One morning two years ago, Jeff Wiggins was sitting in his New Fairfield home when his wife answered the phone. An everyday occurrence, but during the conversation that followed she said a word that made his blood run cold: "Margraten."
It was a word Wiggins, 86, had not heard nor spoken to anyone for almost 65 years -- not even Janice, his wife of 42 years. Sixty-five years of nightmares, haunted memories and trying unsuccessfully to forget.
Margraten is a small village in the Netherlands. It had a population of 1,300 people in 1944, when it became the site of a massive graveyard for Allied soldiers. By the war's end, 28,000 soldiers had been buried there.
Wiggins, who is originally from Alabama, is the only known survivor of a group of 280 black American servicemen who worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, digging those graves.
In harsh weather and muddy conditions, they buried the mutilated corpses of young soldier after young soldier.
The phone call Wiggins got two years ago was...
Read more at the CTPOST.com
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