During WWII were captured Americans taken to con.camps(like Auchwitz) for termin

Question: During WWII were captured Americans taken to con!.camps(like Auchwitz) for termination or only Jews!?

The reason I ask is that my grandfather once told me that during WWII he was captured and was on a train for a con!. camp, but it was derailed and he escaped into the Italian mountains!. He said he survived by banding with an underground Italian group that helped hide and protect him for the last year of the war and the fact that he had blonde hair and blue eyes helped him blend in as German-looking when in public!. My grandfather is dead now, but now I'm questioning his story because I thought con!. camps were just for Jews!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

There are great misunderstandings about what the term concentration camp means, as not all german camps were concentration camps, and not all concentration camps were death camps!. Each was run directly by its own commandant and each had different means of dealing with its inmates!.

If your father was an American or English or Free French, he probably was not going to an actual death camp, but to one of the prison camps run by the German Army or Air Force!. Even though the German military did not regularly murder its prisoners (western, at least), there were many independent instances such as the Malmedy Massacre where Allied prisoners were murdered by local commanders!. If your father was a Russian, Free Pole or other Eastern European, he might well have gone to a death camp (the original gas chambers at Auschwitz were tested on Soviet prisoners, not on Jews)!.

The military prison camps were not death camps, and they were not the comedic saunas seen on Hogan's Heroes (which an amazingly LARGE amount of critics say is unfunny because the prisoners are 'in a concentration camp'), but for the most part they were extremely harsh environments in which the prisoners had to survive!.

That your grandfather was able to escape and associate himself with a resistance group may have saved his life, and certainly saved him from a terrible experience anyways, but he was almost certainly not going to go to Auschwitz or Treblinka!. Certainly, by taking the opportunity to escape he was fulfilling his duty to resist and not cooperate with his captors as much as possible, and for that you should be extremely proud!. However, to this very day, there are a large number of missing American and Allied prisoners who were taken by the Axis who have never been accounted for!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

During WWII, almost all captured Americans were sent to normal POW camps like those showed in the movies Stalag 17, The Great Escape, and Hart's War!. However, sometimes American soldiers, usually pilots would be captured by the gestapo or other SS infantry!. The SS would most likely just put them on a nearby train to a concentration camp!. So it just depends on who the Americans were captured by!. If an American pilot was downed and captured by the Luftwaffe, than he would be sent to a Luftwaffe run POW camp!. Same with the Wermacht!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Political prisoners, gypsies, handicapped and retarded people, "undesireables" were all sent to concentration camps!.

POW camps were run in much the same way as concentration camps, but the fact that your grandfather said he was going to a concentration camp instead of a POW camp does not mean he was lying!. In his mind, they could have meant the same thing!. If he was the only POW in the group, he may have been put with a group being sent to a concentration camp because it was just easier since Jews were being shipped en masse to concentration camps, especially if he was being shipped from Italy to Germany!. That would have been a long way to ship a single POW!. There could be any number of explanations as to why he said that!. It doesn't mean he was lying!.

Celebrate your grandfather's heroic service and be glad that there were men like that and ARE men and women like that who were and are willing to give their lives for your freedom!. It's too bad you didn't write down his account and question him further about it so you could publish it!. Veterans of WWII are few and far between!. Pretty soon there will be no first hand accounts of that war!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

No!. The camps were for everyone that the Nazi's thought needed eliminating!. Many religious groups and people including Catholics who opppsed Hitler's regime, and Johovah's Witnesses and other protestant groups were brought into the camps!. Americans who were in Germany and made too much noise as far as trying to alert American Media were also taken to the camps!. Some military personnel ended up in camps, rather than POW camps!.
The Holocaust was quite broad in scope!. The total numbers may never be known!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I haven't heard that but knowing how bad the SS were (hundreds of American prisoners were shot during the Battle of the Bulge) I wouldn't doubt it!.
But, most American prisoners were taken to seperate prisoner of war camps called Stalags!. Besides Jews, Catholics, gypsys, gays and the mental ill/retarded people were also sent to the concentration camps!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

AmericanPOW's were taken to POW camps and were under the Geneva convention!. They were held for the duration unless the escaped and had no access to lawyers or courts!. jThey were prisoners of war and enemy combatints!.

The camps were for enemies of the Third Riech (NAZIES)!. Jews, Gypsies, Criminals, Handicaped, Mentally challenged and citizes of the east ) ploish, russians alleasternn europeans all viewed as inferior to the Germans!.

Lee Champney
History Professor
lc1edu@yahoo!.comWww@QuestionHome@Com

well your grandfather probably was headed for a prisoner of war camp!. concentration camps were'nt only for jews!. Many gypsies, catholics, polish people, and anyone who resisted hitler went to the concetration camps!. My great-uncle died in Buchenwald just because he was Polish!. But Stalin killed way more people!. If you do some research Russia had the most civilian deaths during the war!.More than 28,000,000 civilians died in russia compared to around ten million in Germany!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Auschwitz was primarily used to contain Russian POWs!. actually, the place was builty for the POWs!. however, since the ghettos were being liquidated, and they needed more camps to house the Jews, Romas, gays and jehovah's witnesses, they started to expand auschwitz and also renovated the buildings so as to serve its purpose for containing the "undesirables"- as the nazis would call them!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Your grandfather was more likely en route to a POW camp!. Luckily he was not captured in the closing days of the war in Europe !.!.!. apparently following the D-Day landings in France, several German commanders did not take allied soldiers prisoner!. Following surrender, our soldiers were summarily executed!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

He would have been taken to a POW camp, not a concentration camp!. Go watch the movie The Great Escape!. A truely fantastic movie based on an actual mass escape attempt from a German POW camp!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Not normallyWww@QuestionHome@Com

they are he probably just thought it was one, probably just a POW campWww@QuestionHome@Com

Captured american soldiers were sent to Prisoner of War camps, which were set up and run according to international treaties, with Red Cross visitation and inspection!. In the western front, the Germans honored such treaties, partially because they considered American and British "aryans"!. Even in the case of black or jewish POWs, the same treatment was rendered, because such troops were still part of those nations!. On the Eastern Front, it was a different matter!. The Russians could look forward to a brutal, short lived imprisonment, put to work under conditions guaranteed to exhaust and eventually kill them!. The Soviets, of course, reciprocated!. Out of 300,000 troops captured in Stalingrad, only 5000 returned to germany after the war!.
As for treatment of captured Americans, they were still prisoners, so conditions were still spartan!. but they were not overworked, or intentionally starved!. They were subject to discipline, including execution, if they tried to escape!. But there are relatively few reports of widespread abuse of Western prisoners!. Part of this is because American and British troops were held by Luftwaffe troops, regular military!. In the east, it was usually special SS units that ran the camps, and operated on the premise that their prisoners were racially inferior and thus worthy of poor treatment and abuse!. As an FYI I had an uncle who spent 18 months as a prisoner!. While he didn't enjoy the experience, he has no particularly traumatic or bad memories of that time, other than boredom!.Www@QuestionHome@Com