Overview
- Description
- The Stephen J. Schweitzer diary is a small pocket diary Schweitzer maintained secretly and hid in his socks while he was a POW in Stalag IXB and as a forced laborer in the Berga forced labor camp. The diary contains brief entries describing events and conditions in the camps, the moods of his fellow prisoners, and his thoughts of his family.
- Date
-
inclusive:
1944 December 21-1945 April 12
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the family of Stephen J. Schweitzer
- Collection Creator
- Stephen J. Schweitzer
- Biography
-
Stephen J. Schweitzer (1914-1989) was a Catholic American soldier who was born in Pennsylvania and lived and worked in New York City as an insurance adjuster. He married Helen Nelan in February 1936, and they had seven daughters, Florence, Gretchen, Marianne, Judy, Margaret, Lorraine, and Gina. He was deployed by the US Army as a member of Company L, 423rd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division, and worked as a radio operator. He was with the 3rd Battalion of the 423rd for only two days before he was captured as a prisoner of war on December 19, 1945 in St. Vith, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. He was sent to Stalag IX B, a German prisoner-of-war camp, in Bad Orb, Germany. He was one of 350 American soldiers sent to the forced labor camp Berga an der Elster, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. He was sent on a forced march in April 1945 with the surviving American POWs as American troops approached the camp, and he was liberated by the 11th Armored Division near Cham, Germany. Schweitzer spent several months in a hospital recuperating and was awarded the Purple Heart. He sailed home in July 1945 aboard the US Hospital Ship Blanche F. Sigman.
Physical Details
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- The donor, source institution, or a third party has asserted copyright over some or all of the material(s) in this collection. You do not require further permission from the Museum to use this material. The user is solely responsible for making a determination as to if and how the material may be used.
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The family of Stephen J. Schweitzer donated his diary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2022.
- Record last modified:
- 2023-10-10 07:27:15
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn737855
Download & Licensing
- In Copyright - Use Permitted
- Terms of Use
- This record is not digitized and cannot be downloaded online.
In-Person Research
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-
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