September 12th, 1945.   Mid-Atlantic. The converted troop ship   rolled through autumn swells, its hall   groaning with each wave. Below deck in   hammocks stacked three high, 847 German   women waited for dawn. They were not   soldiers in the traditional sense. They   had been signals operators, nurses,   radio clerks, the invisible   infrastructure of a war machine that had   ground to a halt 4 months earlier.

 

 Greta   Hartman pressed her face against the   cold metal bulkhead and tried not to   vomit. Around her in the darkness, other   women prayed, wept, or lay silent with   fear. An older nurse named Lisel had   told them all the same thing before   lights out. Close your eyes when we   arrive. Do not look at their faces.

 

 Do   not show weakness.   Because everyone knew what happened to   women prisoners. The stories had   circulated for years, whispered in   barracks, passed from unit to unit.   Stories about camps and distant lands   where women disappeared. Stories about   what enemies did to those they captured.   If you’re watching this deep dive into   one of World War II’s most forgotten   stories, please hit that like button and   subscribe to help us preserve these   remarkable testimonies.

 

  Drop a comment below telling us where   you’re watching from. These stories   deserve to be remembered, and your   support helps ensure they never fade   into obscurity. The voyage had taken 3   weeks. 3 weeks of seasickness and   cramped quarters and the constant smell   of unwashed bodies, but it was the fear   that had been truly suffocating.

 

 These   women had served the Vermacht, Germany’s   armed forces, in support roles during   the war. Now Germany was destroyed.   Hitler was dead. And they were being   shipped across an ocean to face the   consequences.   American soil, enemy territory. The   place where they had been told their   real suffering would begin.

 

 Greta was   23. She had spent 2 years operating   radio equipment at a communications post   near Hamburg. When the British arrived   in May to accept Germany’s surrender,   the officers had fled. The enlisted men   had scattered, but the women, they had   nowhere to run. Their cities were   rubble.

 

 Their families were scattered or   dead. For weeks, they had been held in   temporary British camps, sleeping on   concrete floors, eating watery soup   twice daily. Then came the announcement   that changed everything. They were being   transferred to American custody. Not in   Europe, in America itself. The news had   spread through the barracks like   wildfire.

 

 Some women had fainted, others   had become hysterical. America, the word   itself, felt dangerous. They had been   raised on stories about Americans.   Brutal stories, horrifying stories,   stories designed to steal German   resolve. Now those propaganda nightmares   would become their reality. But nothing   could have prepared them for what waited   on the other side of that ocean.

 

 Not the   propaganda, not the whispered warnings,   not the three weeks they spent   rehearsing prayers and preparing for   horrors they could not even name.   Because what came next would shatter   everything they thought they knew about   enemies, about war, and about the very   nature of mercy itself. The morning they   cighted land.

 

 Greta stood on deck for   her allotted 15 minutes of fresh air.   Through autumn fog, the American   coastline emerged, impossibly green   compared to the bombed out gray   landscape they had left behind. A young   American guard stood nearby, smoking. He   glanced at her, then looked away. After   a moment, he pulled out his cigarette   pack and offered her one.

 

 Greta stared   at it. This had to be a trick, some kind   of test. But the soldier just stood   there waiting, his face showing neither   cruelty nor kindness, just the blank   professionalism she had seen from all   the American guards aboard the ship. She   took the cigarette. He lit it for her   with a silver lighter.

 

 They stood in   silence for several minutes, smoking,   looking at the vast ocean stretching   behind them. When her 15 minutes ended,   she went below deck, more confused than   frightened. The Americans had not been   cruel. That was the first shock. They   had not been warm either, but they had   not been monsters.

 

 They had brought food   twice daily. They had maintained order   without violence. They had been   professional, distant, doing a job. This   absence of expected brutality was   somehow more unsettling than hatred   would have been.   As the ship entered New York Harbor on   September 14th, the women crowded at   port holes, pressing their faces against   dirty glass.

 

 Through morning mist, the   Statue of Liberty rose from the water.   Greta had seen it in propaganda films.   Always presented as a symbol of American   hypocrisy, false freedom, capitalist   corruption.   Now seeing it in person, she felt only   numbness, exhaustion,   the strange hollow feeling of having   survived the journey, but not knowing   what survival might cost.

 

 The contrast   hit immediately upon disembarking. The   docks were intact. The buildings behind   the port stood tall and undamaged. Not a   single collapsed roof. Not one bombed   out shell. After years of watching   German cities crumble under Allied   bombers, the sight of an intact city, a   thriving, bustling, undamaged American   city, was staggering.

 

 They were loaded   into trucks, 20 to 30 women per vehicle.   Greta sat near the opening, watching   through the canvas flap as they drove   through New York. Cars filled the   streets. Civilians walked on sidewalks   carrying shopping bags. Shop windows   displayed goods. actual goods, not empty   shelves.

 

 She saw a bakery with bread   stacked in the window. Dozens of loaves   just sitting there, her stomach clenched   with hunger and disbelief. How could   this be? Germany was starving. Her   people were living in cellars because   the buildings above were destroyed.   Children were dying for lack of food.   And here, in the enemy’s homeland, bread   sat abundant in shop windows like it was   nothing special at all.

 

 The drive lasted   several hours, taking them west through   countryside that seemed to stretch   forever. Fields and forests, small towns   with white churches, farms with red   barns. Everything looked untouched by   war. Normal, peaceful. Some of the women   dozed, others stared in silence, trying   to process the enormity of what they   were seeing.

 

 As the sun began to set,   the convoy turned onto a dirt road. In   the distance, Greta could see buildings   surrounded by fences. Guard towers stood   at intervals. Her heart began to race.   This was it, the camp, the place where   their suffering would truly begin. The   trucks passed through open gates and   stopped in a large dirt courtyard.

 

 The   women climbed down, legs stiff from the   journey. Greta stood with the others,   blinking in late afternoon light,   looking around at what would be her   prison. The camp was larger than   expected. Rows of wooden barracks   stretched in neat lines. The buildings   looked recently painted. The paths   between them were swept clean.

 

 American   soldiers walked around casually, some   smoking, some talking in groups. It   looked almost like a military base, not   a prison camp. But the fences were real,   the wire was real, the towers were real,   and they were inside. An American   officer stepped forward, a woman in   uniform, and addressed them in heavily   accented but understandable German.

 

 They   would be processed. They would be   doused. They would be assigned quarters.   Her tone was matter of fact, neither   kind nor cruel, just procedural. The   women were divided into groups of 20 and   led toward a long, low building. This is   where it happens, Greta thought. This is   where the humiliation begins.

 

 She had   heard terrible stories about what   happened to women prisoners during   processing. Stories that made her want   to pray and vomit simultaneously.   The door opened and steam billowed out.   Inside it was warm, bright. Tiled walls   reflected electric light. American women   in white uniforms stood waiting.

 

 Medical   staff. Greta’s group was directed to   stand in a line. One by one they were   called forward. A medic checked each   woman briefly. Eyes, throat, hands. No   one was rough. No one made crude   comments. It was clinical, efficient,   almost gentle. When Greta’s turn came,   the medic looked at her and said in   broken German, “You will feel better   soon.

 

” After the medical check, they   were directed to another room, the   Dousing station. Greta’s heart pounded.   This was the moment she had feared most.   But what she saw stopped her cold.   Shower stalls. Real shower stalls with   curtains for privacy. And on a table   near the entrance, stacked neatly, bars   of soap, white soap, clean soap, heavy   bars that smelled of something floral,   something that reminded her of her   mother’s house before the war.

 

 Each   woman was handed a bar of soap, a towel,   and a clean cotton gown. They were told   to shower, to wash thoroughly, to put on   the gown afterward. Their old clothes   would be burned. For a moment, no one   moved. This could still be a trick. But   what kind of trick? And to what end?   Finally, the older nurse, Leisel,   stepped forward and took a shower stall.

 

  The others followed. Greta found herself   in a small tiled space alone for the   first time in weeks. She turned on the   water and nearly gasped. It was hot,   actually hot, not lukewarm, not cold.   Hot water streaming from the showerhead,   creating clouds of steam around her. She   stood under it for a long moment, just   feeling it on her skin.

 

 Then she picked   up the soap. It lthered immediately,   rich and thick. She washed her hair, her   face, her body, scrubbing away weeks of   grime and fear and confusion. The water   at her feet ran gray, then clear around   her. She could hear others crying. Not   loud sobs, but quiet tears mixing with   shower water.

 

 The relief was   overwhelming. The simple act of being   clean, truly clean, East, after so long,   was almost painful. When Greta emerged   wrapped in the rough but clean towel,   she felt lighter. Not happy, not safe,   but lighter somehow. She dried herself   and put on the cotton gown. It was   simple, plain, but clean.

 

 It smelled   like laundry soap and sunshine. From the   processing building, they were marched   to a large wooden structure, the   messaul. Even before reaching it, Greta   could smell something that made her head   swim. Food. real food, cooking food. The   smell was so strong, so overwhelming   that several women stopped walking and   just stood there breathing it in.

 

  Inside, long tables stretched the length   of the room. The women were directed to   form a line. Greta picked up a metal   tray and moved forward. Behind the   counter, American cooks in white aprons   ladled food onto her tray. potatoes,   actual boiled potatoes, yellow and   steaming, green beans, carrots, and then   incredibly a thick slice of meatloaf   with dark gravy.

 

 A piece of white bread   with a pad of butter, a cup of coffee,   real coffee, dark and hot. Greta stared   at the tray. The amount of food was more   than she had seen in months, more than   she had eaten in a week. For the past   year in Germany, meals had meant watery   soup and black bread that tasted like   sawdust.

 

 Sometimes a thin slice of   turnip. This this was abundance beyond   imagination.   She sat at one of the long tables with   other women. For a moment, no one ate.   They just looked at the food. Steam rose   from the plates. The smell was   intoxicating. Then slowly, one woman   picked up her fork. then another, then   Greta.

 

 The first bite of meatloaf made   her close her eyes. It was warm. It was   seasoned. It tasted like food was   supposed to taste. She chewed slowly,   afraid that if she ate too fast, she   would be sick. Around her, women ate in   silence, some with tears streaming down   their faces. The girl who had cried on   the ship sat across from Greta, fork   halfway to her mouth, just staring at   the food as though it might disappear.

 

  The bread was soft inside with a slight   crust. The butter melted into it. Greta   had not tasted butter in 2 years. She   bit into the bread and had to steady   herself. It was too much, too good, too   impossible.   She thought of her younger brother   Fritz, who had starved to death in the   final winter of the war.

 

 He had been 9   years old. They had buried him in the   rubble of their apartment building   because the cemeteries were full. Fritz   had asked for bread before he died, just   bread, and there had been none. Now   Greta sat in an enemy prison camp,   eating butter on white bread, while her   brother’s bones lay in German ruins.

 

 The   contradiction was unbearable. The guilt   was crushing. She forced herself to keep   eating. Her body needed it. But every   bite tasted like betrayal. The woman   next to her, a signals operator from   Frankfurt, whispered, “My mother is   starving. My mother would kill for this   potato. How can this be?”   No one had an answer.

 

 They ate in   silence, mechanically, feeling the food   fill their empty stomachs, feeling   strength return to their bodies, feeling   the terrible weight of survival when so   many they loved had not survived. After   the meal, they were assigned to   barracks. Each building housed about 40   women in double stacked bunks.

 

 The   barracks were simple but clean. wood   floors swept smooth windows with actual   glass. And each bunk had a mattress, not   a board, a real mattress with sheets and   two blankets.   Greta was assigned to barrack 7, bunk   23, lower. She set her small canvas bag   on the mattress and just stood there.   The last time she had slept in a real   bed was over a year ago.

 

 Since then, it   had been floors, cotss, hammocks,   concrete. This mattress gave slightly   under her hand. The sheets were rough   cotton but clean. The blankets were   wool, thick and warm. Leisel, the nurse,   was assigned to the bunk above. She   looked at Greta and said quietly. I do   not understand what is happening.

 

 I do   not either, Greta replied.   That night, the first night in the camp,   Greta lay in her bunk wrapped in wool   blankets. The barrack was dark except   for a single light bulb at each end.   Outside she could hear American soldiers   talking, their voices low and relaxed.   Crickets sang in the warm September   night.

 

 The air smelled of pine trees and   cut grass. She closed her eyes and tried   to understand. This was supposed to be   hell. This was supposed to be punishment   for losing the war, for serving the   enemy, for everything that had happened.   But she was clean. She was fed. She was   warm. She was against all expectations   still alive and treated with a dignity   she had not known in years.

 

 Somewhere in   the darkness, a woman began to pray   quietly. Others joined in, whispering   the old familiar words into the night.   Greta listened but did not pray. She did   not know what to say. Thank you felt   wrong. Please help felt meaningless. So   she just lay there feeling the mattress   beneath her, the blanket over her,   wondering what tomorrow would bring,   wondering how the enemy could show more   mercy than her own leaders ever had.

 

 The   morning bell rang at 6. Greta woke from   deep, dreamless sleep. The first real   sleep she’d had in months. Routine   settled quickly. wake, wash, eat, work,   eat, work, eat, sleep. It was monotonous   but predictable, and in predictability   there was strange comfort. For years,   life had been chaos, uncertainty, fear   of bombs, and starvation and death.

 

  Here, for the first time in so long,   tomorrow would be the same as today.   What stunned the women most was that   they were paid. Not much, just small   wages in camp currency. But they could   use it to buy things at the canteen.   Chocolate bars, cigarettes, pencils, and   paper, small bars of soap they could   keep for themselves.

 

 The idea that   prisoners would be paid for their work   was incomprehensible.   It violated everything they had been   taught about how enemies treated   captives. Greta bought a small notebook   and a pencil. That evening, sitting on   her bunk, she began to write. Not a   letter. There was no one to send letters   to, but a record.

 

 She needed to document   this. Someday, she thought, someone will   ask what happened here, and I want to   remember the truth. She wrote, September   28th, 1945.   I have been here 4 days. I am clean. I   am fed. I am warm. I do not understand   the enemy. They do not act like enemies.   This frightens me more than cruelty   would.

 

 Letters came from Germany in   October. The words were cautious, but   the meaning was clear. There was no   food, no fuel, no hope. People were   dying in the ruins. Greta read the   letter on her bunk, surrounded by other   women doing the same. One wept silently,   another sat frozen. The contrast between   there and here was unbearable.

 

 She   couldn’t eat that night. The chicken and   rice on her plate felt like guilt made   visible, but she ate anyway, because   refusing would change nothing, and that   small act of survival filled her with   shame. Then came the small mercies, a   jar of hand cream for Mrs. Patterson   when her hands cracked from the laundry,   a Hershey bar left on Leisel’s bunk by a   young guard who whispered, “For your   sadness.

 

”   These gestures didn’t erase the past.   They complicated it, made hate   impossible. By December, Greta was at   war with herself. Everything she had   believed about superiority, about   enemies was dissolving. Then they showed   the film. Bergen Bellson, Dau, the truth   laid bare. That night she wrote, “The   enemy has defeated me, not with   violence, but with soap and bread and   mercy.

 

” Years later, she told her   daughter, “Mercy is strength.