Hans was a German Jew who'd worked as a logger in Canada in the 1930's but had gone back to Germany to try and get his family out. While there, he was picked up by the Gestapo and sent to a work camp, while his family was sent to a death camp.
He ended up in North Africa, preparing defensive positions for the Afrika Korps. He was captured by the Free French, who turned him over to the British, who turned him over to the Americans, and he spent the rest of the war in the POW camp in Alabama, where he spent most of his time working in the cotton fields.
As an interesting side note about Hans, he was responsible for the arrest of three key members of the Baden Meinhof Gang (aka the Red Army Faction). He was out picking mushrooms to help supplement his pension when he smelled woodsmoke. He knew that there weren't any camping areas around, so he crept up the hill and the trio (two males and a female) hiding out in a small hollow. Recognizing them from their wanted posters, he hurried back to his cabin and called the politzei, who responded with overwhelming force. My school class was on a field trip to the politzei station when they were brought in, so it was a memorable event for me.
My husband’s family are Jewish. In the late 1930s his grandfather knew what was coming and made repeated trips to northeastern Germany to try to bring his relatives to the safety of the US. All of them were sure that everything would be all right. Only one, a recent graduate from medical school, came. She was standing at the railing of the ship when a Nazi sub surfaced and searched the ship for escaping Jewish people. She vowed that if they identified her she would jump overboard. Thankfully she reached the US safely and became a prominent doctor in Nashville.
33 ... he spent the rest of the war in the POW camp in Alabama, where he spent most of his time working in the cotton fields. ...
The largest in AL, and I think the entire U.S., was in the rural west central AL town of Aliceville. The locals have established a museum of it. Made the trip there last NOV. Other POW camps in AL were established near Anniston (Ft. McClellan), Opelika, and Daleville (Camp, now Ft., Rucker). My mother grew up on a farm in SW Barbour County (east central AL). As a school girl, she remembers the U.S. Army trucks bringing the German POWs to her parents’ farm to work the fields - mostly cotton and peanuts. Her 2 older female cousins (~15) just up the road would stand by the side of the road and wave to the POWs as the trucks drove them by.
That’s a really interesting story! Good stuff.
That’s a fascinating story. Thx for posting it.