I remember vaguely sitting with my great-grandpappy on the bench outside his farmhouse in the afternoon sun, he would sent me to the local general store (in a village the size of...well, a village, where everyone knows everyone.. ) for a pack of Falk cigarettes, the change was for my ice cream or chocolate cigarettes and he used to sit and smoke and tell me about the time he got shot in the leg and how he was imprisoned ....

I just wish I remembered more, but I was too little.

What my godmother (my grandmother's sister and daughter of our War Hero here, Franz ) produced after telling her this and what I remembered, were a few pieces of tattered, handwritten notes from my Great-grandfather that they had found after he passed.

I got ahold of the manuscript and got to work on it.
The tenses change a few times and the grammar was flawed, and there was almost no punctuation.

My Great-grandfather was a simple farmer's boy and I corrected some punctuation as well as made a couple of new paragraphs where there weren't, for ease of reading. Everything else is pretty much verbatim.

I hope you enjoy.  Here goes.



Imprisonment May 23rd, 1944

Yes it was in Italy as in the early morning hours the fog moved through the fields and it was right then that we heard the first impacts of grenades in our vicinity.

We were 16 men and three sergeants in a base by the front lines out there.

The night watch had already been taken off duty and everyone was asleep, except the two day watches, me and another sergeant.

The both of us were still standing in front of the hole that was our bunker and were listening to what was happening, when we suddenly realized it was the Americans attacking [..illegible last sentence.] so I asked my comrade "now what do we do".  [my godmother told me they were talking about surrendering at this point]  He says to me "well you know what we talked about some time back". I said "yes" and we both were in agreement to let the other comrades sleep in their earth holes they crawled into, and the both of us kept listening for another ten minutes, when my comrade said "I'm going to sleep too, they will come get us."

I said "go, I'll stay here a while longer" when all of a sudden I could hear the shootings to our right with the MP (machine pistol) but I still wasn't thinking anything of it, when suddenly I heard the whooshing going closely over my head; I don't think I've been this fast in any time of my life until that moment, because I had disappeared into the hole, but as soon as I was in there, three egg-grenades fell in the hole behind me.



But the great luck was that the comrade who was standing with me a few minutes before and who had said he'd go to sleep in fact was not asleep at all and was the savior of the five of us who were in that earth hole and he immediately threw blankets on it almost the same time it detonated, but nobody was hurt and almost the same moment we were out of our hole and the American Soldiers were waiting for us.

Yes, that's how we got to be imprisoned without any great effort, only a few minutes of fear and our lives were saved.

We were altogether relieved that it happened so fast and without a fight, and to add to this we were lucky, there was a Native German amongst the American soldiers, who took us in the back immediately and of course I asked him right away where he was from originally; he said Leipzig and we immediately had a lot to talk about, and of course he asked me as well where my home was and I told him straight up "I am from Austria which Hitler conqurered by force in 1938", upon which he asked me if I wasn't a Nazi, and I replied "I'd never be good for such a thing, Hitler and his comrades are only good for genocide and for such views (deeds), a real Austrian would never be useful for, because we are a good-natured peoples and love the peace between people, no matter which nations they belong to.

He was pleased about that a lot and promptly offered me a cigarette while we were walking, the way was not really pretty, we walked along the creek where we were captured, and sometimes we were up to our hips in water, but we didn't mind, at least we were on a course where we were not exposed to the danger of Hitler's cannons.

So we marched on for a couple of hours, and we were also carrying to wounded American soldiers on gurneys with us; when we first rested there was immediately food available and we were glad of it, since our food had been meager but here we could eat until we were full and that gave us a good sense of trust toward the American Propaganda fliers that were airdropped over our positions, because this was the first proof that what we saw for ourselves.

Then the first personals were taken, and everyone got a little pin on the right side of their frocks, which said "prisoner of war", the name and date of capture. Now we were real Prisoners Of War.

We moved on right after his, not on foot, but in cars instead, because by this time we were a few hundred of us. The journey took us to Anzio, which is a small town with a harbor, where we stayed for two days and again, food was available immediately. The first night we spent in a large hall, the second night we were taken to an open-air camp; the weather was very beautiful and it was not cold either.

The next day the journey continued on a ship to Naples where we were immediately de-loused, searched and had all our valuables were taken from us and we got a receipt for it and then we were surrounded by four walls of barbed wire as if one had committed a crime but it wasn't really hard on me, because I was thinking to myself "rather in here behind barbed wire than one of the supporters of Hitler and his genocide troupe.

There were many in the camp who were cursing because they were there, to which I said "why did you let yourself get caught then?" and they got angry and asked if I was a defector, and I replied "that is my business. I like it here, and the ones who don't should just have gotten themselves shot instead, it would not have been a huge loss of such a person".

And so a few days passed, and it was on the day of May 30th we were asked if we were willing to donate blood for the wounded Soldiers, for which I volunteered, because I thought to myself "you'll want to help a wounded comrade to preserve his life, every Human wants to live, no matter how difficult and sorrowful the times they may go through, for this good cause I am prepared to give everything I can, as long as it won't compromise my health too much.

After that I landed in the Kitchen where I did very well but that only lasted a short time, because on June 14th we began our journey to Africa. We were on the ship for nine days and landed on June 22nd in Oran Harbor, where we were loaded onto trucks and driven to camp. It was a very big camp with 12 stockades.

We were put in stockade #3, but only for one day because then we were asked who was Austrian and doesn't feel proper German and for those to appear for muster with their things because they'd be put in a different camp.

There were over 300 of us who got together and we were put in stockade #9 together with the Italians and a bunch of others who had been imprisoned earlier. There were also over 100 Russians who were captured by the Americans when they were forced to fight in the ranks of the People's Murderers [sic], or they would not have gotten anything to eat in German imprisonment so to save their lives they were made to join the ranks of the people of genocide. The ones who wouldn't go voluntarily were treated so badly that they had no other choice, like many other peoples in Europe that shared this fate.

We were there only a day and a half, then we were asked who would be confident enough to run a kitchen and so I volunteered because nobody else dared to speak up, upon which we were put in a stockade alone with the Russians, and it was stockade #4.

The first weeks went pretty well until some particular Sirs didn't like the food and for others it was not enough and so it came down to arguments because there was no cohesion amongst the kitchen personnel either, because one was from the country and the other from the well known City of Vienna, who was always discontent saying that he had to take orders from a farm boy.

So I decided and told him I would resign my office and the Mister from the City can take over, and that's what happened, but it did not take long for it to bristle again and I was glad I had nothing more to do with all that was there because I was just lying around in the tent and played cards and killed my time with this until it was time to embark on our next big journey, and that was August 19th, when we were on a train for four days, across Northern Africa into Casablanca.

On the 23rd we were put on a ship and embarked over the great water to North America where we landed on September 4th in the Harbor of Norfolk, where we got de-loused again and then went on with the trip on the Orient Express for four days through the country to our end station [sic], which is called Ogden, a city in Government Utah [sic], where we were dressed in new clothing right away, largely with new American Military uniforms, and seven times very large the popular 'P.W.' in white paint on it, but we don't mind, even that will disappear; the most important thing for us is that the rationings are very good as well as the quarters, we have nice barracks with steel pipe beds and inset mattresses and a duvet and two other blankets and white sheets, one could not wish for anything better except that in Africa we were alone and now we are together with the Nazis again but they don't have any say with us, when one opens his mouth, it will immediately get stuffed with a 'fist pear' [sic], and the ones who don't know it, should try it then they know what it tastes like, that is what I can recommend to each of Hitler's heroes.

Now another ten days have passed, it was already September 19th and we went to the sugar-beets harvest to Ballantine, Montana, where it was also very nice, we were lodging in a tent camp and stayed there until November 5th, it was a beautiful time.

Every morning the farmers came to pick us up in their trucks, we brought our lunch with us, every evening at 5 pm we were back at camp and got a hot meal, then count, after quitting time things started getting lively in the camp, there was music being played in one tent, singing in another, card play in another and so there was something in every tent.



Here endeth the manuscript. Pardon the spelling errors, but I can't re-read it, my eyes won't dry up as is.

We are not sure when he wrote this, it could have been after his return home that he couldn't finish due his illness, which he succumbed to in his early 80's as the shrapnel had shifted in his body.

He passed, in his bedroom, surrounded by family and friends on December 17th, 1992.
His wife, my great-grandmother who waited for him at home during the war,  passed of broken heart soon after.

Thank you for leaving me this clue to my (our) past,

In memoriam Maria and Franz Neuherz.



Oh, and..





Happy 4th of July!

Keep a clear head that way you can get the most from it. Let us know what you find, that is very interesting.

Sounds interesting.

I'm only just through the second page and I'm shaking...

I will have it in the next couple of days.

Yes, very interesting.
Keep us informed.

I'm looking forward to this, Amadea.  Thanks for sharing.

I'm about halfway through, had to gather some info about diverse weaponry,etc. will have images as well when project is done.

In the meantime I need to find a clause that states "if you even so much as think about using any of my material here, I will come after you in the worst possible way"... do any of you have a better-sounding short write-up I could poach for this, please?

I do want to share it with mm first, then I was thinking see about a museum or some media or some such..
it's not a lot of material but so far... jeeezus, fuck!

I am working off the scans of the original document, some is illegible, the grammar is bad and there's almost no punctuation.
Other than that I am keeping it pretty much word for word.

Moved post up to OP.

Beautiful.

I wish my great-grandfather had written something like this. He was in the U.S. Civil War & had just turned 18 when the war ended.

moving. Thank you for sharing.
if only every single one of them wrote down their story.

And now that I read his words...

Wow, just wow...

ROFL..

'why did you let yourself get captured?'

That kind of humor is typical for my family.
Great, now I know where I got that from.

Bump here it is.

I am getting pictures on Monday.

If someone has more suggestions on where to go with this, or whom to ask what to do with it so more people can enjoy the originals, I appreciate any and all leads.

Thank you for posting this.
It's a great insight into what was happening during that time.

I had the privilege of knowing an Austrian woman from Vienna that lived through the war as a teenager.  She was half Jewish and told me a few stories from that time.

Those were tough days for people in Europe.

Thanks for sharing.