Berga: Soldiers of Another War

Starring:Berga-Soldiers of Another War
Studio: Pbs Paramount
Product Type: DVD

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American G.I.s Slave Laboring for Hitler...
Compelled to Write More
Atheist in a Foxhole

Berga: Soldiers of Another War
Starring: John Griffin , Charles E. Guggenheim , Eugene Powell , Al Abrams , and William Feinberg
Director: Charles E. Guggenheim
Manufacturer: Pbs Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble
Given Up for Dead: American POWs in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga

ASIN: B0007Y08ME
Release Date: 2005-05-17

Customer Reviews:

American G.I.s Slave Laboring for Hitler..........2007-01-18

Ordinary in production, but extraordinary in subject matter, Berga documents for posterity the little known part of WWII history about American soldiers that instead of being treated as POWs were separated for suspicion of being Jewish or "undesirable" and sent to slave labor in a Buchenwald satellite concentration camp called Berga.

Real photos and footage combine with reenactments and interviews from surviving G.I.s to tell the story that includes days confined and bombed in a train on the way to Bad Orb and later Berga; identity issues surrounding the German demand for info beyond name, rank and serial number; separation and disparate treatment from other captured Americans; the leadership of G.I. Hans Klasten about whom the Germans said "there's only one thing more despicable than a Jew--it's a German who betrays his country"; and the various coping mechanisms and responses of the soldiers to what one calls a "vision of hell" and to their later liberation and lives.

Berga is an unpleasant but needed reminder of the contrast of human potentials--the capability for sadism such as forcing starving humans to toil in mines breathing in quartz-dust that cut the lungs so that they'd cough up pieces of lung and blood, contrasted with the capability of others like Klasten who to his own detriment refused to provide the Germans a list of Americans who were Jewish and took beatings rather than exchange information for bread.

Compelled to Write More.......2006-05-17

I discovered I had not said a word about this excellent DVD from PBS, and must add to the other extant review because this film belongs in the library of ANYONE interested in front-line experience in war, as well as behind the line terror of the prisoner of war.

Late in World War II, it may well have been only the Air FOrce officers accorded any kind of Geneva-convention like respect behind Axis lines. However, as Berga makes clear, being an American was hardly much of a shield--and for a Jew to take a stand that he was simply an American was an act of death-defiance. While downed Tuskegee Airmen certainly had their own kind of heroism and American Identity to definem, Jewish (whether by religion or cultural identity) soldiers in American uniform had as much or more at stake behind the lines of Hitler's dream, Germania.

I am surprised that less is known about the sufferings of Allied soldiers as slave laborers, yet this too is presented in a sensitive, truthful manner. Today we argue about the separation of church and state, yet in WWII EVERY American soldier had to have a C, P, or H (that is Catholic, Protestant, or Hebrew) on is dog tag, to my knowledge. That is the defining feature of this film and what makes it great to present generations (and the more who see it, the better). I say this because, at that time, what defined all of us facing Fascism was that we were Americans, and there was little need to discuss what one believed theologically in a foxhole, trench, or ravine pinned-down by machine-gun fire. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but to my knowledge, that sample is biased because we only hear from the survivors. And that's all we'll ever know. BERGA prompts you to ponder what your thoughts might be about your co-religionists (or others) should you survive your horrific face with Death, and that is worth the time and trouble.

Atheist in a Foxhole.......2005-11-13

A major focus of this DVD is Hans Kasten, chief man of confidence of Stalag 9B and survivor of Buchenwald. He is a lifelong atheist and was keynote speaker at the Atheists in Foxholes celebration on the Mall in Washington DC on Veteran's Day 2005. When asked by the camp leaders to give up all Jews, he replied, "We're all American's here, we don't differentiate by religion." For this, he was thrown down a flight of stairs, beaten, and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. He not only defended the identity of the fellow soldiers, he had the charisma to ensure no one else in the camp did either. Watch Berga and see the story of this foxhole atheist.

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Berga: Soldiers of Another War
Starring: John Griffin , Charles E. Guggenheim , Eugene Powell , Al Abrams , and William Feinberg
Director: Charles E. Guggenheim
Manufacturer: PBS Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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An important story
Uplifting and edifying
Shocking Story

Berga: Soldiers of Another War
Starring: Al Abrams , Anthony Acevedo , Herschel Auerbach , Ernst Beier , and Morton D. Brooks
Manufacturer: PBS Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
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Sophie Scholl - The Final Days
The Nazi Officer's Wife
Out of the Ashes
Into The Arms Of Strangers - Stories Of The Kindertransport
Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg

ASIN: B00008V2WU
Release Date: 2003-05-20

Description

Charles Guggenheim dedicated the last six months of his life finishing this film. This is a story about his fellow American infantrymen, who were captured during the Battle of the Bulge, then sent to a Nazi slave labor camp where many of them died. BERGA: SOLDIERS OF ANOTHER WAR is a documentary film about these American prisoners of war caught in the tragedy of the Holocaust. Until now, the story has remained untold, lost in the trauma of the second world war.

Customer Reviews:

An important story.......2007-03-09

Not a lot of people know that there were actually a number of Americans who were caught up in the tragedy of the Shoah (obviously not nearly as many as there were native-born Europeans, but there were also more than just an isolated few). This documentary introduces us to one of those stories. In December of 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, several thousand GIs were taken prisoner by the Germans, and sent to Stalag 9B, which was presumably an ordinary POW camp. The order then came for all of the Jewish soldiers among the group to identify themselves. To a man, they all refused to give their religion or to point out which of their buddies were Jewish. Some of the men even took steps to protect their friends' religious identity from being discovered, such as falsely giving their religion as Protestant or making them throw away dog tags with the letter H (for "Hebrew"). However, this refusal to discriminate on the basis of religion and their repeated statements that they were all Americans, not Jews, Catholics, or Protestants, enraged the Germans, and they took several hundred of them prisoner. Only about 80 of the men in this group were actually Jewish; the rest were chosen mostly because they had "Jewish-sounding" names (for example, a number of German names, like Miller/Muller, can go either way), or because they "looked" Jewish (as though the physical features many people associate with Jews of Eastern European descent, such as dark curly hair, aren't shared in common with people such as the Italians, and as though there aren't many Jews who have features like blonde hair, green eyes, or red hair).

What lay in store for these unfortunate men was a living nightmare, not only an obvious violation of all human dignity, decency, and basic humanity, but also, as they were soldiers, a complete violation of the rules worked out under the Geneva Convention. Under the Geneva Convention, one was not allowed to ask a POW anything other than his name, rank, and identification number, but the Nazis were asking them questions such as what their religion and mother's original last name were. The men were shocked at the horrific conditions in the Berga camp and the grueling barbaric backbreaking labor they were forced to endure in a salt mine, as well as at the prisoners who were already there, some of whom were just children. They couldn't believe such things were allowed to happen in the civilised world. The prisoners in turn were equally shocked to see American soldiers now numbering among their ranks. These POWs had no special privileges or comforts granted to them on the basis of their nationality or military status; they were treated the same way as all of the other prisoners. They were beaten, murdered, made to work in that salt mine, counted at roll call, made to drink soup made from a terrible concoction of ingredients, and forced to sleep in the same cramped dirty cold unhygienic quarters. They were also forced on the death march along with all of the other prisoners. By the time of the liberation, many of them had already died. Though they were very glad to see their own men again, and many of them were very weak and sick, they were also burning with hatred for what had been done to them, unable to forgive. One of the veterans being interviewed talks about how his first post-liberation request was for a gun, so he could drive after the fleeing Germans and kill the ones who had done this to him, and so that he could go back to work as a soldier, which was what he still considered himself.

Shot entirely in black and white (even the modern-day interview segments), the film is directed by the late Charles Guggenheim, who is very well-known in the documentary genre. The film opens with a panning shot of his company from WWII, some of them men who died overseas, some of them men who came back. Mr. Guggenheim himself did not see active service, as he got an infection in his foot shortly before his unit was to have shipped out, and the infection turned out to be so bad that he wasn't able to join his mates. However, as is discussed in the conversation between him and David McCullough (one of the bonus features), it really helped in the project that he was of the same generation of the survivors he was interviewing, as well as a veteran himself. They could more easily relate to him than if he'd been some much-younger film-maker who was completely detatched from that shared experience of WWII. It's also pointed out that the average American, of that generation or not, will be easily able to relate to this story, because these survivors are native-born Americans, who speak perfect unaccented English, who could be their nextdoor neighbors. They're not European-born survivors with heavy accents, who didn't grow up in America and who were put in the camps for radically different reasons, people whom some might not be able to fully relate to because they come from such a different background. This is a powerful story of the will to survive and is yet more proof that all stories of the Shoah are unique, different, and in need of telling, not just, as some detractors seem to believe, just the same story told over and over again but with different names and locations.

Uplifting and edifying.......2004-08-05

If "Schindler's List" excused opportunism for the sake of survival, this documentary demonstrates self-sacrifice in the name of human decency and reclaims the terroritory lost by the human race when it left the Spielbergs of the world to tell us all how to live. The unforgettable person in this story is the man I would have liked to have met and married--the German-American commander who chose to accompany his Jewish and Italian -American troops who were forced into slave labor in a concentration camp on account of their racial makeup. His act of courage should be a source of pride to all of us and serve as an example of leadership under dire circumstances. If there ever was a story that gave the lie to the claim that survival under such circumstances is dependent upon acting exclusively in one's own self-interest, this is it. Add to that the bits of wisdom brought forth from interviews with other ex-inmates about how POWs survive and what is most likely to kill them and you have a history lesson that is difficult to forget.
One small caveat: For those who are hooked on archival footage, this film offers nothing in the way of cutaways. It's strictly talking heads.

Shocking Story.......2003-05-07

This is a shocking story of American soldiers sent to a concentration camp. This is a powerful documentary of a little known episode in WWII. The film, however, is not the first to document the story. It actually was inspired by revelations about Berga in Mitchell Bard's 1994 book, Forgotten Victims: The Abandonment of Americans in Hitler's camps.

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