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The Poles, Serbs, Greeks, and Yugoslavs had similar treatment to the French, with the exception of furloughs, and many strict limitations. The Italians were looked upon with contempt by all nationalities, including the Germans. This was due to Italy’s conduct during the War. Many stories have been told us, most of them from our own American boys who were shot down and captured in Italy, of the underhanded treachery, cowardice, cruelty, and arrogance of the Italians towards the captured Americans and others. To the Italian soldier who received no aid through the International Red Cross or home, the Germans were especially cruel. Examples of cruelty were many. One morning an Italian soldier was killed for no reason at all. His offense was catching cigarettes thrown over the fence to him by an American boy. He was shot through the neck and left to die while the guard walked on by him, continuing his tour. Many was the time they were forced outdoors in weather twenty degrees below zero. In fact, whenever it struck some German officer’s fancy, which was very often. The American soldier is always ready to lend an ear or a consoling word to anyone. With the Italian he had few, if any sympathetic words. Cases of brutal treatment at his hand were still very fresh in the minds of most American airmen captured in Italy. Of all [the] inhuman treatment of prisoners of war, the Italian nation was among the worst. Such stories of American prisoners of war in Italy having to barter with personal property and jewelry for a drink of water, which the Italian guards in prison camps had shut off for days at a time, were common. Men weak from starvation were confined close to Italian kitchens where the aromas of cooking food were ever at hand. Our contact with them as fellow prisoners here in camp was not by any means pleasant. In trying to gain favor with the Germans, they would resort to anything, from stealing from their fellow prisoners to reporting to the Germans any attempt at escape they may have overheard while working in the American or French compounds . From the Italians who were without honor, personal or national pride, little could be expected. One German guard could be reasonably sure of obedience even from large numbers of them. The poor Italian was almost a man without a country, depending solely on the Germans for his food, clothing, and hospital care. Funerals for Italian officers were performed with some military honors, while the enlisted men were wrapped in ordinary brown paper and buried in a hole without even a plain wooden box. LIFE IN THE PRISON CAMP 39 1SLOAN_pages_i-104.qxd 8/20/08 10:49 AM Page 39 The Germans’ fear and hatred for the Russian is beyond imagination. The Russian government’s refusal to sign with the Geneva Convention gave the Germans free minds to devise all the atrocities imaginable. Many of these inhuman outrages proved fatal to hundreds of Russians. Receiving no aid from Russia or the International Red Cross, the poorly fed and poorly clothed Russians lived like caged animals. Several times each week we received word from them, pleading and begging for aid from the Americans which the Germans would not allow, although daily we would dump vast amounts of German soup which our stomachs were not strong enough to consume.This waste, poor though it was, would certainly have saved hundreds of Russians from starvation, as there were approximately two Americans to every Russian in camp. On their starvation rations, they were driven to the limit of their ability to produce for the German war machine. In every city, town, and village in German-controlled Europe, Russian slaves were used to do dirty hard work. Russian men, women, and children from conquered territories were brought to Germany by the trainloads . Upon arriving, they were taken to delousing station, stripped regardless of sex in prison yards awaiting their clothes to be steamed and gassed. They were inspected naked for fleas and lice by German guards regardless of weather conditions. To be beaten, cursed, have dogs turned on them, to be naked in the cold, rain, or snow and punished with imprisonment or death for the slightest display of revolt, was all the Russian could expect at the hands of his German conquerors. During the winter and spring, on their poor food, with no heat in overcrowded barracks, they died by the dozens. Funerals...

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