A Picture of Bavaria on My Living Room Wall
Painted by an Afrika Korps Prisoner of War
When I look up from reading on the couch at night when the house is quiet, I see this painting. It was painted by an enlisted man serving in the Afrika Korps who was a Prisoner of War of the American Army.
The POW camp he was a prisoner in for more than two years was in Reading, Pennsylvania. The site is now the Reading Airport.
The painting was a gift from the prisoner to the camp commandant, my father, Capt. George Gussman. When my father took command of the camp in 1944, most of the prisoners had been there for more than a year.
On the day he took command, my father lined up the officers to introduce himself and let them know what he expected from the prisoners. One of the officers whispered that my father was a Jew. Which is true. He was also a ranked middleweight boxer before he enlisted. He called the man out of formation and hit him hard enough to lay him out cold in front of the other officers.
Dad then sent his guards into the barracks for and inspection that led to confiscating hundreds of Hershey bars the prisoners had bought with the money they earned in work on local farms. These candy bars became my mother's engagement present from Dad. That story is here.
My Dad never went overseas in World War II. He enlisted before the war started at 34 years old. As a rule, the Army did not send soldiers that old into combat during World War II.
After the initial drama, Dad had no more trouble and got along well with the prisoners. The prisoners were repatriated several months after the war ended, and few applied to stay in America and pursue citizenship.
The painting reminds of the ironies of war--that soldiers from the country that killed millions of Jews would be prisoners in a POW camp run by the son of Jewish immigrants. I keep that token of respect and affection on my wall. It hung on the wall of the home I grew up in. I will pass it to the next generation.
The prisoners my father was in charge of were captured far from home in a war that was already going against Germany. Prisoners of War in any Army are brave men who faced the enemy and death and survived.
