Jewish civilians saw American POWs in the camps.
Justice Delayed
Fifty years after the war, an American survivor files
for German reparations.
JULIE WIENER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
hen he was deployed as
a machine gunner in
Europe during World
War II, it never oc-
curred to Sid Goodman th a t he
would become personally entan-
gled in the Holocaust.
"I felt the Germans wouldn't be
that stupid to send American sol-
diers to concentration camps," says
the 79-year-old West Bloomfield
resident. "But this was near the
end, and it was a desperate mea-
sure — they didn't care what they
did." This month, after more than
50 years, Mr. Goodman finally was
able to file for reparations.
As a result of a recent agree-
ment between the U.S. and Ger-
man governments, Americans
who were imprisoned in concen-
tration camps while U.S. citizens
are now eligible for German repa-
rations. According to Delissa
Ridgway, chairperson of the U.S.
Justice Department's Foreign
Claims Settlement Commission,
over 400 claims were filed by the
Feb. 23 deadline, and all will be
processed by September. Repa-
rations will vary, depending on
length of internment and result-
ing disability or injury. The
amount in the fund has not yet
been determined.
In December 1944, during the
Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Goodman
was taken prisoner and initially
sent with 2,000 other American
soldiers to a prisoner-of-war
camp. Fearing the Nazis, Mr.
Goodman was savvy enough to
throw away his Army dog tags —
with their identifying "H' for He-
brew — as soon as he was cap-
tured, and he avoided writing
down his religion when filling out
his Red Cross POW forms.
But the Nazis had quotas to
fill, and, in flagrant violation of
the Geneva Accords, they round-
ed up everyone in the group with
Jewish and Italian names.
At first, these 350 soldiers
were merely segregated, like in
a ghetto" within the POW camp,
but then "all of a sudden, we were
marched to the train station and
put in boxcars," recalls Mr. Good-
man.
After two days, they arrived in
Berga, a slave labor camp that
was part of the Buchenwald sys-
tem in Germany, and they were
assigned to grueling work in the
mines.
"As fellows came back from
Totally Cool!
work, some were bleeding, and of
course they weren't treated," says
Mr. Goodman. He lost over 40
pounds in his months of intern-
ment, but compared to many of
his colleagues he was lucky. Due
to medical problems and his abil-
ity to speak Yiddish with the Ger-
man-speaking guards, Mr.
Goodman was only assigned to
"light labor" and translating work.
An American soldier
in the camps.
At Berga, American Jews were
separated from the European
Jewish prisoners, but Mr. Good-
man still witnessed Europeans
being lined up and beaten. The
Nazis did not try to exterminate
the American Jews, but Ameri-
can prisoners who attempted to
escape were shot and their
corpses displayed as an example.
Until he ran out of ink, Mr.
Goodman kept a diary, writing
in small print on the backs of the
few photos and postcards that the
Germans allowed him to keep.
"As men passed away from
starvation and disease, I wrote
their names down," he recalls.
Mr. Goodman's experience cul-
minated in a two-week forced
march away from Allied troops.
He kept himself going with the
knowledge that eventually the
Allies would catch up and liber-
ation,would come. "I spoke a lit-
tle French and was able to talk
to French people lining the roads
as we marched, and they would
give us a little news and encour-
agement." The French were pris-
oners, working the area farms.
Once liberated by the Allies,
Mr. Goodman was sent to a small
municipal building, where he was
treated by doctors. In the attic of
the building, Mr. Goodman dis-
covered a Torah lying on the floor.
"Tears came to my eyes," recalls
Mr. Goodman. "I had been raised
religious, and it moved me. Here
was a town where no Jews were
alive anymore, but someone had
saved the Torah."
After two months of hospital-
ization, Mr. Goodman returned to
Michigan for further treatment
and was reunited with his fami-
ly, who had known only that he
was "missing in action." To the
best of his knowledge, Mr. Good-
man is the only living metropoli-
tan Detroit resident to have been
interned as an American Jew dur-
ing the war. A friend of his, Sam
Boxman, went through Berga as
well, but died about two years ago.
Mr. Goodman has lived in the
Detroit, area his entire life and is
a longtime member of Congrega-
tion B'nai Moshe. ❑
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