Miner Points…

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/archivesearch/local_story_128204320.html

Talk about fascinating: Sitting across from Heinrich Willert, an officer in the German Luftwaffe during World War II who was captured and eventually held at Fort Niagara until the war was over, was a great experience. Willert wanted to stay in America after the war was over, but he was sent back to Germany, where he was forced to stay for decades on the Soviet-controlled side of the Berlin Wall.

Finally, more than sixty years later, Willert traveled back to the United States with the help of his grandson, who also lives in Germany but went to high school in Connecticut and took college courses in Texas — a trip Willert said he’s always wanted to take

It was myself, Gretchen Duling and her husband Dennis, a Canisius College professor and several other interested people who sat and listened Wednesday as Willert recounted his experiences at the Dulings’ riverfront home in Youngstown. At times, Willert struggled understanding questions in English, but generally speaking his account of his experiences were remarkably lucid and captivating.

Later in the interview, you could feel the collective focus of the room on Willert as he described his confrontation with a farmer under whom he was working on the day in May 1945 when Germany surrendered. The two made up and ate a meal together. Afterward, the farmer brought Willert a cigarette and the two smoked together — a German prisoner of war headed back to the destruction of post-World War II Europe and an American farmer probably set to reap the rewards of his country’s newfound position of power and responsibility in the world. It must have been a remarkable scene.