US Memorial Wereth

by , KilroyTrip

The Wereth Memorial pays tribute to the soldiers murdered by a Waffen SS unit on December 17, 1944.The Wereth Massacre was a war crime committed on December 17, 1944 by German soldiers during the World War II against eleven African-American soldiers of the 333rd Artillery Battalion . During the Battle of the Bulge, overwhelmed by the German advance, the 11 G.I's were captured by a Waffen-SS unit. They were executed after being savagely tortured at Wereth in the Belgian Ardennes.This war crime was largely ignored by historians and public opinion, whether Belgian, European or American.However, its memory has endured thanks to the action of the Langer family, who sheltered the 11 men on the afternoon of December 17, 1944. Since 2004, an official monument has stood at the site of the massacre and has been the object of commemorations in memory of the 11 men and, more generally, of the African-American soldiers who died in combat during the Second World War.Source WikipediaPhoto credit US Major James L. Baldwin and Par Saber68