Pelican Parts Forums - Dealing with the past

Works better if you include the http:// or https:// portion of the address.

https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/german-city-to-honor-wwii-airman-as-new-details-of-his-death-emerge-1.618020#

The first few paragraphs (much more if you follow the link)

Quote:

SCRANTON, Pa. (Tribune News Service) — For more than seven decades, the story of Staff Sgt. Joseph Eugene Prokop’s life ended the same way: The Scranton airman died when Germans shot down his B-17 bomber near Frankfurt in the waning months of World War II.

It’s the story the War Department told his parents and the public when Prokop’s body returned to the city for burial in 1949, and it was the only story Ann Spearmint, 91, ever heard about her brother’s death.

As the city of Hanau, Germany, prepares to honor the memory of Prokop and two other Army Air Forces members later this month, details have emerged that are rewriting that story, adding a new layer of tragedy.

What historians in Hanau discovered — and what has been disclosed to Spearmint and the rest of her family for the first time — is that Joseph Prokop, then 22, survived the downing of the bomber only to be captured by the Germans and summarily executed after a Gestapo officer learned one of his crewmates was Jewish.