Jews who fled Nazi Germany and then joined the military of their adopted Allied countries to fight against Germany in one capacity or another are all heroes. During the war, more than 371,000 German servicemen were shipped to America and housed in over 600 POW camps. When the War Department decided it would attempt to “denazify” the prisoners through a secret reeducation program, they actively recruited from its army ranks many native German Jews. To learn more about this program on the home front, see Arnold Krammer’s “Nazi Prisoners of War in America” and Jeffrey Geiger’s “German Prisoners of War at Camp Cooke, California.” The latter book discusses the work of Sgt. Manfred Lewinnek at Cooke and includes an anti-Semitic letter that one of the POWs attempted to smuggle out of the camp.
Jeff Gee
Arizona
Searching for PLOTKA/PLOTKIN in Wyszkow, Poland
