"We are all Jews here" (1 Viewer)

[BLReed]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/12/02/israel-to-honor-late-world-war-ii-veteran-who-protected-jews-at-nazi-pow-camp/?intcmp=hplnws

2 December 2015
JERUSALEM – The Nazi soldiers made their orders very clear: Jewish American prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate.

But Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds would have none of that. As the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer held in the German POW camp, he ordered more than 1,000 Americans captives to step forward with him and brazenly pronounced: "We are all Jews here."

He would not waver, even with a pistol to his head, and his captors eventually backed down.

Seventy years later, the Knoxville, Tennessee, native is being posthumously recognized with Israel's highest honor for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II. He's the first American serviceman to earn the honor.

"Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds seemed like an ordinary American soldier, but he had an extraordinary sense of responsibility and dedication to his fellow human beings," said Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial. "The choices and actions of Master Sgt. Edmonds set an example for his fellow American soldiers as they stood united against the barbaric evil of the Nazis."

It's a story that remained untold for decades and one that his son, the Rev. Chris Edmonds, only discovered long after his father's death in 1985.

Edmonds was captured with thousands of others in the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944 and spent 100 days in captivity. His son vaguely knew about his father's past from a pair of diaries Edmonds kept in captivity that included the names and addresses of his men and some of his daily thoughts.

But it was only while scouring the Internet a few years ago that he began to unravel the true drama that had unfolded -- oddly enough, when he read a newspaper article about Richard Nixon's post-presidency search for a New York home. As it happened, Nixon purchased his exclusive upper East Side town house from Lester Tanner, a prominent New York lawyer who mentioned in passing how Edmonds had saved him and dozens of other Jews during the war.

That sparked a search for Tanner, who along with another Jewish POW, Paul Stern, told the younger Edmonds what they witnessed on Jan. 27, 1945, at the Stalag IXA POW camp near Ziegenhain, Germany.

The Wehrmacht had a strict anti-Jew policy and segregated Jewish POWs from non-Jews. On the eastern front, captured Jewish soldiers in the Russian army had been sent to extermination camps.

At the time of Edmonds' capture, the most infamous Nazi death camps were no longer fully operational, so Jewish American POWs were instead sent to slave labor camps where their chances of survival were low. U.S. soldiers had been warned that Jewish fighters among them would be in danger if captured and were told to destroy dog tags or any other evidence identifying them as Jewish.

So when the German camp commander, speaking in English, ordered the Jews to identify themselves, Edmonds knew what was at stake.

Turning to the rest of the POWs, he said: "We are not doing that, we are all falling out," recalled Chris Edmonds, who is currently in Israel participating in a seminar for Christian leaders at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies.

With all the camp's inmates defiantly standing in front of their barracks, the German commander turned to Edmonds and said: "They cannot all be Jews." To which Edmonds replied: "We are all Jews here."

Then the Nazi officer pressed his pistol to Edmonds head and offered him one last chance. Edmonds merely gave him his name, rank and serial number as required by the Geneva Conventions.

"And then my dad said: `If you are going to shoot, you are going to have to shoot all of us because we know who you are and you'll be tried for war crimes when we win this war,"' recalled Chris Edmonds, who estimates his father's actions saved the lives of more than 200 Jewish-American soldiers.

 

[Napoleon1er]

WOW. As a Jew in the Army, this really hits home.

 

[larso]

What a great story - thanks for posting this!

 

[farmertony]

Terrific story-shows what happens when ordinary people stand up.Master Sgt Edmonds-well done that man.

 

[Poppo]

"Jewish american prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate". Really? I have never heard neither read about this about american POW.
About the russian prisoners, well, not only the jewish ones were exterminated by the nazi...

 

[jazzeum]

I doubt Israel would be giving him an award if it was in the slightest bit untrue.

 

[Napoleon1er]

"Jewish american prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate". Really? I have never heard neither read about this about american POW.
About the russian prisoners, well, not only the jewish ones were exterminated by the nazi...

As I understand it, it was not universal, but it was not uncommon. As to the uncertain fate, I believe that while it was more common for the Jewish POWs to be used for slave labor tasks instead of standard POW labor. I may be wrong on both of these points, but that is what I recall.

 

[larso]

This happened to one of the US soldiers in my memoir reading. He was in the 43rd Tank Battalion which was destroyed during the Norwind offensive. He was almost machine-gunned 'Malmedy' style after capture but while he was luckily spared this, his 10SS captures beat him up pretty good. The following bit is from my Amazon review -

Due to his name "Muschell is unlucky enough to be suspected of being Jewish and he is assigned to a work detail rather than being allowed to sit the war out in a POW camp. He has a pretty horrendous time in Hannover. It is heavily bombed and he is guarded by very brutal SS guards. There is virtually no food and he suffers considerably from trench foot. The worst part was a horrendous train journey that almost defies belief."

I can't recall a specific instance from him but surely other Jewish or suspected Jewish soldiers would've died at some point in the process. He had some very close calls and he wasn't actually Jewish.