This month, Israel will honor Roddie Edmonds, the first U.S. soldier to be recognized among those called Righteous Among The Nations. The recognition is for an extraordinary act of courage in January 1945 in a German POW camp, an act where Edmonds stood face to face with pure evil and refused to yield.
Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tenn., was a noncommissioned officer who participated in the landing of U.S. forces in Europe and was later captured in the Battle of the Bulge. That alone is an extraordinary accomplishment as a combat record. He became the highest ranking American soldier at a German POW camp near Ziegenhain.
Some seventy years ago, the Germans demanded that Jewish GIs step forward. It was clear what they intended to do with them. Edmonds ordered all of the U.S. soldiers to step forward and hundreds did. Edmonds said “We are all Jews.”
The commander was irate and said that they could not all be Jews and put a gun to Edmonds’ head and said “I’ll give you one more chance. Have the Jewish men step forward or I will shoot you on the spot.” Edmonds refused and responded “If you shoot, you’ll have to shoot us all.”
The Germans backed down and the Jewish GIs were saved.
Seventy years later, Edmonds is now one of only five Americans to have received this honor. It is well deserved. It is a shame that not everyone one of those American POWs cannot be similarly named and honored. Every man followed Edmonds in an act of defiance that defines not just who the Germans were but who we were. As we struggle in the face of terrorist attacks at home and abroad, it is a scene that should give all Americans strength that we have previously faced evil and prevail — not simply by strength of arms but by the strength of our national character and values.
Source: NPR
This story brought tears to my eyes. Every single one of those GIs were so brave. Especially since this came at a time when antisemitism was common across Europe and America.
What courage to face up to those Nazi monsters.
The fact is that the UN had printed leaflets telling all German soldiers that there would be war crime trials after the war. So every German knew what was going to happen to them after the war, and Churchill made it clear, the locals who had been harmed were going to be the ones conducting the trials. They did this to try and stop some of the more murderous activities the Nazis were carrying out.
It is a great story about the Greatest Generation and how they acted in adversity. It should serve to remind us that we are all in this together.
Did a SINGLE Russian get honored for being the cannon fodder that really defeated the Third Reich? Over 20 Million casualties military and civilian, that’s how many died. Counted conservatively.
How many Russians on Yad Vasshem’s list of 25, 000 or so award recipients?
189.
The rest? Their lives “did not live up to the fingernail of one rabbi.”
[“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail,” Rabbi Yaacov Perrin]
I beg to differ.
We are all Africans.
All trails lead back to Africa.
May I say, even “Native Americans” are Africans.
(Imagine, nomads, who were Asiatic by DNA, roaming the “new world” before the existence of anything American was ever contemplated, are now “Americans,” people who were actually their mortal enemies).
Let me check with my POLITICAL OFFICER, THE COMMISSAR FROM THE PRESIDIUM, to receive a determination whether that was POLITICALLY CORRECT.
Thank you, Comrade Commissar, AKA Community Organizer.
P.S. Newspeak of the Brave New World. Can it be, coherence and rationality are lost and gone forever, never to be recovered?
P.P.S. Funny thing, God didn’t exist when Lucy, the prime progenitor, and subsequent generations inhabited Africa.
Paul Schulte
AP reports:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/95e629f3cd2b46e6a208cf0357f53370/late-wwii-us-veteran-1st-soldier-honored-saving-jews
Ash – I would like to see a cite to the original order that Edmonds was given regarding Jewish soldiers. BTW, Edmonds doesn’t decide who gets tried for war crimes.
John Smith: Amen!
I don’t cheer anything or anyone that promotes war and death for any cause. I would cheer anyone who defied war by refusing to serve, as many did and do today. “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
Volumes of books suggest and chronicle that the entire goal and stated purpose of WW2 was to invent a reason for the USA and the League of (United) Nations to create, by threat of force, the current racist, bigoted, most hated nation on earth, Israel.
My understanding is that Hitler agreed to a truce to end German military excursion, long before Pearl Harbor, that would have saved about 100M innocent lives. But such truce would have avoided the fabricated justification for Israel, being the alleged need for a “Jewish home land.”
I would challenge any reader to contradict Major General Smedley Butler’s claim, at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in history, that “War is a racket.” I agree w/Butler that wars are fought exclusively to enrich TPTB, primarily bankers who make money off the ensuing debt.
I abhor any post like this which tends to glorify persons who participate in war for money interests.
BTW, as I posted prior, to this day (Google it), Rabbis claim that Hitler and the alleged “holocaust” was _od’s revenge on Judaics for turning away from the Rabbis. It’s of historical interest that the Rabbis play both sides of the fence, simultaneously decrying innocent Judaic death while glorifying _od for killing those who turn away from Judaism and who stopped supporting parasitical Rabbis.
It’s also critical to note the small ratio of Rabbis who decry Zionism and proclaim that Zionism is against _od and Judaism.
My father had a friend who was a Polish Jewish American, captured in WW2 in Europe. He spent 2 years in a POW camp. After the war, these men kept in touch and would have reunions every 5 years. Back in the early 80’s, when I was living in Chicago, they had a reunion there. Phil invited me to attend a cocktail reception. He introduced me to many of his fellow prisoners, most all had Jewish names. Phil did not practice Judaism. His father was Polish and they were Catholics. Phil had a Polish name. But, there was little doubt this was a POW prison w/ Jews segregated from other POW’s. These guys contend they were treated more brutally, based on conversations w/ POW’s from other prisons. Every reunion, they invited one German guard who treated them humanely. I met the man, but he spoke little English and I, no German. One guy told me that most everyone who was in their prison was circumcised.
It sounds to me that this was the first step in segregating Jewish-American POW’s. The problem w/ documenting the worse treatment of Jewish Allied POW’s is two fold. The Allies were trying to move on from WW2, both in the atrocities of Germany and Japan. But, more so, these citizen soldiers do not whine or feel like victims. They did not allow this trauma to define them. They were/are the antithesis of our current victim culture.
Reminded me of the story of why there is a star of David on the back of the one dollar bill
I pray that all of us may learn to have the same courage to stand with our fellow men.
John Smith: I probably wouldn’t have done what Edmonds and his fellow POWs did, either, I don’t know that my balls are big enough. With any luck, I won’t have to find out.
What Olly wrote.
This is a story of humility uncommon in today’s culture. One only needs to look at John Smith’s post as evidence that many do not recognize the importance of this virtue in the continuation of civil society.
When I was in the US Army they put your religion on your dog tags-that was probably true in WW II as well. Why didn’t the Germans simply examine them? Also, didn’t those POWs come from a variety of units? If so, it seems unlikely that Edmonds was able to learn and memorize the ethnic/religious background of every POW in the group (hundreds, NPR says) during the short time (about a month) he had been there (Assuming he considered this important). Recall that the Allies deliberately tried to avoid projecting any idea that the war was about “saving the Jews.”
fnn – since Edmonds was captured during the Battle of the Bulge he would have been familiar with the massacre at Malmady (sp?). He would know that the Germans were capable of gunning down unarmed soldiers. He probably would not know about any of the POW camps, concentration camps or extermination camps. Most of those will be found after he is captured.
To be willing to sacrifice your life to save the lives of others, or conversely not willing to sacrifice others to save your own life, takes true altruism. I am sure he was not thinking about receiving some award for his actions, nor were any of the other fellow POWs who followed his lead.
The difference between the Germans and ISIS is that the Germans knew they would not get away with killing all of them, ISIS would not have even asked them to step forward and would have just killed them all.
john smith, while I do not agree with prejudices, I do defend your right to say them and look like a fool and bigot. Society has always been controlled by those with the biggest bank accoount, the biggest army, or the biggest stick. Where did tribalism, nationalism, and religion get us? It fostered a society of “us” versus “them” which continues to proliferate in todays society. There is no us and them, “we” are all one people and WE need to work together to solve OUR problems. Some of the things that are done in the name of a nation or religion are completely contradictory to coming together as one people on this planet. We continue to speed down the road to utter destruction of ourselves due to our perceived differences. The sooner we get over our differences the better.
This is an inspirational story of real heroism. Something, on which we should all think, especially, in times of trouble.
A noble man indeed. But why him and why the honor? Its not about him its about encouraging goyim to die for Jews.
“Seventy years later, Edmonds is now one of only five Americans to have received this honor.”….. see the other millions that have died the past 75 years making the world safe for Zion were just cannon fodder not worthy of the special gold star they paste to this goy’s memorial.
This is just propaganda. Which “nation” lost more lives in WW2, Jews or Russians?
And understandand the American tradition of humanism and equality has one purpose: to act as force of dissolution, divide all social molecules into atomized individuals, so that the rich men who control America since rich Jefferson penned his propaganda, so that those rich men could use their riches with more “Freedom” that was previously hemmed in by tribe, nation, and religion. To destroy those covalent bonds of society, so that money and the man who owns it would have maximum power.
Thats ALL it is still about, and the Jews know this and play along with it because they are the richest tribe, person for person on Earth, and they have been in league with the greediest nation in history, America.
Good story. I heard about this years ago. I wonder how that will go down in San Bernadino when the riot squad shows up and asks all the friggin Muslims to stand up and step forward.
Character is character regardless of how it may be packaged. Very cool in practice, but also relatively rare – which is why it is well appreciated when witnessed.
In the finest tradition of American NCOs.
Good on all of them!!!