Jean THOMAS

DoB: 25 March 1920.

On the eve of World War II, Jean THOMAS enlisted in the 39th Infantry Regiment, based in Rouen, Normandy. During the German invasion, on 14 May 1940, he fought against General Rommel's troops crossing the River Meuse in Belgium. As a result of his actions he was promoted to sergeant and awarded the War Cross. Having been captured as a Prisoner of War (POW) he was sent to a Stalag Prison Camp¹ before being transferred to a Kommando in Upper Silesia. He escaped from there, but was recaptured after five nights on the run.

"Too often people forget that this camp and the others who followed it were not aimed at subjugating foreigners (the first after the invasions were brought there after 1939), but that of the citizens of Germany, who had the courage to rebel against the Nazi regime "

Dee Eberhart was one of the liberators

of the 42the Rainbow division of the U.S. Army,

who was there when liberation finally came for Dachau.

Dee R. Eberhart, Rifleman, 1st Scout,

Company I, 242nd Infantry Regiment,

42nd Rainbow Division, on the morning of May 3, 1945,

east of Munich shortly before our assault boat crossing of the Inn River.

Photo taken by Jack Parry, a buddy in my squad, with a box camera borrowed from a Bavarian farm house.

It was crisis and my parents did not know 

that somewhere deep down in Germany on March 21,

1933, the Dachau concentration camp was opening its doors.

They married on September 26, 1934 and ran their own glue factory,

"Perfecta", later called "Bisonkit". Financially it was not a good time.

My father went on a bike from The Hague to the shoe factories in Brabant and explains how easy it is to paste soles instead of using nails and stitching. My mom does the accounting and is his secretary. They may at some point sell the business to Italians but with a fascist country you do not do business. (ironically, the factory was sold to Italian investors some years ago) So they sell it to someone in Goes, who has no understanding of chemistry but where has money. My father then is employed elswhere. On 21 December 1940 their first daughter Kitty was born.