[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E207-E208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         IN RECOGNITION OF STAFF SERGEANT JOSEPH EUGENE PROKOP

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. MATT CARTWRIGHT

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 25, 2020

  Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Staff 
Sergeant Joseph Eugene Prokop, a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who 
bravely served his country in the U.S. Army during World War II and was 
tragically executed by the German Gestapo along with two of his fellow 
airmen.
  Staff Sergeant Prokop, son of John and Anna Prokop, enlisted in the 
army in 1939 at the age of seventeen. In 1945 near the end of World War 
II, while on his fiftieth mission in the air corps, the B-17 bomber he 
was manning took anti-aircraft fire over Frankfurt, Germany and crashed 
in the city of Hanau. Until recently, it was believed that Prokop and 
the rest of the plane's crew died in the crash.
  However, historians in Hanau recently discovered that Prokop and two 
of his fellow airmen--Technical Sergeant Charles Bernard Goldstein and 
Technical Sergeant Warren George Hammond--survived the attack but were 
subsequently captured by Hanau police and turned over to the Gestapo. 
Upon learning that one of the three men was Jewish, a Gestapo director 
ordered all three men to be executed.

[[Page E208]]

  Following this discovery, the German Consulate sought to contact 
Staff Sergeant Prokop's surviving family to inform them of the true 
cause of his death and extend an offer to honor him in his hometown as 
well as in Hanau.
  On February 17, 2020--the seventy-fifth anniversary of the killings--
Staff Sergeant Prokop was honored with a remembrance service organized 
by the General Theodore J. Wint Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 25 at his 
gravesite at the Scranton Cathedral Cemetery. His sister, Ann 
Spearmint, was in attendance. That same day, the city of Hanau, Germany 
memorialized Prokop and his fellow airmen by erecting a plaque at the 
site of their execution.
  It is an honor to recognize Staff Sergeant Prokop, who made the 
ultimate sacrifice for our nation at a perilous time in our world's 
history. May his commitment to defending the United States and the 
democratic world order never be forgotten.

                          ____________________