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Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 19:42:16 -0400
To: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Andrew Reeves <andrew.reeves &AElig wayne.edu>
Subject: Pope Benendict XVI
Status: O

NEWSWEEK magazine, current issue, contains a story on the early life of
the new Pope and I quote from page 46 the following paragraph:

    "During the war, Ratzinger's firsthand experience with the 
     German military were a boy's grim chronicles of helplessness
     and defeat. He had entered seminary at the age of 12, but was 
     compelled to join the local Hitler Youth in 1941, when he was
     14. At 17, he was building earthworks and tank traps alongside
     Jewish forced laborers near the Austro-Hungarian border."
         
I was one of those Jewish forced laborers in the village of Fertorakos 
from November 1944 until March 1945 (for details, see Chapter 5 of my
autobiography, section entitled "Slave Labor on the South-East Wall")
and I can assure you with absolute certainty that no Gentile persons of 
any sort were "working alongside" us. The very idea would have appeared 
preposterous; we were treated and housed worse than animals. There were 
uniformed young kids among our SUPERVISORS, and I can tell you that 
typically they were just as cruel, hateful, and meanspirited as their 
elders--sometimes more so. Of course, there were some exceptions too, 
and once I even got a cupful of extra food from one of them. In any 
case, misrepresenting this experience as "working alongside" us is an 
outrageous insult which is not what one would expect from the POPE!!! 

Danny's Grandpa Andrew