In the fall of 1944, US Army Medic Anthony “Tony” Acevedo
was sent to fight in Europe during World War II.
He served in the 275th Infantry Regiment,
70th Infantry Division known as the “Trailblazers.”
In freezing temperatures and heavy snow
along with six hundred thousand fellow Americans,
he faced a ferocious German offensive
in the Battle of the Bulge.
During the brutal six-week battle between December 1944 and January 1945,
tens of thousands were killed or wounded.
It was Tony’s first combat experience,
and he bravely tended to the wounded under machine gun fire.
We went to battle, and on my assignment,
I headed with Company B and I just followed.
I carried my duffel bag, and all my equipment with me
and everybody used to laugh at me, and yell at me, and say, Anthony,
drop that. Drop all that stuff, they gonna kill you, you’re a sore thumb, you.
I said, no, this is, that’s gonna save my life.
We were marching towards a ridge and I heard an echo, “medic, medic,"
cause there were machine guns going on back and forth,
and I was carrying my stuff with me, so finally I picked up the sound,
and I started to head downhill.
Then I saw up ahead, a cave with Germans.
Well, there were about six Germans in there, with machine guns
I mean, just you thought there were thousands of them
And at that time when they start shooting at me
my stuff went up in the air. My duffel bag and everything
I fell on the ground and crawled to my helmet
and before I knew it, I was with the fellows that were wounded
I had my prayer book with me and,
and I would use some phrases that wouldn’t be too long
but enough to — for that person, that soldier, to motivate him
make him feel motivated, and feel free of fear.
That’s what he was, he was afraid.
The Germans were getting closer and closer.
We ran out of ammunition until, finally, we were caught,
when the Germans came up the hill and — and we had to surrender.
When the Germans took us, they forced us to get our boots off
and walk down the slope barefooted in the snow
it was up to our waists, and march for about almost a mile, to the trucks.
They were sent to Stalag IX-B,
a camp for prisoners of war near Bad Orb, Germany.
Tony became prisoner number 27016.
Conditions in the crowded camp were terrible.
Tony used the limited medical supplies that he had managed to save
in order to treat the sick and wounded.
In January 1945, German officers began identifying and separating Jewish POWs,
and those whom they believed to be Jews, from the rest of the American soldiers.
Tony was also separated, perhaps because he was Mexican American.
The newly separated group, including Tony were then transported
to Berga an der Elster, a forced labour camp in Germany.
Much like the conditions in the prisoner of war camp,
food was scarce and prisoners were given little sustenance
for the hard days of forced labour.
The bread was a mix of barley with sawdust, ground glass, and ground sand.
It would make you sick to the stomach.
Disease and malnutrition would soon plague the American prisoners.
On one occasion we received a package, a Red Cross package
and that’s how I got my diary.
Throughout his time in the camp, Tony kept a secret diary of his experiences.
He wrote in it nearly every day.
In it, he recorded how his group were forced to clear tunnels
to make way for an underground factory
that Nazi officials hoped would be out of sight of Allied bombers.
March 21, 1945. More planes came over today.
Their bombs were dropped not very far from here.
Another one of our boys is pretty low today, he is not expected to live till light.
April 3rd , 1945. Excellent news today.
Americans are only 100km from here. Rumours are that we are to be moved away.
When the Nazi guards realized that the American troops were closing in,
they evacuated the POWs from Berga on a forced march.
April 9, 1945. We marched 10km today.
We started out with 304 men. Now we have 287.
April 20-22, 1945. Day and night it rained.
Every man was wet from top to bottom. Every 25 yards there lay three or four men.
Men that couldn’t make the march had to drop out
they were shot.
April the 23, 1945.
We were liberated today.
Of the 350 American POWs at Berga an der Elster,
approximately 70 died.
Most of them died or were executed during the forced evacuation of the camp.
Tony’s fountain pen miraculously endured his imprisonment.
It allowed him to secretly document his firsthand account
of life as an American Prisoner of War in Germany
and would bear witness to the dates and causes of his fellow soldiers’ deaths.
This was, he explained, his “moral obligation.”
God gave me that ink to last.