re: #86 Cato the Elder

I am currently reading Allis and Ron Radosh’s A Safe Haven, and it recounts a similar story about Patton and his disgust for Jewish DPs (but note too that the British and US were awful in dealing with Jewish displaced persons for far too long, and often put them in close contact with Germans some of which were Nazis and managed to evade detection.

From page 73 of the book:

Patton’s Third Army controlled the southern zone, where most Jewish DPs were to be found. The camps Patton was responsible for had barbed wire and were patrolled by armed guards. Patton wrote in his diary on September 15 that others “believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are lower than animals.” The Jews had to be kept under armed guard, Patton explained, otherwise they would flee, “spread over the country like locusts,” and then be rounded up and some of them shot, only after they had “murdered and pillaged” innocent Germans.