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T5. Charles August Wiedman
United States Army D Coy. 409th Infantry Regiment
from:Kiowa, Kansas
My father, Chuck Wiedman, was captured at Selastat, France on 2nd of December 1944. He was a medic. He was in a house (the basement, I think) caring for injured German prisoners of war (I think) when a German tank came up, and blew the back out of the house. Dad said the only thing that helped them survive was that the charge was shaped so the explosion happened after the shell was outside of the house.
He was taken several places before being brought to Stalag 3B. He was interviewed at one point and told, "What is a good German boy like you doing fighting for the Americans." He told about the American bombing raids which were happening constantly and of sitting on a bucket of potatoes during one raid to protect the only food they had. Dad told of the Germans bringing in bloated horses killed by shelling for them to eat. He told of sleeping in a tent with many other prisoners.
A Russian appeared in the camp and he said that he and another prisoner (whose name I never knew) were given their papers (which we still have). These were necessary because it was the only identification if they were to have enough room to lay down in. He wrote home to my grandmother asking her to send him food. He told how horribly the Russian prisoners of war were treated.
At the end of the war he said that the Germans disappeared from the camp. He said the Russian told him he did not want to get caught behind Russian lines because with a name like Wiedman he might never get to go home. He said the Russian grabbed a couple of Germans who were riding bicycles, jerked them off of them and told he and his friend to get to the American lines. He had lost about 50 lbs. He was lucky to survive. Charles had been a college student wanting to get into medical school when he left Kansas. After the war all he could think about was returning home to Kiowa Kansas, where he lived until his death in 2009.
I would like to know of anyone else has heard a similar story.
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