WWII German Nazi Camp
Concentration Camps
Auschwitz 1
At Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi's death camps, 1.1 million people were murdered, mostly Jews. Auschwitz has become a symbol of death, the Holocaust, and the destruction of European Jewry.
May 1940 -- January 27, 1945
American POW in Camp : Kenny Steward
CLARKSVILLE — Kenny Steward doesn’t want to be known as a hero. Although he suffered in a German prisoner of war camp, the 87-year-old Clarksville resident said the true heroes of World War II were the ones who never came home.
Despite starvation and violence during that time, Steward admitted he had it lucky. He lived.
“Hero? Nah, I’m not a hero. I just did what at that time they did, served their country,” Steward said. “I’m very fortunate. I came through, I thank the good Lord for it.”
Even with the passage of almost 70 years, Steward still remembers certain aspects of his life as a POW in detail. Others he has forgotten, or has decided not to share. Sometimes grief can last longer than the memories themselves. There is a name, however, he can’t forget.
Camp Life
“They marched us right on down the main drag to show us off. In fact, the kids and the grownups would spit on us,” Steward said. “At the time, I couldn’t blame them. We were their enemy.”
Conditions at the camps weren’t any better. Men were shot for not following basic orders. Jones said a friend of Steward’s, a man named Wachowski, was executed right before his eyes. Many more starved to death due to the brutal conditions. When they did, the other prisoners had to bury them.
“That was the only time that I got out of the camp and the guards went with us,” Steward said.
At this stage, many of the POWs were too weak to carry the bodies out to the makeshift cemetery. Corpses had to be dragged through the cold ground. Once on burial detail, Steward remembered having to scoop snow and ice with his hands to cover a fallen comrade, the ground too hardened by the cold. Later in the spring, they would formally bury the men.
When food was available, it was never enough. Steward said he once gathered rotten cabbages from a field and was forced at gunpoint to give up much of his work.
“When there was food, there’d be maybe a pot of water with a head of cabbage floating in it or maybe a carrot floating in it. And that would be their meal. It was always liquids,” Jones said.
German guards would try and barter bread with the prisoners in exchange for personal possessions. One wanted Steward’s class ring, yet Steward never gave in. After release, he swore he would never go hungry again.
Starvation, however, did take its toll. At the end of his imprisonment, the 6-foot-tall Kentuckian weighed a scant 85 pounds.
As the allied forces advanced, the younger guards abandoned the camps. Older guards remained in the locked prisons with no food. Two American soldiers eventually found the camp after their army cohorts had already progressed toward Berlin.
“It was two guys in a jeep that were just out there bore-assing around. They found us there,” Steward said. “In fact, they were the ones that liberated us.”
Upon release, Steward spent a year in a Kentucky Army hospital recuperating. Due to a hit in the mouth with a German rifle butt, his teeth needed extensive work. Plus, there was the malnourishment issue. Here, his future wife and hospital volunteer Christine helped in his recovery. In the end, he said that meeting the love of his life made his whole experience worthwhile.
Life continued after the war. Steward married and had two girls. He would become a local butcher. In time, the medals, including the bronze star he earned while in the service, would be passed down to his grandchild, Travis Haire. Hanging in his office, the awards remind Haire of the sacrifices this generation of WWII veterans made.
“It’s a reminder that there are a whole lot of people out there doing a lot of things to protect our country that we take for granted. Especially for me personally, it’s to keep things in perspective,” he said. “That generation, specifically grandpa, went through a lot so that we could benefit from it greatly. It’s just a humbling reminder of those sacrifices.”
Still, Stewart doesn’t consider himself special nor does he dwell on those old experiences.
“I’ve had a good life. I have no complaints whatsoever,” he said. “Even with what I went through being a prisoner of war, everything is fine.”
Living Conditions
Labor
Executions
Soviet prisoners of war were also executed at Auschwitz concentration camp. Beginning in September 1941, executions were also carried out using poison gas.
At least 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war were put to death in this way. After the dismantling of the Death Wall in 1944, larger groups of Poles sentenced to death by the police summary court were executed in the gas chambers. Executions by hanging were carried out sporadically in the camp. As opposed to shooting or killing in the gas chamber, hanging was public. It was carried out in front of other prisoners, usually during roll call. The goal was to intimidate the witnesses, and the victims were most frequently prisoners caught trying to escape, or suspected of aiding escapers.