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Hitler's G.I. Death Camp

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 12th December 2011

  
  
  I thought that POWs were protected by the Convention of Genève?
  
  Kind regards,
  
  Paul.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 12th December 2011

  Paul
  
  POW's were protected by the Geneva Convention-
  
  But I do not think that this prevented them being placed in "concentration camp" complexes..And the whole question of the difference between the original concentration camps started in 1933 and the extermination camps of the Final Solution is often blurred.. Not least because places like Belsen- which I think was initially a concentration camp- by the time that the Allies entered it in 1945, had received large numbers of people forced to make the Death March from the Death Camps that were in the line of the Red Army advance.
  
  But even Auschwitz was not just an extermination camp but a major work complex. The regular "selections" were intended to "weed out" those who were no longer able to do any useful work .
  
  But there was a news item a couple of years ago in which someone -it seems-suddenly remembered a detail of his time as a British POW in a POW camp just next door to Auschwitz. He found himself on some kind of work party along with some Jewish people from the Death Camp, and actually broke into the camp one night in order to "check out" exactly what was going on in there. As a British POW he received his Red Cross food parcels and he passed his chocolate rations to one man whom he befriended. He even arranged for this man to have a "holiday" by changing places with him. So he spent a few days as an Auschwitz Death Camp inmate, while the inmate stayed among the Brits.
  
  The man that he thus helped survived Auschwitz and made a new life in the USA, unable ever to find the British POW whose help had made all the difference. By the time that Ginger had recalled this details he was dead. But his children in the USA were happy to finally be able to thank him. Their father had lived on for 50 years or so after the war.
  
  When I have mentioned this story before another poster- possibly Mic Mac- hinted that he felt that it might not all be exactly "as stated".. But there seems no disputing the fact that British POW's were kept in the Auschwitz-Bergenau complex.
  
  Cass

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by VoirreyM (U6681243) on Tuesday, 13th December 2011

  "Ginger " was interviewed recently on a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ television programme----
  
  a truly remarkable gentleman!! It was an inspiration to watch & listen
  
  to this astonishing tale.

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