HELNO-GAL: A Survivor's Story of World War II and the Infamous Stalag 17 by Walter Ram

Walter Ram, a docent here at the 390th, is sharing his story with us.

This is the incredible story of Walter Ram, the HELNO-GAL’s radio operator and one of the four who were captured. Walter spent the rest of the war as a POW in the infamous Nazi prison camp, Stalag 17, where he suffered cold, hunger, and the constant threat of being shot by guards.

This is also the story of Walter’s recovery from the anguish of his POW memories, and how he finally revealed them to therapists and his family 35 years after the war ended. Slowly shedding his PTSD, Walter began to open up to news reporters and, whenever possible, audiences old and young. Doing so allowed him to find a path to being grateful for having survived. “A coin,” he writes here, “has two sides”; in this book, Walter describes both of them.