Former German POW Remembers U.S. Prison Camps
Human interest story
The Woodlands, TX. May 7, 2012
Jean Nelson Erichsen
Phone:(936)522-6948
email: erichsen1934@att.net
website: www.erichsenbooks.com
May 13, 1943: German Afrika Korps surrender to the Allies, and are shipped off to POW camps in Africa, Europe, and America. “My greatest fear was not of our guards, but of Nazis who controlled the camps internally,” says Heinrich (Heino) Erichsen, an 18-year-old German private at the time. He survives sixteen camps, including those in Hearne, TX, and Ft. Knox, KY.
May 8, 1945: Germany unconditionally surrenders. Heino, along with thousands of his fellow POWs are not released; Great Britain still needs their manpower. Five years later, they are finally repatriated. But Heino’s heart is not in Germany. He longs for America. He returns and is granted citizenship in 1958.
His biography, The Reluctant Warrior: Former German POW Finds Peace in Texas, chronicles Erichsen’s life as a soldier, a prisoner of war, an international adoption pioneer, and, in retirement, an artist. He appeared on The History Channel, Nazi POWs in America, and will soon be heard on National Public Radio, “Mine Enemy: The Story of German POWs.” Heino was the keynote speaker at the General George Patton Museum. His theme is “The Pathway to Freedom.”
