World WAR II memorabilia a reminder of horrifying events










Joel Gain of Petersburg keeps this whip for
a number of reasons. It belonged to his favorite
uncle who brought it home from Germany after
World War II. Dave Bakke/The State Journal-Register


(Illinois State Journal Springfield) Joel Gain keeps a piece of World War II with him in Petersburg. It’s something that belonged to his favorite uncle, Russell Everman. It is a symbol, not only of his uncle Russell, but of something more powerful.

Russell was 85 when he died 12 years ago. Joel and his brother Allen, who lives in Springfield, went to see him at his home in Urbana. They didn’t know it at the time, but Russell would be dead within a year.

They were sitting at a table, visiting, when Russell got this faraway look in his eye. “Well,” he began, “it was in the spring of 1945 when the war was winding up. It was evening time …”

Joel didn’t know where this was headed, but it seemed important for Russell to tell the story.

During World War II, Russell was in his 30s, older than the others in his outfit. He had already been a deputy sheriff and a private detective before he signed up for the war. As a result of his age and experience, the other guys called him Pappy.

As the war entered its final stages, his outfit had pushed into Germany and was rolling through the countryside. A scout who had been sent ahead returned to report that they were approaching a valley with some buildings at the bottom. Russell took some of the guys and a .50-caliber machine gun to the overlook. They put a couple of rounds through one of the buildings, and German soldiers came pouring out, lining up to surrender. They knew it was over and there was no sense in getting killed now.

But there was another building at the bottom of that valley. It was surrounded by wire and its door was locked. Of course, none of the German soldiers professed to know what was inside. None of them had a key.

The Americans shot the locks off the building and found inside a crowd of women in horrible physical condition. The Americans had discovered a slave labor camp. The women there had been forced to work in the fields around the camp, and some had been tortured.

This was the story Russell told his nephews that afternoon in the final year of his life.

“That’s where the whip came from,” Joel said.

That whip. Joel hadn’t seen it since he was 8 years old, but he hadn’t forgotten it. That whip was among the war memorabilia Russell had shown his nephew more than 50 years earlier. Russell kept it with the Luger, the SS uniform and the other things he brought home from the war.

Russell never realized what an impression that whip made on his young nephew, enough for him to remember it so many decades later.

“The fact that I remembered it disturbed him,” Joel says. “He didn’t want to think about it. His lips tightened up like you’d zip a zipper on a purse.”

Joel asked his uncle if he would get that whip and show it to Allen. Russell got up from the table, briefly went to another room, returned and said he couldn’t find it. And then changed the subject.

For some reason, he had to tell that story that day. He might have regretted his decision, but no more was ever said about it.

After Russell’s death, Joel got a call from Russell’s niece, who was executor of the estate. She asked if Joel or his brothers wanted anything of Russell’s.

“I called my brother, Jeff,” says Joel. “We drove over there to Philo where she lives. They had his gun case. It was about a foot deep, dark at the bottom. I was rummaging around and I pulled that whip out of there.

“This,” Joel said, “is mine.” He knew exactly where it came from.

Joel has gone public with this story only once before when he related it to the Petersburg Kiwanis Club. He brought the whip that day to show the members. Normally, he keeps it in a box at home.

He keeps the whip the Nazis used on the women laborers at the camp for a lot of reasons.

For his favorite uncle.

For those women in the camp.

For those who say it never happened.

And for the future.