Elise commentary: Camp Confidential documentary on Netfix delves into WWII secrets
For anyone interested in rarely-known details about World War II or military strategy in general, the 36-minute Netflix documentary ”Camp Confidential” is important viewing.
P.O. Box 1142 (the official name of Camp Confidential) started in 1942 in Fort Hunt, Virginia. Its main objective was to interrogate Nazi and German officers captured after Hitler’s Anschluss.
The purpose of the operation was to obtain information about the Third Reich’s intentions. Its other goal was to procure knowledge and data about the tactics and resources of the Soviet Union.
The 100 or so barracks at Camp Confidential were ringed by barbed wire and watch towers. The soldiers were under strict orders to keep their work and location secret, even from their wives and families. Most took the secret to their graves.
It was not until 2006 that the National Park Service conducted interviews of the veterans who served at the camp.
The most unusual aspect of Camp Confidential’s mission was that the military personnel selected to interview the Nazi POWs were young Jewish men who had fled their homelands in Germany and Austria to avoid the Holocaust.
The men were selected for two reasons: (1) they could speak German and understand the German culture; and (2) they had a visceral reaction to defeat the Nazis.
The documentary consists of recorded interviews and animated recreations, as well as in-person interviews of two of the former P.O. Box 1142 Jewish soldiers who interrogated the POWs at the secret internment facility.
The military interrogators questioned more than 3,500 prisoners. It is hard to imagine both the rigor and magnitude of their work. The prisoners were, after all, those who hated human beings who were not of the “Aryan race,” and they despised Jews enough to commit such atrocities as gassing them, burning them, and murdering them in every way possible.
To be able to extract information from the Nazis – even to treat them with decency – would have taken an enormous emotional toll on the soldiers. They played tennis, chess and volleyball with them, and they even took them to shop for Christmas presents to send to their families. The camp was more like a country club than a prison.
The number of successful interrogations is staggering. One, in particular, revealed an underground Nazi rocketry factory, which the U.S. military ended up destroying.
Perhaps as important as obtaining valuable information about the Nazi’s plans and goals was the smuggling of individuals like Werner von Braun into the United States. Von Braun later played an instrumental role in America’s space program, thereby sending Americans to the moon before the Soviet Union could do so.
According to one surviving American soldier who was interviewed in the documentary, the Cold War started in the 1940’s when the German and Austrian scientists provided facts, statistics and intelligence about the Soviet Union.
We can wonder about the dilemma of weighing the technological advances the scientists handed the U.S. against the decision not to prosecute them for working with the German war machine.
We can also ask ourselves what we might do in such a situation. If we had been in the Jewish soldiers’ shoes and ordered to treat Nazis with kindness and respect (especially when family members had been killed by the same POWs), would we be able to suppress our sorrow and rage enough to undertake such a task?
It makes the individuals involved in the operation even more bold, knowing that somehow, some way, they were able to shut down (at least temporarily) their feelings, and turn towards what must have felt like duty and devotion to their new country.
There will be many who disagree with the notion of heroism under such circumstances, but we never know how we will react when faced with such a formidable task.
Let us hope none of us ever have to find out.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Elise commentary: Camp Confidential documentary is important viewing
