Photo by Charmain Z. Brackett Sohrens Lorenz, the deputy general counsel to the German Consulate in Atlanta, adjusts the ribbon on a wreath placed at the graves of 21 German Prisoners of War Monday at Fort Gordon. Monday’s brief ceremony honoring German and Italian Prisoners of War was an emotional one for Mrs. Leroy Connor of the Italian Consulate.

Born in 1941, Connor said she knew the pain the families of these fallen Soldiers must have felt as many in her own family left for war never to be heard from again.

“I find it very emotional to be here in honor of the uncles who never came home,” she said.

Each year, around the German holiday of Volkstrauertag, the German National Day of Mourning, Fort Gordon holds a ceremony honoring those POWs who died on American soil and were buried at Fort Gordon.

“It’s a noble tradition to honor the German and Italian Soldiers here,” said Sohrens Lorenz, deputy general counsel to the German Consulate in Atlanta.

For a few moments, he reflected upon the war which brought those Soldiers to foreign soil.

“What causes nations which lived at peace to go to war? How could educated citizens commit atrocities against other educated citizens?,” he said.

His native land and people have suffered for these atrocities, he said.

“Germans have paid a very high price for being betrayed by their leaders. We needed the Allied nations to bring my country back into the civilized communities. The German POWs were witness to these efforts,” he said.

The Allied nations “worked hand in hand for peace,” he said.

“It seems as if we are heading the right direction,” he said.

An integral part of the ceremony was a wreath-laying with the playing of Taps and a gun-salute.

There are 21 Germans and one Italian Soldier buried at Fort Gordon in a cemetery near Gate 2.