On This Day in Arlington History: June 1, 1945: The Sun Gazette announces that 19 Arlingtonian soldiers have been liberated from German prisoner-of-war camps. Sixteen million Americans served in World War II. Over 120,000 lived out part of the war behind barbed wire. In the European theater, 93,941 Americans were held as prisoners of war (POWs). Hardly reminiscent of Hogans Heroes TV comedy, Germany evacuated camps as the war drew to a close. Referred to as The March POWs, political prisoners, and survivors of concentration camps were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in extreme winter conditions, over about 4 months between January and April 1945. As enemy armies advanced from West after the invasion of Normandy and from the East from the Soviet Union, Germany decided to evacuate POW camps to delay liberation of the prisoners.This prolonged the war for hundreds of thousands of Allied personnel, causing severe hardship, starvation, injuries, and often, death. Rumors among the POWs were that -- They were being moved towards concentration camps to be killed in revenge for Allied commanders targeting of civilians in cities such as Dresden. -- POWs would be force-marched until they died from exhaustion, a practice that had already been made notorious by the Japanese military -- They would be held hostage to leverage peace deals. The last POWs were liberated on May 12, four 4 days after Victory in Europe was celebrated. The 19 Arlingtonian soldiers in the Gazette on this day were not the only Arlingtonians to be held as prisoners of war, but by this date, were likely to be the last reported liberated. (The map below shows World War II POW camps in Germany.)
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 09:20:00 +0000
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