(WSVN) – The daddy of a South Florida lady was imprisoned by the Nazis throughout World Conflict II. Eighty years later, she bought to actually stroll in his footsteps. 7’s Tavares Jones shines the Highlight on their story.
Again in her South Florida apartment, Marilyn Johansen has time to replicate.
Marilyn Johansen, daughter of World Conflict II prisoner of battle: “There have been many people that had an emotional expertise. We felt our fathers with us in these moments.”
Moments Marilyn and her son skilled final month, about 5,000 miles away in Poland, and moments that related generations.
Marilyn Johansen: “My father, Eugene Francis Phillips, was an Air Power officer. He was a serious. My father served by way of World Conflict II, Korea, Chilly Conflict and Vietnam. One thing in him needed to fly.”
In 1943, 2nd Lt. Phillips was preventing the Nazis in Italy when his aircraft was shot down.
Marilyn Johansen: “He was knocked unconscious. The aircraft was on hearth. He was burned.”
Then he was captured.
A telegram despatched to his mom in Ohio learn: “Your son” is “a prisoner of battle.”
Marilyn Johansen: “The Germans fed them rotten potatoes and cabbage and sometimes a chunk of meat.”
For 15 months, 2nd Lt. Phillips was imprisoned at Stalag Luft III, an notorious Nazi POW camp. Close to the top of World Conflict II, Hitler ordered the camp be evacuated. The airmen have been pressured to stroll day after day in sub-zero temperatures in what could be referred to as “The Lengthy March.”
Marilyn Johansen: “Hitler was pondering he would use these POWs as a bargaining chip. My father’s camp had 10,500 males in it. On the march, some males died.”
That was January of 1945.
Howard de Lester, occasion organizer: “Lengthy March, eightieth anniversary and a really particular occasion.”
This was January of 2025.
Howard de Lester: “To start the arduous, 60-plus miles by way of the countryside.”
Kinfolk of the late POWs joined members of the U.S., Polish and British armed forces to comply with their actual route.
Howard de Lester: “The size of the column would symbolize the prisoners of battle in 1945. Situations have been perilous.”
Marilyn Johansen: “That is the place he nearly starved to dying. It was brutal. All of us knew that after we marched: That in the event that they hadn’t survived, none of us would have been right here.”
Marilyn’s dad did survive and after being liberated, the telegram residence learn: “Your son … is being returned to the USA.”
Marilyn Johansen: “He was emaciated, after which he had frostbite and he had, you realize, burns from his face.”
eightieth anniversary march video: “The battle marks a darkish chapter in our historical past.”
On the finish of an occasion marking the previous was a warning in regards to the future.
eightieth anniversary march video: “With this march, you additionally wish to warn our world to not repeat our historical past. As troopers of various nations, you stand for the safety of freedom and peace.”
Marilyn Johansen: “My father would say to me, ‘If you happen to don’t examine historical past, you’re destined to repeat it.’ He taught me that we be taught by way of adversity, that life is stuffed with classes. He gave me the silver lining of a horrible, horrible factor that occurred.”
Marilyn not too long ago launched a memoir about rising up in a army household, referred to as “My Father’s Secrets and techniques.” Her father, who was awarded the Prisoner of Conflict medal and a Purple Coronary heart, handed away again in 1990, however his legacy lives on.
Tavares Jones, 7News.
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