Independence Day Claims Judge Robert Hugh Kirksey

Aliceville, Alabama native Robert Hugh Kirksey passed away on Saturday, July 4, after a fall at his home on July 1. He was 87. Appropriately, this Alabama patriot shares his date of passing with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who also left this world on July 4.

The photo at left, which appears in Kirksey's memoir, With Me: Growing Up in the Faith, shows him with his grandson, Richard Kirksey Heard, on the day the Aliceville "Avenue of Flags" was dedicated in about 1987.

I did not know Judge Kirksey well, but his memoir, along with a series of historical articles for the Pickens County newspaper, was a huge source of information and inspiration as I worked to recreate Aliceville during WWII in my book, Guests Behind the Barbed Wire. He brought the town that hosted Camp Aliceville to life on the page, and his daughter Mary Bess (Paluzzi) became one of my favorite friends as she read my manuscript chapter by chapter and pointed me in so many good directions. My prayers are with her and her family as they remember a wonderful husband, father, and grandfather.

Those of you who have read Guests Behind the Barbed Wire will remember the wartime stories of Robert Hugh Kirksey who was home on leave when the first German prisoners came into Aliceville on the Frisco in early June 1943. Kirksey served as a First Lieutenant in the 333rd Regiment of the 84th Infantry Division. He was awarded several medals, including the Purple Heart, for an injury suffered in Germany.

One of the images from his memoir that stands out in my mind is a story on page 158 that describes his troop train pulling into the railway station in Birmingham, England as he was headed for the front in Europe. "As we sat in our train in that station, another train, headed North, back toward Scotland, stopped on the track just opposite us," he wrote. "We pressed our faces against the windows and looked across at that train. Its passengers had their faces similarly pressed to their windows. 'Look!' some soldier said in a loud voice. "They're German prisoners!'

"That startling coincidence probably stunned me more than anyone else on our train, for immediately the thought flashed in my mind, 'What if they are going to the German Prisoner of War Camp in Aliceville, Alabama. Here we are, reluctantly headed for their homeland; and there they are reluctantly headed, perhaps, for ours.'...The pathos of war was etched in my mind and I can see those German faces clearly in my mind, even today."

That simple story said it so well.

When I pulled my copy of With Me from the shelf this afternoon to find that story, I came across the inscription Judge Kirksey wrote on the title page on March 1, 2005. "To Ruth Cook--Thank you. May God continue with you, as he has with me!"

May God Bless and Keep Robert Hugh Kirksey.

Winter Family Further Identifies Track Meet Photo

I had an e-mail last week from the father of Philipp Winter who told me that he has a photo very similar to the one at the right that appeared in my book. The information written on the back of the photo adds a little to the story:

This track meet, at Camp Aliceville, was held on October 28, 1945. The race shown in the photo was the 100 meter dash, and the three men in the photo, left to right, are:

1st Place--Hartmann, from Compound C, 11.9 seconds.

2nd Place--Winter, from Compound F, 12.2 seconds.

3rd Place--Esser, from Compound A, 12.4 seconds.

If anyone has information about the other two runners (Hartmann and Esser), please send me a comment.

I love the serendipity of life--even after many years. I was amazed to discover that the grandson of the man named Winter who won 2nd Place in the hundred meter dash is an American Field Service exchange student studying in Idaho this year. The reason this amazed me is that I was once an American Field Service exchange student myself--representing Bedford, Ohio and living with a family named Ott in Ravensburg, Germany during the summer of 1961. AFS is a wonderful organization.

A POW Story from Stalag Luft III

The two photos above are from the book, 33 Months as a POW in Stalag Luft III by Albert P. Clark, a retired general of the United States Air Force. They are used with permission of the USAFA McDermott Library Stalag Luft III collection in USAF Academy, Colorado.

This book offers fascinating insight into the experiences of American Army Air Force officers who were captured by Germany during World War II. Their ordeal is a poignant contrast to the experiences of German POWs at Camp Aliceville. Clark describes day to day camp life and numerous efforts to build escape tunnels while distracting the Germans from what was going on. The book culminates with a brutal forced march, as Russian liberators approached, through Bavaria to Stammlager VIIA at Moosburg.

The photo above, of the Luft Bandsters band/orchestra that was formed within the South Camp at Stalag Luft III, is eerily similar to one that can be found in Guests Behind the Barbed Wire depicting a German POW dance band playing for an Officers Club event at Camp Aliceville. In POW camps on both sides of the war, individual men coped with boredom and loneliness while striving to maintain their integrity as soldiers for their country.

Stalag Luft III is the POW camp made internationally famous by the book and movie that portrayed the Great Escape from this camp. Clark's book offers a unique perspective on this event, which took place on March 24, 1944. Escapees from this and other German camps were routinely returned to POW camps when captured, and the episodes often appeared almost like playful cat and mouse games between captors and prisoners.

In this instance, however, the Luftwaffe guards who tolerated the antics of many prisoners were not in charge. Of the 76 men who escaped through a tunnel, 73 were recaptured by early April. Of those, 50 were executed by a shot to the back of the head by the Gestapo, ostensibly because they resisted arrest or attempted to escape again after their capture.

Clark offers an interesting analysis of the Geneva Convention stipulations as they applied to his captivity and to issues of treatment and the right to attempt escape.

33 Months as a POW in Stalag Luft III was published in 2004 by Fulcrum Publishing in Golden, Colorado

Grandson Identifies Heinrich Winter in Camp Aliceville Photo

Recently, Mary Bess Paluzzi, Executive Director of the Aliceville Museum, recommended my book, Guests Behind the Barbed Wire, to Philipp Winter who has been an exchange student in Idaho this summer. Philipp discovered Camp Aliceville on the Internet and made inquiries about the camp because his grandfather, Heinrich Winter, had been interned there.




When Philipp told his parents about the book, they bought a copy and were amazed to see the Plate 15 photograph (displayed above) in the center of the book. It shows Heinrich Winter, the middle runner, with the number 154 on his shorts during a running event at Camp Aliceville during World War II.




"A little wonder," Philipp wrote to Mary Bess Paluzzi. "That is so amazing. Thank you so much."




Mary Bess is also excited because this information identifies by name someone in the collection of Army photos of Camp Aliceville. I am excited, too.

An Ironic Juxtaposition

The April 13, 2009 issue of The New Yorker magazine contains a review of new books that celebrate the life of contralto Marian Anderson who sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939. She sang there because the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to appear at Washington's largest concert venue, Constitution Hall.

When the DAR made its decision, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the organization, and President Roosevelt gave permission for the concert on the Mall. The Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, introduced Anderson saying, "In this great auditorium under the sky, all of us are free."

Marian Anderson was free to sing on the Mall in Washington, D. C., but during World War II, she was not free to do as she pleased in the South. In his book, The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America (Bloomsbury)," historian Raymond Arsenault relates a story I had not heard before:

Anderson was often the victim of humiliation related to segregation, yet as Arsenault writes, "Throughout her life, she preferred not to make a scene." One of those instances occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, where Marian Anderson had to wait outside the waiting room in a train station while her German piano accompanist, Franz Rupp, went inside to get a sandwich for her.

Sitting INSIDE the waiting room was a group of German prisoners of war (most likely headed for Camp Aliceville).

Descendants of "Kriegies" Retrace Steps

The current issue of Museum News from the Aliceville Museum carries a story about an unusual reenactment that took place in Poland and eastern Germany this past January. Beginning at 11:00 p.m. on January 27, a group of "Kriegie Kids" set out to cover a 60 mile journey in four days. They were honoring and remembering a forced journey made by their fathers and grandfathers in 1945, as World War II was grinding to a close.



"Kriegies" refers to American soldiers who were prisoners of war in Germany. (The German word Krieg means "war" in English.) When word reached Poland that the Russians were advancing into German territory, Adolf Hitler ordered the evacuation of thousands of Allied prisoners from camps like Stalag Luft III so he could continue to hold them as hostages and bargaining chips. These prisoners were ordered on a forced march in sub-freezing weather.



During the reenactment, the "Kriegie Kids" met a man named Hans Burkhardt in the town of Spremberg. Burkhardt, who was eleven at the time of the original march, remembered seeing tired, mostly barehanded men marching in the freezing weather. He says his family offered food and water to several of them.



Borkhardt had a watch and a carved placque that belonged to a deceased friend who had been a German POW at a camp in Arkansas. This friend, Ervin Vorssatz, had carved the placque during his POW time in Arkansas. Borkhardt presented these items to the Kriegie Kids.



On March 17, 2009, former Allied POW Lieutenant Colonel Edward M. Bender (USAAFR, retired) and his daughter Miriam Larson, presented the watch and the placque to the Aliceville Museum. They are now on display.



For more information about the Kriegie Kids and their experience, please visit the website http://cloudcorridor.blogspot.com/.

Aliceville Veterans Wendell Parrish and Robert Kirksey Meet with Blue Star Foundation

My book, GUESTS BEHIND THE BARBED WIRE, uses the experiences of former Allied POW Wendell Parrish (at left in photograph) at Stalag Luft IV to contrast German POW camps for Americans with American POW camps for Germans (like Camp Aliceville).

Recently, the Alabama Blue Star Foundation visited Aliceville and toured the museum. Aliceville World War II veterans Wendell Parrish and Robert Hugh Kirksey met with the group over lunch.

This federation sponsors the Blue Star Salute, which is a concerted effort by caring citizens and organizations to set aside a day to honor military service. At 9:00 a.m. on May 25, 2009, a memorial wreath-laying ceremony will be held at Alabama's National Cemetery. This new cemetery is located next to the American Village on Highway 119 just outside Montevallo. On that same day, Alabama's Fifth Annual Blue Star Salute will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at American village. Events will include a recognition of wounded waqrrios, a Gold State Salute to Alabama's fallen heroes, a re-enactment of Douglas MacArthur's "Duty, Honor, Country" oration, and other activities.

For more information on this event, please go to http://www.bluestarsalute.org/.

Please see the next upcoming post to this blog for the story of Wendell Parrish's experiences in the forced march of American POWs in Poland and Germany near the end of World War II.