Siebert shares experience as POW

For half a century after coming home from the European theater in World War II, Julian Siebert of Westmoreland didn’t feel comfortable talking about his experiences in the war.

On Monday, however, 92-year-old Siebert shared his story of being a soldier during the Battle of the Bulge and a prisoner of war with students at Holton Middle School, adding his hope that those students would never have to go through the same thing.

HMS students have been studying WWII history in recent days, and Siebert’s Monday afternoon visit gave them a rare opportunity to hear about the war firsthand, as well as the chance to ask questions of someone who had served in the military at that particular point in time. As Principal Michael Kimberlin reminded them, veterans of that war are “one of the things that we are losing at a rapid pace right now.”

Siebert said he has been taking his story of serving in the Army and as a prisoner of war in a German work camp in the last few months of WWII to schools all over northeastern Kansas, making sure that his story continues to be told and that young people can know what it was like to have been a part of that war.

Siebert was drafted into the Army on May 4, 1944, and went to Camp Hood in Texas for basic training before leaving for England on Oct. 22, 1944. About two weeks later, he found himself in France, where he was assigned to F Company, 2nd Battalion, 328th Infantry Regiment 26th Division as an infantry replacement.

“I also had a good friend who went into the Army at the same time, in the same division, but in a different company,” he said. “We were on the front line by Nov. 12, and he was killed on the very first day. It seems like that happened a lot, people getting killed the first day they were in combat.”

Siebert also found himself in heavy combat during his first days in France and didn’t get much opportunity to rest until mid-December, when he and his unit went to Metz, where they were told they would be on leave until after Christmas. That ended only after “a couple of days,” but he said those few days afforded him a chance to get some sleep.

“We only had a brick floor with a blanket under us to sleep on,” he said. “It was the first really good night’s sleep we had in a month. We were over there a couple of days, and the Battle of the Bulge started and we went right out again.”

From Metz, Siebert and his unit went to Luxembourg, into the city of Eschdorf, where they found themselves pinned in by enemy fire.

“There was a guy right beside me who had just joined us the day before, and he was killed,” he said. “My back was scratched up a little.”

The unit found its way into a rock building and was doing its best to keep the enemy at bay until a hand grenade was thrown into the building, and even though he and his fellow troops scattered to the building’s corners to avoid the explosion, the “bang” was loud enough, he said, that his ears still ring today.

Then, a German tank positioned itself outside the building, pointing its gun at the U.S. troops inside.

“We knew that one shot out of that, we’d all be gone,” Siebert said. “So we finally gave up and became prisoners of the Germans.”

It was almost the end for Siebert and his fellow soldiers, he said, because two of the German troops took some of them behind “a big pile of dirt” and was preparing to shoot them before they  were stopped by a German officer. The Allied troops were then marched into Germany, picking up more Allied POWs along the way, ending up at a railhead where they were kept in a boxcar for several days.

Eventually, they were taken to the Stalag 12A prison camp near Limburg, photographed and given ID tags. Siebert still has the photo and was able to show it to HMS students on Monday, comparing it with a photo taken of him when he was drafted into the Army.

At the prison camp, troops taken prisoner found that “anything for something to eat was enjoyable,” he said — even worms in the soup.

“The reason we didn’t get anything better to eat than what we did was because they didn’t have it,” Siebert said, later noting that was possibly an indication to him that the German army was losing the war.

Siebert and his fellow POWs were moved to a work camp a few days later, where they cut trees to make paper. The German guards who were in charge of his work camp were older, he noted, but “they were pretty good guys,” some of whom had even been to the United States before war broke out.

One particular instance in Germany that he noted involved staying at a German school, where he picked up a school book that, according to an inscription on the book, belonged to someone whose last name was also Siebert.

“I thought he could have been some relative from way back,” said Siebert, noting that most of his ancestors were German and that his great-grandparents had come to America from Germany.

Then, on May 2, 1945, before Siebert’s detail was marched out to work, the guards were told to pick up their belongings and march toward the American front line because the Russians were approaching. As the POWs and their guards neared the American line, the guards handed their guns to their prisoners, telling them, “We’re your prisoners now.”

The men finally made it to the American line, where Siebert said he saw an American flag for the first time in a long time.

“That was the most beautiful sight that I had ever seen at that time,” he said.

Soon, for the first time since stepping off the boat in England the previous October, Siebert was able to take a shower and get a change of clothes. He also was able to go home and was discharged from the Army later that year, having earned the rank of corporal.

After returning home, Siebert got married — wife Barbara was with him for Monday’s visit to HMS — farmed for a while and raised five children, one of whom is former longtime Holton Recorder assistant editor and “Gardener’s Corner” author Sandra Siebert. He also worked as a rural mail carrier in the Westmoreland area for more than two decades.

Now, Siebert said, in spite of having nightmares about his experiences for more than 30 years and generally remaining silent about them for half a century, he takes his story to schools “from Junction City to Leavenworth” to remind them just how much things have changed in the world.

One such reminder of those changes, students noted, were the Western Union telegraphs Siebert had on display, both sent by the Army to his parents back home in Westmoreland. The first telegraph informed his parents that he had gone missing in action, and the second told them that he had been found.

Kimberlin noted that in each case, at least a month had lapsed between what actually happened and his parents finding out.

“This is not how information travels these days,” he said. “This was considered high-tech and fast for the time.”