During WWII, what did the Germans do with Jewish-American (or Jewish-Whatever) POWs? Were they treated like regular POWs or sent to concentration camps?
I suppose the question will come up as to how they would know when someone is Jewish. I’m sure they wouldn’t in a lot of cases, but it would be obvious in others. If the guy’s dog tags say “Chaim Leibowitz” and he’s wearing a star of David, they would likely figure it out.
I’d say they were treated like POWs. The Geneva Convention applies to POWs, and the Nazis weren’t about to flout that or their own prisoners could be subjects of retaliation.
This issue was touched upon in MAUS. Art Spiegelman’s father was captured as a POW, but was quickly released. His explanation was along the lines that “as a POW, the Geneva Convention protected us, but as a Polish Jew we could be shot in the streets.”
The Nazis probably figured that they could wait until they won the war and then send the Jews to extermination camps.
I think that military identification cards issued to U.S. soldiers listed you religion on them. But I could be mistaken. The real question is, what happened to all the Jewish people the Japs were importing for the ‘Asian Israel’ in caputred China?
Thanks for the answers all, especially bibliophage. That site had exactly the info I was curious about.
Brit & American jews were treated OK, no special kosher meals, of course, but. However, french jewish POWs were treated as french Jews. Russian POWs were ALL treated like scum, and many were worked to death in slave labor camps. Russian Jews got it even worse, often.