[Seattle Times] JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD ‐ Gunter Gräwe spent three years as a German prisoner of war in Western Washington, a World War II incarceration he recalls not with rancor but gratitude for the chance to "live and learn in America."
Gräwe always thought about returning to the state to say thank you.
Last week, the rail-thin veteran, now 91, did just that during a brief visit to this base, where guard towers and barbed-wire fences are long gone but some of the two-story wooden barracks that once housed German prisoners still stand.
He declared his capture by the Americans at the age of 18 "his luckiest day," and reminisced about camp life that included English, French and Spanish classes organized by other POWs and a commissary stocked with chocolate, ice cream and Coca-Cola.
"I never had anything to complain about," Gräwe said. "No guard called us nasty names. I had a better life as a prisoner than my mother and sister back home in Germany." |