Movie Description:
This is the untold story of350 American prisoners of war caught in the tragedy of the Holocause. The film is the final work in the distinguishedcareer of the late documentary filmmakerCharles Guggenheim, winner of four Academy Awards.He wrote and directed Berga, and beacuse of his personalconnection to the story narrated it in the first person. After the war, Guggenheim tried to locate a friend from his 106th division,but learned he had died in captivity. Through research in WarCrimes Trial Documents at the National Archies, Guggenheim found that his friend hadbeen imprisoned in a slave labor camp at Berga, Germany. It was a shocking discovery that became an obsession for Guggenheim and the subject of this film. In December 1944, thousandsof American soldiers captured during the Battle of the Bulge were first trans- ported to Stalag 9B, a prisoner of warcamp. A German military order wa issuedfor all Jewish soldiersto identify themselves. After the Americans refusedto comply, Nazi guards selected GIs who"looked Jewish," had "Jewish-sounding" last names or were classified as "undesirables,"though fewer than a 3rd,in fact, were Jewish. They were thenshipped off to Berga, a satellite of thenotorious concentrationcamp at Buchenwald, where they suffered atrocities alongside Jewish slavelaborers from other Nazi concentration camps. Berga: Soldiers of Another War reveals this little known story, lost until now in the trauma of World War II.
