"Guests of the Third Reich," an exhibit opening on Veterans Day
at the National World War II Museum is about those "Kriegies,"
as they called themselves—short for "Kriegsgefangener," German
for "prisoner of war." Items on display through July 7 are among
those to be shown in the Liberation Pavilion planned for
completion in 2016. That pavilion will also have a section about
POWs held in brutal Japanese POW camps where more than 40
percent of the 27,465 Americans captured in the Pacific died.
But of 93,941 who surrendered to Germany, 92,820 survived. Japan
had not ratified the Geneva Conventions for humane treatment of
POWs. Germany had, and generally followed its requirements. Not
always. One part of the exhibit is about POWs who were sent to
concentration camps or executed. Those in the concentration
camps included 350 Americans sent from Stalag IXB to the slave
labor camp in Berga because they were or "looked" Jewish, and
168 Allied airmen sent to nearby Buchenwald. Another 362
American POWS and more than 1