Documentary meets CGI animation to bring Holocaust story to life

What would you do if you were tasked with interrogating some of Hitler’s top scientists and Nazi officers? That’s the position many German-speaking Jewish men found themselves in when they escaped to America from Europe. While they joined the American army to hopefully return to Europe and fight the Nazis in person, they instead found themselves at a secret POW camp just outside of Washington DC.

Known as P.O Box 1142, the camp housed German prisoners of war, including Wenher von Braun, the inventor of the V-2 rocket.

For 50 years, the camp was s secret.

Now, a documentary using interviews from the men stationed at 1142 and haunting CGI animation, is bringing the story to light.

Using interviews with some of the Jewish soldiers themselves, Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis shares that when refugees from Europe arrived on US soil, many of them were ready and willing to fight the enemy, the Germans.

But the US chose to use their German language to their advantage, putting the soldiers on a boarded-up bus and sending them to a remote camp. It’s described as a sort of ‘country club’ with a pool, tennis courts and vast green areas. The interviewees share that they soon realised their assignment was to gather intelligence from the high-ranking officials, specifically related to the German V-2 rockets.

Nearly 4000 prisoners of war, mostly German scientists and officers, were brought through the camp for questioning. Behind the gates, Jewish soldiers were using their wits and their words to reveal secrets in rocketry, microwave technology and submarine tactics.

While the war eventually ended, the assignment didn’t. The US brought in several German scientists, including von Braun, and the Jewish men were tasked with finding out information by any means necessary. While usually this would imply force, at P.O Box 1142, this meant being friendly with the Nazis so they would eventually lower their guard, share some information, or even agree to work for the American weapons and space program.

The Jewish officers were told to play games of chess or tennis, and schmooze them by taking them to the cinema or to town to buy presents for their families back home.

Of course, the problematic nature of this assignment was not lost on the Jewish officers. The Nazis they were chumming around with were some of the most horrendous, and many of the Jewish officers had seen their families and friends murdered by the very kind of people sitting before them.

“As a Jewish refugee from Europe, that was about a bizarre assignment that you could get,” one of the soldiers said in the documentary.

What’s interesting about the documentary is the use of CGI animation which vividly brings the memories and emotions of the soldiers to life. It shows the difficulty the soldiers faced, trying to remain loyal to their new country, which provided them freedom and opportunity, yet grappling with the rage they felt against the people they were befriending. Many argue that it was a cruel, inhumane and even humiliating assignment.

The information about P.O Box 1142 was declassified in 2000. By 2006, the soldiers were sharing their story. And still, in 2022, their anger is palpable.

Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis is now streaming on Netflix.