Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble

In February 1945, 350 American POWs captured earlier at the Battle of the Bulge or elsewhere in Europe were singled out by the Nazis because they were Jews or were thought to resemble Jews. They were transported in cattle cars to Berga, a concentration camp in eastern Germany, and put to work as slave laborers, mining tunnels for a planned underground synthetic-fuel factory. This was the only incident of its kind during World War II.

Starved and brutalized, the GIs were denied their rights as prisoners of war, their ordeal culminating in a death march that was halted by liberation near the Czech border. Twenty percent of these soldiers — more than seventy of them — perished. After the war, Berga was virtually forgotten, partly because it fell under Soviet domination and partly because America?s Cold War priorities quickly changed, and the experiences of these Americans were buried.

Now, for the first time, their story is told in all its blistering detail. This is the story of hell in a small place over a period of nine weeks, at a time when Hitler?s Reich was crumbling but its killing machine still churned. It is a tale of madness and heroism, and of the failure to deliver justice for what the Nazis did to these Americans.

Among those involved: William Shapiro, a young medic from the Bronx, hardened in Normandy battles but, as a prisoner, unable to help the Nazis? wasted slaves, whose bodies became as insubstantial as ghosts; Hans Kasten, a defiant German-American who enraged his Nazi captors by demanding, in vain, that his fellow U.S. prisoners be treated with humanity, thus committing the unpardonable sin of betraying his German roots; Morton Goldstein, a garrulous GI from New Jersey, shot dead by the Nazi in charge of the American prisoners in an incident that would spark intense debate at a postwar trial; and Mordecai Hauer, the orphaned Hungarian Jew who, after surviving Auschwitz, stumbled on the GIs in the midst of the Holocaust at Berga and despaired at the sight of liberators become slaves.

Roger Cohen uncovers exactly why the U.S. government did not aggressively prosecute the commandants of Berga, why there was no particular recognition for the POWs and their harsh treatment in the postwar years, and why it took decades for them to receive proper compensation.

Soldiers and Slaves is an intimate, intensely dramatic story of war and of a largely forgotten chapter of the Holocaust.

"A former Balkans bureau chief for the New York Times, Cohen last explored atrocity in Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo; he now steps back 60 years and moves a few hundred kilometers west to recount the fate of 550 American POWs shipped into eastern Germany during the winter of 1944 — 1945. Most were Jewish — or appeared Jewish enough to satisfy Nazi officials, who needed to meet labor quotas the dying concentration camp inmates were no longer fit to handle. Cohen's interviews with survivors show that the POWs met nearly as dire a fate, as they dug underground to build a synthetic fuel plant, with 20% of them dying and others being crippled for life by rock falls, dust, starvation and by the brutal treatment from the guards. Postwar, the camp fell within what became East Germany, where the investigation into the Holocaust was less rigorously pursued than in the West. The guards got off lightly; the commandant was sentenced to only eight years. Following Germany's reunification, exploration into the methods and motives of the Third Reich has been losing support, Cohen shows; his outrage is plain when he encounters a German environmentalist who wants the surviving caves turned into a bird sanctuary. The book is well organized, but the writing style is not always smooth; it's Cohen's level of detail that makes this journalistic history come alive. 75,000-copy first printing. Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Roger Cohen's meticulously reported and passionately felt book Soldiers and Slaves is just such a discovery." Tom Brokaw, New York Times

"In this extraordinary book Roger Cohen has brought to light a long-concealed story of Nazi savagery. It brought me to tears — and understanding." Anthony Lewis

"This story of American POWs at Berga — their suffering, their pain, their hope, their memories — has surprisingly been forgotten or inadequately recalled by historians. Roger Cohen is to be thanked for revealing to the public its profound human drama with talent, sensitivity, and a commitment to truth." Elie Wiesel

"Before reading Soldiers and Slaves, I had never heard of concentration camp Berga, ?an ephemeral little hell? within the larger hell of World War II. But I know it now and won?t ever forget it, thanks to Roger Cohen?s masterful account, wonderfully reported and written." Ward Just

"Roger Cohen...provides some of the best American journalism about Europe, understands that huge tragedies are constituted by microhistories of suffering. This is a beautifully crafted narrative of cruelty, heroism, dismaying postwar indifference, and finally, at last, memory redeemed." Charles Maier, Saltonstall Professor of History, Harvard University

"Roger Cohen has brought us a jewel of a book — a chilling, deeply felt, and powerfully written account of an astonishing episode at the climax of World War II that speaks volumes about human nature, justice, and memory." Michael Beschloss

In February 1945, 350 American POWs were singled out by the Nazis because they were Jews. They were transported to Berga, a concentration camp, and forced to work as slave laborers mining tunnels for a planned underground synthetic-fuel factory. Cohen, a journalist for The New York Times, tells the story of their imprisonment and a harrowing death march during the final days of the war. He uncovers the reasons behind the US government's refusal to prosecute the commandants of Berga, and why it took decades for the Berga POWs to receive proper compensation.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Roger Cohen writes on foreign affairs for The New York Times, where he has worked since 1990, primarily as Paris correspondent, bureau chief in the Balkans and Berlin, and foreign editor. He also writes a twice-weekly column for the International Herald Tribune. His book on Bosnia, Hearts Grown Brutal, based on his prizewinning coverage of the war there, was cited for its excellence by the Overseas Press Club. He lives with his wife, Frida, and their two children in Brooklyn, New York.