WWII POW cherishes freedom
By Jan A. Igoe -
jigoe@thesunnews.com
TOM MURRAY/tmurray@thesunnews.com
Ernst Buggisch who served in the German army during WWII watches the activity as a Mississippi Public Broadcasting crew removes their equipment from his house after interviewing him about his experience as a POW held in Mississippi.
As a World War II veteran and alumni of Camp Shelby in Mississippi, Ernst Buggisch seems like a good prospect for the American Legion.
He served in the infantry; fought overseas; was captured at 20 and spent three years as a prisoner of war.
There's just one catch. He fought on the German side.
Buggisch, 85, recently welcomed staff from the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum at Camp Shelby and documentary producers from Mississippi Public Broadcasting to his Murrells Inlet home.
An American citizen and U.S. resident for more than 50 years, Buggisch is a rare living link for historians seeking elusive data on hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war who were once incarcerated on American soil.
"Photographically, I've got everything you could ever want," said Chad Daniels, director of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum at Camp Shelby. "But all the records were destroyed."
Buggisch told his story of being drafted into the army at 18 to defend his German home. His 14-year-old brother became an anti-aircraft gun helper, while his older brother served in the navy and was captured by British forces.
"Germany had 8 or 9 million unemployed at that time after the 1929 crash. It was all you saw in the streets. It was very unsafe at that time," Buggisch said. "Someone stood up and promised work and food, and he was a good speaker. If you're unemployed for three or four years or longer, you grab anything you can."
Wounded during combat in Russia, Buggisch returned home to recover from shrapnel wounds before being sent to North Africa, where British forces closed in on the German infantry.
The entire German Afrika Korps, more than 100,000 men, was taken prisoner by the British 8th Army and handed over to the Americans, Buggisch said. For POWs, though, British and American captors offered the best odds of survival.
"We heard stories about Russian POWs ... the rate of starvation," he said. "I don't think I would be alive."
Instead, Buggisch found himself at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, getting on-the-job training in cotton picking.
"I didn't like cotton too much," said Buggisch, who was moved to a hospital kitchen after one season in the fields. "That's a back-breaking job. There are no machines for that. You pick left and right, with both hands."
When the war ended, Buggisch, at 23, returned to Germany to the bombed out remains of his hometown. The meatpacking factory his family had owned since 1890 had been confiscated, along with their home and possessions.
"That's all gone after the war. They didn't give any explanations. We were disowned," Buggisch said. "Whatever you could carry, you could take. So I left."
Buggisch returned to the United States with a change of underwear and spare pair of socks on $205 borrowed from a friend.
He began working six days a week in New York City, making enough to afford a loaf of bread and a slice of cold cuts for lunch.
Life during and after the war may have been harsh, but Buggisch has no complaints.
"I tried every question I could to get him to say something bad. I asked about swamps and mosquitoes. I asked about snakes," Daniels said. "Nothing."
Buggisch, who sometimes wears his souvenir ring from Camp Shelby, spent most of his post-war career as a butcher in Connecticut, retiring at 75. He's been married to his second wife, Lilly Buggisch, who is from Switzerland, for 20 years. Each has one son.
"You have a free press here. You can form your own opinion and it's not one-sided," said Ernst Buggisch, who retired to Murrells Inlet to be near the ocean.
"The people that come from a totalitarian country, they really appreciate that."
WWII POW holds no grudges
WWII POW holds no grudges
