Bluffs soldier witness to Nazi atrocities
Brien T. Boyce, nonparielonline.com, September 19, 2003

"There's a lot of younger people that don't believe this happened," John Campbell said about the atrocities of genocide performed by Nazi soldiers during World War II. "They think it's all fake history. The Nazi party was a wicked party." But Campbell knows, because he saw one of the thousands of concentration camps established by the Germans during the war.

Campbell was drafted into the Army on May, 11, 1942, and was assigned to the 847th Ordnance Co. He spent much of his time in Europe, and during the last days of the war, he was in Germany. During his time there, Campbell's company was attached to Gen. George Patton's unit. Patton would pump the soldiers up to kill German soldiers

"At least," Campbell said, "that's the message I got from his conversation." Campbell remembers one such message Patton delivered very clearly: "If you SOBs meet up with a German, shoot him."

In the concentration camps, death was everywhere. Campbell remembered one concentration, or "death camp," located near Augsburg, Germany. "There were still inmates in the camp when we visited," he said.

Concentration camps were built for many reasons by the Nazis. Some were used for slave labor while others were constructed for the sole purpose of extermination.

The stories of death camps are endless. In July 1944, Red Army soldiers discovered the abandoned Majdanek extermination camp near Lublin, Poland. Several months later, American reporters visited Lublin, and brought back stories and photographs of a warehouse filled with more than 800,000 shoes that once belonged to Nazi victims.

Many prisoners were emaciated, their faces gaunt and hollow, and their bodies skeletons with flesh pulled taut over the frame.

It was during a walk that Campbell and other soldiers discovered a group of bodies."They looked like they'd been shot," he said, "like they had been lined up and shot."

A member of Campbell's company had a camera with him, and took pictures of the camp, bodies and several squat structures with tall smokestacks. Those structures, said Campbell, were incinerators, built to hold the body of a six-foot person.

Campbell said some of the dead looked like German soldiers, and the rumor was they were killed by the inmates. The scene at the concentration camp didn't bother Campbell, though. "I had no trouble coping with it," he said. "It was what war was all about."

Campbell's company had a group of German POWs captured during various missions. On one occasion, he asked a 19-year-old German soldier who served as a translator why he and the rest of them followed Adolph Hitler. "He said, 'Hitler did (for us) what (President) Roosevelt did for Americans.'"

Campbell has resided in Council Bluffs ever since his discharge from the Army in 1946. To this day, he still has an envelope filled with photos taken during his trip to the concentration camp. If someone asks, he'll show them the photos as proof that such horrific crimes against humanity did happen.

"It is real," he said.

...to hear a WWII veteran speak of his experience as a POW of the Germans.

His B-17 was shot down over Austria, during which he received 7 shrapnel wounds. He bailed out and landed in the mountains. When he landed he passed out. When he awoke, civilians were trying to stop his bleeding. Soon German soldiers came and captured him. During his 13 months of captivity, he was forced to march chained to another prisoner by soldiers prodding them with fixed bayonets. If any prisoners fell down, they had to get back in formation before the end of the column passed, or they would be executed.

He was denied medical care for his wounds, which became badly infected. He had to spend 3 days and nights with other POWs in the hold of a ship with no food, water, or sanitation.

He was forced to march 400 miles in the winter.

He lost 87 pounds during his captivity.

He still has shrapnel in his body.

We do a disservice to ourselves and our country when we fail to honor the service and sacrifices of our veterans.

what handle will you use next?

you have zero credibility here at la imc

go tell your fairy tales somewhere else

You can't read a simple story about a combat veteran without getting all stupid.

You dishonor the POW, you dishonor your country, and you dishonor yourself.

Apparently I have to remind you: that man, and thousands like him, sacrificed part of themselves, and in many cases, their very lives, to protect your right to be a complete, total, and utter asshole.

A little gratitude should be in order.

anything you come in contact with is soiled, you lying fuck.

You have zero credibility here...time to change your handle...

test
test
test

How in the world did you ever get the impression that your opinion (which you constantly confuse with fact) could ever have an iota of significance to me?

No matter how much you delude yourself otherwise, I don't care what you think. Your opinion of me is totally meaningless.

Run along, Chicken Boy, and keep fooling yourself.

Oh...and if you put half as much effort into actual thought as you do into profanity, you might be interesting to talk to.

nonanarchist... If it even remotely smells like patriotism these leftists will attack it and you. No surprise there.

Coming from those who would sell our country's security to the terrorists, thugs, and their appeasers at the UN.

Good thing their attacks are like being savaged by an anemic toy poodle.

If they were really vicious, they'd still be insignificant.

the terrorists
THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!!!

IM SUCH A PUSSY THAT
WHENEVER I GET SCHOOLED
in an argument

i change my handle to somthing new

i have zero CREDIBILITY

THATS WHY MY WIFE WONT FUCK ME.

Gosh, you're stupid.

You accuse me of changing my handle when I lose an argument?

That's hilarious, coming from you.

You have never posted two messages in a row under the same handle.

Who's the coward?

Oh, and terrorists aren't everywhere...but those who kiss their ass are more plentiful than you'd think.

Pucker up, coward.

This story is a testament to the fact that the Germans can never again be trusted as a society.

It wasn't that many years back that they were zieg-heiling in a fervor while giving up their Jewish neighbors to the Gestapo, only to be drug off to concentration camps for extermination.

Germans should be deeply ashamed of the legacy of their forefathers. And they should be eternally grateful to the USA for dragging them out of that nightmare they were in.

But I imagine Goering was probably correct. Before committing suicide in Nuremberg, he was adamant that the Germans would one day revere him and the Nazis as historic heros, and hate the USA for what it has done to the Germans.

Irony is so ... ironic.

The past is the past and we move on. It's the US that is today the aggressor and maker of war.

Fuck USA.

It only took a month for you to think up that snappy comeback? What an asshole.