Near Trinidad, Colorado was the site of a WW II PoW camp. Most of its prisoners were from the Afrika Korps. When they arrived, they were not happy at all with the camp and expected better treatment (ha! They didn't know how bad our GIs and Airmen had it over there). Anyway, letters going out were read and where applicable, were censored.
Quote:
The major quoted an excerpt of a letter sent by the Germans:
"Well another dull Sunday. The only diversion was chasing two rattlesnakes under the barracks, but that is to be expected from the Americans. They are used to handling rattlesnakes and gangsters and not fitted to handle Germans."
|
Another German remembered how Americans handled rattlesnakes:
Quote:
|
The locals explained how to deal with snakes: grab their raised tails and then whirl them like a whip in the air. Thus the bowels of the animals are pushed to their head, they bit and kill themselves with their own venom.
|
Don't know if it's true, but I'd blast a rattler before I'll try that stunt.
Ironically one escapee (all escapees were eventually caught) Til Kiwe, whose real name was Till Edward Kiefer, post-war became an actor and played the role of Frick or the Ferret in
The Great Escape.
The above is from Kurt Landsberger's
Prisoners of War at Camp Trinidad, Colorado 1943-46. Landsberger was a Viennese Jew who fled Austria to America before Krystallnacht. During the war he enlisted in the US Army and served as an interpreter at Camp Trinidad. The camp is gone today but some of the stone post markers are said to be still standing.