrifices. I was stirred reading this report from CNN about an unknown episode in the annals of World War II – American prisoners of the Nazis, brutalized and used as slave labor.
“Very definite that we are moving away from here and on foot. This isn’t very good for our sick men. No drinking water and no latrines,” Acevedo wrote in his diary on April 4, 1945.
He says they began a death march of 217 miles (349 kilometers) that would last three weeks. More than 300 U.S. soldiers were alive at the start of the march, he says; about 165 were left by the end, when they were finally liberated.
Lines of political prisoners in front of them during the march caught the full brunt of angry Nazi soldiers.
“We saw massacres of people being slaughtered off the highway. Women, children,” he says. “You could see people of all ages, hanging on barbed wire.”
One of his diary entries exemplifies an extraordinary patriotism among soldiers, even as they were being marched to their deaths. “Bad news for us. President Roosevelt’s death. We all felt bad about it. We held a prayer service for the repose of his soul,” Acevedo wrote on April 13, 1945.
It adds, “Burdeski died today.”
To this day, Acevedo still remembers that soldier. He wanted to perform a tracheotomy using his diary pen to save Burdeski, a 41-year-old father of six children. A German commander struck Acevedo in the jaw with a rifle when he asked.
“I’ll never forget,” he says.
Nor should we.
