227428 Zivoijin Milutinovic Yugoslavian Army from:Yugoslavia My father, Milutinovic Zivoijin, was a POW at Stalag 17 from when Yugoslavia surrendered in 1941 until 1945 when the Americans liberated the camp. The Germans used him for his farming skills. He was beaten and suffered greatly when he accidentally spilled mlik while milking a cow. He escaped twice, but was not killed. He only escaped to tell the German officers in command at the next camp that the POWs were not being treated fairly by certain German officers. They favoured my father and quickly shot the officer accused of abusing the POWs at my father's camp. He learned seven or more languages by ear in the four years he was a POW. He survived by eating black bread (small black insects mixed in with the bread), sometimes broth (rarely) and water. Absurd living conditions. After the war he joined the US Army and stayed in a DP [Displaced Persons] camp for two more years until a home was found for him. He later went to Ohio and then to California, where he married my mother and had four children.
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