All language subtitles for GI JEWS-Jewish Americans in World War II-2017

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-It was 1937.
I was 13 years old.

We had a baseball team, just
a bunch of kids in a sandlot.

We called ourselves
the Spartans,

growing up there in Sea Gate
and Coney Island.

We had the beach.

We had the ocean,
barefoot all summer long.

While on May 4th,
the German airship Hindenburg

came across from Germany,

and it came right over
the ball field

that we were playing on.

It had a big swastika
on the tail,

so we picked up bricks
and rocks and threw it at it.

It was that swastika.

We could connect with
what was happening in Germany

with Hitler.

Sea Gate at that point
was largely Jewish.

Everybody knew
about the Germans.

The extent of their viciousness,
that was another matter.

That was another matter.

♪♪

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-More than half a million
Jewish Americans

served in the U.S. Armed Forces
during World War II.

-As Americans and as Jews,

we realized that we
had to protect

what we have in this country --

liberty,
freedom of religion and speech,

and as Jews, we did what
they thought we couldn't do.

-They were rich and poor,

urban and rural,

religious and secular.

Most were the children
of immigrants

who had escaped
persecution in Europe

and were welcomed
onto America's shores.

Now, they would return
to battle the hatred

that their parents had fled.

They would endure
anti-Semitic slurs

from their fellow servicemen

and be forced to prove that
they were also true Americans.

-My fellow soldiers wanted
to know,

"How on Earth did you wind up

in the infantry
on the front lines?

You're Jewish."

I said, "Because I wanted
to be there."

-Like all Americans,
they fought against fascism,

but they also fought
a more personal fight:

to save their
brethren in Europe.

-We went to war
to destroy the Nazis,

and that was a mission
for all of us.

We went to war
to save the world.

-They would come home changed

and would continue the fight
for equality

and tolerance in America.

-Hundreds of thousands of Jews
returned to the United States

and changed the people
around them.

It was a transformative moment

in the history
of the United States

and the history
of American Jews.

♪♪

-We were there for a reason:

to reclaim who we were...

and not to forget who we were
and where we came from.

That's why we went.

♪♪

♪♪

-In the 1930s, 4 million Jews
lived in America,

half of them in New York City.

♪♪

-I came from
Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

Families were clustered
together in tenements.

Like, my aunt Jenny
was on the third floor.

My grandmother
was across the hall.

You know, in those days,
most of Brooklyn could've been

a suburb of Kiev, you know?

-I was born in...Poland.

When I was 4 years old,

we came to the States.

This country is a land
of milk and honey.

-Jews in the United States were
free to practice their religion,

and inside their communities,

they lived a rich
and open Jewish life,

but outside their neighborhoods,

they discovered
an American society

that was often hostile
and suspicious.

♪♪

-I grew up in The Bronx.

In my neighborhood,
it was very Jewish,

so we felt very secure there.

However, when I started
going to junior high school,

I had to walk from 183
Street down 189th Street,

and the very first year,

I was accosted by an Italian
gentleman who took my money,

and I could hear the word
"Jew, kike," whatever.

-There was a great deal of
anti-Semitism in the 1930s.

A lot of large companies
would not employ Jews.

There were whole neighborhoods
where they could not live.

Many schools limited
the number of Jewish students

who could attend,

and lots of hotels,
country clubs

did not admit Jews at all.

[ Children shouting ]

-I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

and I was the only Jew
in the school.

I remember in the third grade,
suddenly,

the children
weren't playing with me,

and I didn't know why,
and I asked one of the kids,

and he said, "Well, the teacher
said you're a Jew.

We're not supposed
to play with you."

That was a very
anti-Semitic period.

-In January 1933, Adolf Hitler
and the Nazi Party

rose to power in Germany.

From the beginning,
their ideology was steeped

in racial hatred
and anti-Semitism.

German Jews were segregated
from the rest of society,

their businesses marked
with a Jewish star.

And in 1935, the Nuremberg Laws
defined Jews as a separate race

and stripped them
of their citizenship.

-I grew up in Munich.

There was a general
boycott of Jews,

and most Jewish stores
were closed.

When I was 16 years old,
I was kicked out of school.

All the Jewish kids
were kicked out.

-My father was a teacher.

Hitler came to power,

and my father lost his position.

My mother decided her children
would have no future in Germany,

and we emigrated in 1938,

just before the persecution
turned deadly.

-[ Speaking German ]

♪♪

-On November 9, 1938,

Hitler's campaign
against the Jews

escalated into violence.

The Nazis burned more
than 200 synagogues

and destroyed thousands
of Jewish businesses

in what would become
known as Kristallnacht,

"The Night of Broken Glass."

Thousands of Jews fled Germany,
afraid for their lives.

-One day,
my brother Isaac at 16,

and I at 14, we left Germany,

and little did I know,
if anybody would have told me,

"You'll return. You'll return
as an American solider,"

I would've said,
"Stop this dreaming."

-On September 1, 1939,
Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

Two days later, Britain and
France declared war on Germany.

Almost immediately, Hitler's
forces began to round up

Poland's 3.2 million Jews

and force them into ghettos.

In the next 2 years,
Hitler seized most of Europe,

marching relentlessly
through the low countries

into France, Denmark and Norway,

and deep into the Soviet Union.

There, the Nazis massacred

hundreds of thousands of Jewish
men, women and children,

the first mass killings of Jews
in German-occupied territories.

[ Gunshot ]

-The rumors were,
in the Jewish community,

Jews were being slaughtered
and, you know, and it was...

Something had to be
done about it.

-But most Americans did not
want to go to war,

until December 1941,
when everything changed.

-Me and my friends
played basketball

on December the 7th, 1941,

and as we're walking back home,
all of a sudden,

"Extra! Read all about it!
Pearl Harbor bombed."

And we looked at each other,
and we said,

"Where in the hell
is Pearl Harbor?"

That was the beginning.

-The next day,
America entered the war.

-The day after Pearl Harbor,
I got in line.

There were two lines as far as
you could see, people enlisting.

That is Texas.
Texas is that way.

A great feeling of patriotism.

Texas, "draft" is a bad word.

You enlist.

"You drafted?"
[ Laughs ]

You don't say that.

-Well, I had seen
all the footage

of the Kristallnacht,
what the Nazis were doing,

and so I thought
I wanted to get in there

and do something about it.

They wouldn't take me
without my parents' signature,

so I got my father to sign,

and my mother wasn't
that anxious to have me do it.

♪♪

-Baseball star Hank Greenberg
joined the service

a few days after Pearl Harbor.

A hero to Jews
throughout the nation,

he had endured anti-Semitic
slurs his entire career

and famously refused
to play ball on Yom Kippur,

the holiest day
of the Jewish year.

-Greenberg is the home-run king
in the American league.

-Greenberg later said,

"I didn't pay too much attention
to Hitler at first

or any of the political
goings-on at the time,

but I came to feel that
if I, as a Jew,

hit a home run,

I was hitting one
against Hitler."

[ Cheers and applause ]

-♪ You're in the army now ♪

♪ You're not behind the plow ♪

♪ You'll never get rich
while digging a ditch ♪

♪ You're in the army now ♪

-What you had to understand,

the all-embracing
quality of that war.

It's like nothing ever since.

My older brother
was a naval officer.

Six of my older first cousins
were in the military,

including my cousin Anna, who
was a WAC, Women's Army Corps.

That was typical.

-While many Jewish men
enlisted,

many more were drafted.

In all, one half of Jewish men
old enough to serve

would join the fight.

-You got a letter
from the government.

When you opened the envelope,
I remember seeing, "Greeting,"

like you're going to
a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah,

but it was, "Greetings,"
and then you go on,

"You will report
for a physical exam."

I heard my mother talking to my
father, and I heard her say,

"Can't you do something?
Does Alan have to go?"

And when I heard that,
I got so...

I said, "Mom, if you say
that once more,

I'm running away from...
I'm leaving."

-When I went into the service,
we sang the songs.

♪ Over there, over there ♪

♪ Send the word over there ♪

♪ That the Yanks are coming ♪

♪ The Yanks are coming ♪

♪ The Yanks are coming
everywhere ♪

-♪ Over there ♪

♪ Over there ♪

♪ Send the word,
send the word ♪

-10,000 Jewish women
signed up as well...

disregarding
their parents' warning

that it was no life
for a nice Jewish girl.

-♪ Over there ♪

-They would serve as WASPs
in the Air Force,

WAVES in the Navy,

WACs in the Army

and as nurses overseas.

-♪ Over there ♪

-I wanted to be a nurse
in the Army.

My sister Dorothy and I
quit our jobs,

and if my mother knew
that we even thought

of going into a goishe army,

a gentile army, I don't know
what she would've done.

-The first taste
of military life

for the Jewish enlisted men
and women

was in training camps scattered
across the United States.

♪♪

♪♪

16 million Americans
came to basic training.

For 8 weeks, 10 hours a day,

the Jewish servicemen
prepared for combat

surrounded by men
from every part of the country.

-My basic training was in
Camp Crowder, Missouri.

I remember this,
the night we went to bed,

and across the barracks,
I hear this voice,

"Reiner. Reiner."

"Yes?"

It was one of these anti-Semitic
blondies from Louisiana,

and he said, "You a Jew?"

J, E, W, U, U, W.

"You a Jew?"

I says,
"Yes, as a matter of fact.

Why do you ask?"
And then the strange thing.

He said, "I'm from Louisiana.
You know a Jew named Goldfarb?"

I says, "No. There are many Jews
I don't know."

"You don't know Goldfarb?"
And I said, "No."

He said, "Well, he's not
a bad guy."

That was the last thing he said,
and that was it.

♪♪

-In the early 1940s,

many Americans who lived outside
major cities

had never seen a Jew
before they met one in uniform.

They had heard only
the negative stereotypes,

that Jews were unpatriotic
and shirked their military duty.

-They didn't think much of us.

Actually, they didn't think
there were any Jews in service.

I'm seventh generation
in my family

to wear an American uniform.

My great-great-grandfather
served during the Civil War.

-Jews came from
every background.

Some were recent immigrants,

and some had been in the
United States for generations.

They were Zionists, socialists,
and even pacifists.

-Jews in the military

represented
a very broad spectrum

of Jewish life.

You had Jews who were Orthodox

and observant, kept kosher.

On the other hand, you had
a whole spectrum of Jews

who were much more easygoing.

♪♪

-I never had a cheeseburger
until I got to basic training.

Jews generally weren't allowed
to mix milk and meat,

so these kids are
eating cheeseburgers,

and I ordered one and tasted it,
and I said, "This is good.

Why have the Jews denied me

this wonderful thing
called cheeseburgers?"

-We were Orthodox,
but in the army,

you couldn't observe everything.

They tried to cater
to the Jewish GIs, you know?

They even sent us some food
sometimes, like for Passover.

They used to send some matzos,
gefilte fish sometimes.

♪♪

-Far from home, many servicemen
and women

took comfort
in their religious traditions.

The Jewish Welfare Board
sent supplies,

including candles
for the Sabbath

and tens of thousands
of miniature prayer books.

♪♪

-Isaac Ashkenazi,
he was very observant.

Being Orthodox, he prayed
a couple of times a day,

and Carl Frishman and I would
just look at him and wonder,

you know, and say, "When is
the next shoe going to fall,

and when --
Is he putting us at risk?"

We thought about this.

-Many Jewish GIs feared
harassment or insults

from their fellow servicemen.

As New York City native Ed Koch
would write later,

"The entire world seemed
Jewish to me growing up.

Suddenly, being Jewish
was not the norm.

Anti-Semitism revealed
itself directly to me

for the first time,

and I did not like
what it felt like.

It wasn't only Hitler.

It was here in America."

-My bed partner
in the barracks,

I was in the upper bunk,
and he was in the lower bunk,

and we became very friendly.

At Passover, I said to him
that I'm going home to Chicago,

and he said, "You're Jewish?"

I says, "Yes. Why?"

He didn't say anything,

and for the rest of the time

that we were in the barracks,

which was approximately
6 months,

never spoke to me once.

I was so shocked and surprised
that I didn't know what to say,

and we never talked again.

-A lot of the women
in the WACs,

they were kind of tough.

I wasn't happy there
being Jewish

because sometimes the way
they talked against the Jews,

so...

I didn't advertise
the fact that I was Jewish.

-I put a picture on the wall.

We won some sectional basketball
tournament back home

because I was proud of it,
and it was myself,

a Catholic buddy of mine
and three black kids.

We all have our arms
around each other,

and the Southern boys
are walking by,

and I hear, "You got your arms
around that nigger,"

and then every day on the
bulletin board, in red letters,

"Moskin the nigger lover."

And then the next day,
it was "Moskin the kike."

I was a young soldier.

We're the good guys.

We're going over to fight
the Nazis, the bad guys,

and then I got guys,
so to speak, on my side

talking like that
about blacks and Jews.

It was something
that I didn't expect.

To me, it's shameful.

♪♪

-Many Jewish servicemen
from the North

had never witnessed
racial segregation

until they came
to basic training.

Now, they saw it all around them

in the whites-only signs
near the bases in the South,

and in the fact
that African-Americans

served in separate units.

The U.S. military had been
segregated by race

since the Civil War,

but now with more Jewish men
serving than ever before,

it would have to address

the religious hatred
within its ranks.

-Suddenly, you have several
hundred thousand Jews

in the military,

and you needed these soldiers to
assist and support one another

and not to hate one another.

The military understood
that it was in their interest

to tamp down religious prejudice

and to promote
religious cooperation.

-To smooth over
religious differences,

the military launched a campaign

promoting the three
fighting faiths,

reminding the men that they
were all in this war together.

From synagogues
across the nation,

more than half of
America's 2,000 rabbis

volunteered as chaplains.

311 received commissions.

David Max Eichhorn,

a 36-year-old rabbi
from Pennsylvania,

arrived at Camp Croft
in South Carolina in July 1942.

-My grandfather said
it was his patriotic duty.

He was an American first,

then a soldier and then a Jew.

He really felt he had
a place and a calling.

Really all the chaplains
administered

any type of religious
solace to anyone of any faith.

They were all working to help
prepare the men to go overseas

and possibly never come back.

♪♪

-Millions of young men
and women boarded troopships

to go off to war.

They were issued dog tags
stamped with their name,

their serial number,
and also their religion,

so they could receive
appropriate last rites

and burial.

"P" for Protestant.

"C" for Catholic.

"H" for Hebrew.

For Jews serving in Europe,
the H put them at greater risk.

They had heard rumors that
the Germans mistreated

or even murdered
Jewish prisoners of war.

♪♪

-My parents said to me,

"If you're captured,
get rid of your dog tags."

My father, the first time
I ever saw him cry,

I got a special pass
to come from Fort Belvoir,

and I went straight
to his office.

He said, "What are you
doing here?"

So he knew that something
was up,

and I said,
"I'm going overseas."

♪♪

And that was it.

-In January 1942,

when the first American
troops arrived overseas,

Hitler and the Axis powers,
Italy and Japan,

were winning the war.

The Nazis had conquered large
parts of the Soviet Union

and defeated the British
in the deserts of North Africa.

[ Gunfire ]

Jewish GIs landed in the midst

of unimaginable violence
and destruction.

-I learned, it was just
a matter of kill or be killed,

so that's what you go
into combat with.

Either you kill the enemy,
or they're going to kill you.

-I was a United States
Army nurse.

My job was operating room,
to give anesthesia.

You always had
a patient in front of you.

When they carry one out,
they bring one in.

Some of them just
didn't make it.

It was -- It was rough.

And they cried.

The kids cried.

-I became a bombardier.

I saw many planes
blow up in front of me.

I don't care what they say.

Everybody had a religion
when they fought in combat.

When the flag came up,
and the fighters came in,

I said, "If there's anybody
up there, look over me."

♪♪

-Being Jewish, and Judaism
was an important part

of virtually every Jew's
experience during World War II,

and it didn't matter
if they were religious or not.

They identified as Jews because
they were fighting a people

that were trying to destroy
the Jewish people

from the face of the Earth.

-In December 1942,
The New York Times reported,

"It is believed that two million
European Jews have perished,

and that five million
are in danger of extermination."

"160,000 German Jews

had been deported
to death camps,"

The Times wrote.

"More than 600,000 had been
murdered in Poland.

Most of the Jews in Eastern
Europe had been massacred,

forced into ghettos
or sent to concentration camps."

[ Typewriter keys clacking ]

Sergeant Dahlia Pobianski

served in the Office
of Personnel Records

in Fort Sill, Oklahoma,

with a group of servicemen
deemed unfit for combat.

-They all had some kind of...

You know,
they either had glasses.

They had asthma.

Archie was from Oklahoma.

They had one eye
that wasn't good,

and there was chatter
all the time,

but suddenly,
I heard Archie saying,

"Well, you know, you have to say
something good about Hitler.

You know, he got rid
of all the Jews," and I said,

"Well, he didn't get this one,"
or something like that.

That room got so quiet,
and everybody was, you know,

digging for something out of
their desk drawer or whatever,

and it just stayed
quiet until...

It must've been
about an hour before

it was time to go
to lunch again.

But nobody said anything
to me afterwards,

but they got the point,
that's for sure.

-For many Jewish Americans

assigned
to the European theater,

England was the first stop.

[ Air raid sirens blare ]

-The noise that you hear
at the moment

is the sound
of the air-raid siren.

-For 2 years, the Nazis
had been attacking Britain

from the air,
bombing its cities into rubble.

To escape the bombing,
3 million children

had been evacuated
from the cities

to live in the countryside
in the homes of strangers.

-Bea Abrams, a WAC,

was stationed at Rougham Air
Base in rural England.

Her official job in the service
was clerical work,

but she also wanted
to help as a Jew.

-In England, there are a lot
of Jewish children.

The parents sent them out
into the country

to keep them safe
from the bombing in London.

-As Hanukkah approached,
she and some other soldiers

invited a group of
displaced Jewish children

to celebrate the holiday.

-We collected all the food
we could get.

We gave them a party,
and they loved it,

and we all...We prayed.

It's good to have a belief.

♪♪

-In London, Judah Nadich,

the senior rabbi
chaplain in Europe,

told the age-old Hanukkah story
to a group of Jewish orphans.

It was the story
of the Maccabees,

a small band of Jewish fighters
who defeated an entire army.

They stood up to a powerful
enemy and won,

saving Judaism
for centuries to come.

-We have a lot of echoes of the
Chanukah story in World War II

with American Jewish soldiers

playing the Maccabees
of that era.

You see the Jewish soldiers as
kind of the spiritual warriors.

-I went into the Air Corps to
become a bombardier navigator.

I flew 54 missions.

I was motivated.

I was angry.

I was angry at the German
arrogance,

the German brutality,

and I felt a strong affinity.

My parents were from Europe.

I was a first-generation
American

or maybe the
last generation Europe.

I used to write on my bombs,
"Hitler, here's a gift for you,"

and we'd drop the bombs on them.

I would say, "Here's a gift
from us Jews"...

and it gave me
some satisfaction.

It's a terrible thing.

It was a terrible thing, but
when you're fighting an enemy

that is so brutal
and so inhuman,

you have to do it.

I was angry at the Germans
for making me do that.

-The German-Jewish GIs
who had escaped the Nazis

just a few years earlier
were now American servicemen,

and they returned
to Europe to fight.

For them, the war against Hitler
was profoundly personal.

-Getting out of Germany

and then back again in Europe,

it was my great chance
to get even,

not just against the Nazis

but with anti-Semitism
all together.

Our mission was
psychological warfare.

♪♪

-As natives of Germany,

they knew the language
and culture of the enemy

better than anyone else,

and the U.S. military
began to recruit them

for counterintelligence.

Henry Kissinger
was drafted in 1943

and was serving as a rifleman
in the 84th infantry division.

One day, he was on duty
cleaning the latrine

when his commanding officer
pulls him aside.

-The commanding general said,

"Soldier, explain
this situation map to me,"

so I did, and he turned
to his aide and said,

"Take that man's name,"

and then I became part of
the counterintelligence,

in which we were supposed to
find spies and security risks,

but that sounds very dramatic,

except I didn't really know
what a spy looked like

or what a spy was likely to do.

-As the war raged on,
20,000 American women

were sent overseas
to take over non-combat jobs

and free the men to fight.

♪♪

Mimi Rivkin was serving
in Calcutta

as a photo-lab technician
when she met a pilot named Mike.

-He was darling, Mike.
I was very fond of him.

I can tell you that.

He was a nice guy,
and he was darling,

and, you know,
I really liked him.

-Mike and Mimi dated
until Mike's tour of duty

came to an end.

The fact that Mimi
was Jewish never came up.

-When he went home,
he didn't say anything.

He just was being
discharged from the Army,

and I thought, "That's it,"
but his friends kept telling me,

"You're going to hear from him.
You're going to hear from him,"

you know, and I sure
heard from him.

He went to see my parents.

He learned that
they were Jewish.

I didn't really know that
he had planned to marry me.

I got a letter from him.

Instead of a "Dear John"
or "Dear Mary" letter, you know,

that, "Your kind and my kind
don't mix,"

and that sort of thing.

So he told me that, you know,

"I'm not interested
in marrying a Jew,"

so that was the end
of that little romance.

-Most Jewish servicemen
hoped to serve

in the European theater
to do their part against Hitler,

but some were assigned
to the Pacific theater instead.

Among them was Norman Mailer,

the grandson of a rabbi
and an aspiring novelist.

He had been drafted just after
his graduation from Harvard.

-Norman Mailer was
trying to write

the great American war novel,

but he found himself in the
Pacific rather than in Europe,

and as he wrote home,

the real battle was
being fought in Europe.

He was in this peripheral place.

He felt the center of
the battle was in Europe.

-Mailer wrote nearly every day
to his wife, Bea,

who was serving
as a WAVE in the Navy.

In the Pacific, he would find
plenty of material for his novel

about the brutality of war.

"It is not that the violence
is horrible," he wrote.

"It's also natural,
so much a part of life,

that you are never surprised
and never shocked.

It is this which frightens me."

[ Gunfire and explosions ]

Harry Corre,
an 18-year-old soldier

from an observant
Jewish family in Boston,

had been sent to the
Philippines early in the war.

He was on the Bataan Peninsula
when American troops were forced

to surrender
to the Japanese army

and was taken on what
became known

as the Bataan Death March.

-The Japanese gathered us
together

and started us on a march.

We didn't know where,
just that we were marching.

If a man had to go off
to the side of the road

or something to urinate
and he didn't get permission,

he got shot or bayonetted,
or he got his head chopped off.

The slightest infraction,
a man got killed.

-The Bataan Death March
was a terrible event.

20,000 Americans were
captured on Bataan and marched,

I think it was, 60 miles
to their prison camp.

It was a tremendous effort
of will to survive.

Anybody that survived
that one, boy, is a hero.

-I was put on the burial
detail.

I was burying about
150 bodies a day.

They were all POWs,
all American soldiers.

I have to admit that I lost
a lot of my religion

because I saw too many of the
guys that were in combat praying

while they were
in combat get killed,

so that's when I lost
a lot of my religion.

-From Egypt,
British and American planes

launched the first phase of
a broad and well-timed attack.

-The Allies' first victory
on the continent of Europe

was the successful invasion
of Sicily in July 1943.

As the Nazis retreated,
rabbi chaplains,

working hard to sustain
the servicemen's faith,

traveled across Sicily's
mountainous terrain

to hold services
for all of the Jewish men.

On October 9,
hundreds of Jewish GIs

gathered to observe Yom Kippur,

the day of atonement,
praying and fasting all day.

-I remember Yom Kippur
in Catania, Sicily,

and we took over
the movie theater,

and we filled it up
with soldiers,

wall-to-wall soldiers,

and instead of yarmulkes,
they had steel helmets,

and I'd never had
a service like that,

such an intense,
beautiful service.

That's really praying.

It was wonderful,

and they were praying
with my tallit,

my prayer shawl on,
and so I said,

"Jack, what are you doing?
You're supposed to be flying."

So I put the tallit
on the chair.

I rushed out, and my crew
is going to the plane

on this mission,

and it was a rough mission.

♪♪

I remember weeping coming back,

and twice in my life I cried,

that time and when
my mother died.

It was a terrible thing

to be flying on
Yom Kippur and bombing.

Can you imagine?

♪♪

-One week later, in Rome,

the Nazis S.S. troops rounded up
more than 1,000 Jews

and deported them to Auschwitz.

Sam Kessler was
a radio operator,

part of a tight-knit crew

flying a B-24 bomber
called The Pale Ale.

-On the very first mission,
we lined up to go to the plane.

There was a Catholic priest

in front of the plane

to give last rites,

and nine people
marched up there,

and I realized that I was
the only Jewish flier there,

and I remained behind.

They went up,
and he blessed them.

We flew the mission,
and we came back safely,

and I decided that
if they was safe,

I would be safe, too.

The second time, I marched
right up with them.

He blessed me,
and I certainly accepted that.

For the next 10 missions,
we were very, very successful.

-On the morning of Kessler's
11th mission,

the weather was bad.

He was flying over Belgium
toward Nuremberg

when something went wrong
with his plane.

-All of a sudden,
I heard a crack.

The pilot, Bob Gordon,
was trying to keep the plane

as level as he possibly could,

and I'm pounding away,
"S-O-S. S-O-S. S-O-S."

He ordered me to bail out,

and I waved to him
to come follow me.

I never saw him again.

I had the luck to pull
my rip cord,

and the next thing I knew,
I blacked out.

When I woke up,
I was floating in the air.

All I saw was church steeples,
church steeples,

and church steeples.

I slammed into the side
of the steeple.

My parachute caught the top of
the steeple, and I hung there.

I prayed the Kaddish.

Kaddish was designed
for people who were gone.

In my particular case,
I knew I was going to die.

I was positive, of course.

Once I say Kaddish,
you know...

[ Speaking Yiddish ]

...and about 20 minutes later,

would you believe that church
steeples have trap doors?

Two men with a ladder,
villagers, got me down,

and that's why I'm still here.

-By June 1944,

the Allies had gained ground
against the Nazis in Italy,

but Hitler still controlled
most of the European continent.

Allied leaders now
readied the troops

for the most ambitious
operation of the war,

D-Day, the invasion
of occupied France from the sea.

More than 160,000 British,
Canadian, and American men

would be placed into harm's way,

making it the most
dangerous battle of the war.

-Right before D-Day,

I was in England training
for the invasion.

They told us, "Two out of three
of you are not coming back."

I wrote to my sister, Ethel,

"Get the telegram
before my parents

and break it to them gently

because I'm not coming home."

I decided to draw
a huge Star of David

on the back
of my Army field jacket.

I wrote "Bronx, New York"
around the Star of David.

I had to let the Germans know
where I was coming from.

My fellow soldiers
couldn't believe

that I was going to do that.

Guys in the outfit said,

"The Germans are going to
cut your so-and-sos off

when they see that."

♪♪

We landed about 6:40
on Omaha Beach.

[ Explosions and gunfire ]

In landing, the man
that I was covering

came off the runway first,
and he got machine-gunned.

I was right behind him.

Everybody in that boat
was killed except for two of us.

About 30 of our guys are hiding
behind two tanks to survive.

I decided, being Jewish,
I better go straight in.

I didn't want to look
like a coward.

I wanted the fellas to see
that I didn't have the fear.

I'm not going to take cover.

My object was to
reach the seawall.

That was the only protection
on the beach

to the machine guns firing,
and finally I got hit.

A shell came in and blew
this cheek right off

and broke the upper jaw.

My best buddy from the boat,

he was laying facedown in 2
inches or 3 inches of water,

and I could see his high
school ring on his hand.

There was my best buddy dead.

I prayed the Shema
during that day out loud.

[ Speaking Yiddish ]

Here, oh, Israel,
the Lord our God.

The Lord is one.

That was the only prayer
I said on the beach.

♪♪

It was a horrible day.

It was the longest day.

You're lucky to live
through all of it.

I did get wounded five times.

-Everybody understood
the enormity of that event.

We went to synagogue that night.

There was actually kind of
an emergency service.

I mean, that's how
important that was.

This was the beginning
of the end.

D-Day was the harbinger.

It was also the,
"What's coming next?"

-D-Day was successful,
placing an enormous Allied army

in Northern Europe,
but the losses were devastating.

Rabbi chaplains held services
for the Jewish dead.

The surviving men gathered
together

to honor the friends
they had lost.

-You make friends.

You lose them, and then
it becomes very hard.

Archie Stein was his name,

sounded Jewish,

and they picked on him.

He happened to be a Lutheran
from Aitkin, Minnesota,

and he was my best friend,

and unfortunately
he was killed in action.

♪♪

-My brother, Buck,
he was a tank commander,

and he was a very,
very good soldier.

His tank was hit head on,

and he didn't survive.

Jews are not looked upon
as fighting.

Someone who was in the same tank
as my brother

said the men loved him.

He was a terrific commander,

and they called him
The Fighting Jew,

The Fighting Jew.

He was proud of being a Jew
fighting for his country.

♪♪

♪♪

-In combat together, our lives
depended on each other.

Religion was far in the back.

Maybe they were biased
at some point,

but the Army knocks
that out of you

because what you find out
about a person is his character

and what his values are,
not what his religion is.

-Jews were largely perceived as
the other part of World War II,

but during the war
and these relationships

that developed amongst
these individuals

really helped Americans

begin to perceive Jews
as Americans.

-On August 25, 1944,

American troops
marched in triumph

down the Champs-Elysees.

After 4 long years
of Nazi control,

the city of Paris was free.

The streets filled with
victorious American soldiers

and joyful French
men and women.

But the few remaining Jews
stayed in hiding,

still afraid.

Captain Maurice Paper
arrived in Paris

soon after liberation
with a personal mission:

to discover if any of his French
relatives had survived.

-I had a list
from the family back home

of about 10 names of relatives

that never got to America.

They stayed in France, and I see
a man is leaning on a lamppost,

and he's reading
a Yiddish newspaper,

and I get up close to him,
and I said...

My God!

The paper comes down.
He looks at me.

He says, "Yeah, it's Yiddish."

I said, "Yes, I speak Jewish."

He says, "Leave me your list,

and I'll make
some investigation.

We have a Jewish underground.

We find out who's dead,
who's alive, where they live."

Within a week, I actually
found my relatives

that were not killed,
the ladies.

The men were all gone,

but I found two aunts
and four cousins.

♪♪

-Rabbi Chaplain
David Max Eichhorn

had landed in France
a few weeks after D-Day,

attached to an infantry unit.

He stayed with his men
in the thick of combat,

driving a Jeep marked
with a Jewish star.

-He talks about
how he'd be driving

down the road in his Jeep,

and, you know, Nazi planes
with swastikas on them

would come strafing
down the road,

and they'd have to
dive out of the Jeep.

He went through occupied France
as we were liberating.

One of their missions,
as a chaplain, was to find Jews,

and they would go
to the synagogues,

most of which had been
completely desecrated

by the Nazis.

Manure was put
into the synagogues,

and the buildings
were destroyed

and just used for all sorts
of horrific things.

As he would go
from town to town,

he would be presented
at times with Torahs

that the townsfolk
had saved from the Nazis.

-Rabbi Eichhorn held services
for the GIs,

reading from the desecrated
Torah scrolls,

the Jews' most sacred text.

"The more they see and hear
about what has happened

to the Jewish
communities of Europe,"

he wrote, "our men
are more intensely

and proudly Jewish
than I have ever known."

In September 1944,

American troops crossed
the Siegfried Line,

a massive Nazi fortification
400 miles long.

The Jewish servicemen
had finally entered

Hitler's Germany.

Among them was
Private Si Lewen,

who had fled the Nazis as
a teenager only 10 years before.

He drove along the front lines

in a truck
outfitted with loudspeakers

trying to persuade
the Germans to surrender.

-My very first mission,
I was afraid that

when I would stop
talking to them,

my voice would give me away that
really I'm very much afraid,

but then I would close my eyes,
and I just belted into it.

[ Speaking German ]

You know, and once
that was out, it was out.

As I would say to the Germans,

"You're all in this boat
together so let's be done.

Give up now."

-Little did they know, when
they put down their weapons,

that the American soldier
they were surrendering to

was in fact a German-Jew.

-I'm a little guy there.

I would always stand on
the highest part of my truck

to seem taller
than I really am.

I felt tall, and then of course
these Nazis surrender.

I felt elated.

I felt elated.

♪♪

-The first German city
to fall to American forces

was Aachen on Germany's
western border.

There, on October 29,

with Nazi artillery still
exploding in the distance,

a group of American-Jewish GIs

held a service that was
broadcast around the world.

-The National
Broadcasting Company,

in cooperation with
the American Jewish Committee,

brings you now
a special broadcast

of historic significance

with the first Jewish religious
service broadcast from Germany

since the advent of Hitler.

[ Singing in Hebrew ]

♪♪

-Lieutenant Max Fuchs,
who had been studying to become

a cantor,
volunteered to sing that day.

-You know, they asked me to do
the service in Aachen, Germany.

The GIs wanted to do
some praying, you know,

and some singing, so this was
my part of the service.

-Since the U.S. is beginning
to occupy Germany,

in the middle of
these tank barriers,

they held a Jewish service,

and it was broadcast both
over the air in Germany

and was also broadcast by NBC,

and it was just an
extraordinary statement

about the defeat of the Nazis,

about overturning the horrible
policies of Germany

against the Jews.

-The Jewish chaplain spoke
about peace on Earth

and things like that
in part of the service.

It was a wonderful thing,
a Yiskor service.

Yiskor means a remembering,

remembering all the GIs

that had fallen.

You say a prayer for those GIs.

[ Singing in Hebrew ]

-That's when it really hit me,

you know, what was
happening in Europe.

While I was doing that service,
things sort of hit you.

You know, you get melancholy
because you start to think

about your family,
you know,

all the people that I knew.

You see, I knew these people
because I was 12 years old

when I came here from Poland.

The cousins, I knew the uncles.

I knew grandparents.

When I looked out and I saw
so many Jewish GIs,

I wasn't the only one.

There wasn't one GI there that
didn't have an extended family

in Europe somewhere lost.

They all perished.

[ Singing in Hebrew ]

-As American forces marched
through Hitler's Europe

in the winter of 1944,
rumors that the Nazis

were murdering Jewish prisoners
of war continued to spread.

Hearing news that Jewish
soldiers in the Soviet army

had been singled out and shot,

some American officers

encouraged their men
to destroy their dog tags.

On December 16, deep in
the Ardennes Forest in Belgium,

the Germans launched a massive
assault on American forces,

what would become known
as the Battle of the Bulge.

-So this huge German onslaught
came as an absolute surprise.

That was just the beginning

of what became
a very brutal battle.

You had whole American, you
know, regiments that were...

American prisoners by the score
were taken there.

-19,000 Americans
died in the Battle of the Bulge,

and 15,000 more were captured.

-The Germans came at us
in force,

pushed through on our flanks.

I threw away my dog tags,

which had my religion on it.

-Sergeant Lester Tanner and his
unit were taken prisoner,

and in late January,
he and the other officers

were moved to a prison camp
called Stalag IX A.

-They announced that the Jews
had to form up

in front of the barracks
the next morning,

and those who do not
will be shot.

-Master Sergeant
Roddie Edmonds,

a Protestant from Knoxville,
Tennessee,

was known
for his strong leadership

and deep moral conviction.

He was the commanding officer
in charge

of the 1,275 American prisoners.

-Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds
told his officer,

"We will all be there
in the morning in formation,

and I will be at the head."

The next morning,
we were lined up.

Major Siegmann strides over.

He says,
"You can't all be Jews."

Roddie said to him,
"We're all Jews here."

You don't tell a Gestapo man

that you're not going
to listen to his order.

The German takes out his Luger,
points it at Roddie's forehead,

and he says,

"You will order
the Jewish-American soldiers

to step forward,
or I will shoot you right now."

And he said to him,
"Major, you can shoot me,

but if you do, you're going to
have to shoot all of us

because we know who you are,

and this war is almost over,
and you will be a war criminal,"

and the major just spun around
and went back to his barracks,

and Roddie dismissed the men.

-Edmonds saved nearly 200
Jewish-American men that day.

They would never forget
the extraordinary risk

he took on their behalf.

Private Morton Brooks
was also captured

during the Battle of the Bulge.

He was taken to Stalag IX B

and imprisoned in separate
Jewish barracks

under S.S. guard.

Then, they were told that
350 men would be moved

to another camp.

Because there weren't
enough Jews,

they also sent men
who looked Jewish

or had Jewish-sounding names

and those who were
considered troublemakers.

[ Train whistle blows ]

-We pulled in to what
we saw was Berga.

We saw that it was one
of the concentration camps,

striped outfits
behind the barbed wire.

The people behind them
were Jewish.

Then, of course, we knew
that it wasn't a POW camp.

That was clear.

-Berga, a subcamp
of Buchenwald,

was one of hundreds
of slave-labor camps,

where prisoners were
deliberately worked to death.

Each morning, the men
marched through the snow

and worked 10 hours a day,

digging tunnels for the Nazis'
underground ammunition factory.

-The overseer in the mine shaft
that I was in

was a particularly brutal man.

He carried a rubber hose
and a pickax handle,

and if he didn't think
you were working hard enough,

he would use it on you.

There were some fellows
who tried to escape,

and, of course,
they were shot.

-Of the 350 American POWs
who were sent to Berga,

only 63 survived.

-Oh.

I used to dream about revenge
and what I would do.

The cruelty was unbelievable.

I was almost half my weight.

I was about 74 pounds.

To go through a German
concentration-camp experience

never entered my thoughts.

Of course, we didn't really know
about those things at the time.

-By early 1945,
millions of Americans

had been sent into combat.

Wherever servicemen went,
chaplains went with them,

offering spiritual comfort in
the face of the horrors of war.

Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn
was stationed in the Pacific,

the only Jewish chaplain
with the Fifth Marine Division.

A committed pacifist
before the war,

the fight against Hitler's evil
had changed his mind.

"According to Jewish law,"
he wrote,

"It was a war of obligation.

In such a war,
every Jew must fight."

On February 20th,

Rabbi Gittelsohn went ashore
with the Marines

in the invasion of Iwo Jima,

one of the bloodiest
battles of the war.

Afterwards, he was asked to lead
an interfaith service

honoring the dead,

but some of the other
chaplains objected to a Jew

presiding over a memorial

for men of all religions.

Reluctantly, the head
chaplain agreed

to hold three
separate services instead.

Rabbi Gittelsohn spoke
at the Jewish service,

reading the words he had
originally written to honor

all of the men.

[ "Taps" plays ]

♪♪

"Here lie officers and men,

black and white,
rich and poor together.

Here are Protestants,
Catholics and Jews together.

Among these men,
there is no discrimination,

no prejudices, no hatred.

Whoever of us lifts his hand
in hate against a brother

or who thinks himself
superior to those

who happen to be in the minority
makes of this ceremony

and the bloody sacrifice
it commemorates

an empty, hollow mockery."

-"This was," Gittelsohn said,
"The reason why these men died,

and if you, the living,

don't carry on
this vision of equality

to eliminate these
distinctions between men,

then you will be betraying the
deaths of your fellow soldiers."

-"We here solemnly swear
that this shall not be in vain.

Out of this will come,
we promise,

the birth of a new freedom
for the sons of men everywhere."

By April 1945, after 4
long years of fighting,

the Allies had advanced
deep into Germany.

American troops triumphantly
marched into Nuremberg,

the symbolic center
of the Nazi regime.

-[ Speaking German ]

-It was there,
in the Zeppelin Stadium,

that Hitler had held
his massive rallies

with huge crowds of
Germans cheering him on.

On April 21st,
Rabbi David Max Eichhorn

drove into the stadium
carrying a portable arch

and a small Torah in his Jeep.

At the very podium
where Hitler had stood,

the Rabbi and a group
of Jewish GIs began to pray.

-My grandfather said
how proud they were

to give a different
type of symbol to Hitler

to demonstrate that,
you know, now we are here,

and you are no longer.

This is where the American
forces blew up

the large swastika

that was on top of the stadium,
which he was there to witness.

They, you know,
they relished it.

-As the Nazis retreated,

they began to abandon their vast
network of concentration camps,

which stretched across
all of occupied Europe.

By January 1945, the Soviet Army

had liberated the Nazi
death camps in Poland,

including Majdanek
and Auschwitz.

On April 4, 1945,

American troops on patrol
south of Gotha, Germany,

came upon Ohrdruf,
a subcamp of Buchenwald.

-None of us were prepared
for what we saw

when we hit that camp.

As a Jew, I had heard stories,
but we were not prepared.

The prisoners,
they worked them to death.

They starved them, and when
they died, they burned them.

I was not the only one
who threw up.

I was not the only one
who cried,

but it made us angry,
very, very angry.

-One week later,

Allied Commander General
Dwight D. Eisenhower

visited Ohrdruf.

Shocked by what he saw,

Eisenhower ordered
all American units in the area

to visit the camps.

"We are told that the
American soldier does not know

what he is fighting for,"
he said.

"Now, at least, he will know
what he is fighting against."

Allen Moskin was
an 18-year-old soldier

with the 71st Infantry Division

when his unit discovered
Gunskirchen Lager,

a subcamp of Mauthausen
Concentration Camp, in Austria.

-All of a sudden, the most
overpowering, nauseating stench,

it was a smell that got into
your nostrils, into your body.

It's a smell I can never,
ever forget.

I'm going to tell you,
entering that camp

was the most horrific sight

I've ever seen or ever hope
to see the rest of my life.

Their cheeks
were all hollowed out,

their eyes sunken back into
their sockets of their heads.

They all looked alike.

I remember seeing many chanting
prayers, looking skyward.

Some were crawling.

-My buddies, they couldn't
have been nicer to myself

and another Jewish fellow.

Just pissed off, I tell you,
as much as I was, if not more.

They were going
to kill every Nazi S.O.B.

They screamed and hollered,
"My god. These are civilians.

How can you treat people
like this?"

-The horrified servicemen
tried to help,

handing out rations to
the desperate prisoners.

Most of the survivors
did not speak English,

and so when they could,

Jewish GIs spoke
to them in Yiddish,

the language shared
by most European Jews.

-The lieutenant knew
I was Jewish, and he said,

"Moskin, say
something in Yiddish."

So when I said, in German...
[ Speaking German ]

That means that I am also a Jew.

I remember this elderly man,
he came toward me,

and then he wrapped his arms
around me.

[ Speaking foreign language ]

You know, "American Jew soldier,
thank you,"

and then I felt tears
on my cheek as he came up.

He was holding me tight,
and I started to cry,

and I'm not embarrassed to say
that it was very emotional.

-Many more soldiers on patrol
throughout Germany

would also bear witness
to the camps.

Henry Kissinger was with
a division that liberated Ahlem,

a subcamp of Bergen-Belsen.

-They knew they were free,
but they didn't know exactly.

I just told them they were free
and what we would do.

-Years later,
Kissinger discovered

that his grandmother had passed
through the same camp

he had helped liberate.

-The Germans kept
meticulous records,

so I found out that
my grandmother died

on the death march

3 days
before the end of the war.

Thirteen members of our family
died in concentration camps.

Three sisters of my father,
my step-grandmother,

second cousins
were all sent to Auschwitz.

♪♪

-Si Lewen went to Buchenwald,

where 20,000 survivors had been
liberated by the American Army.

-I had gone to the crematorium,

and the ovens, they still had
the ashes in them, you know.

You can tell that they were
still burning bodies

very recently,

and...I broke down.

I completely fell apart.

I went to the medical station,

and I told them,
"I can't go on."

♪♪

The war was over for me,

and within a few days,

I was on the hospital ship...

♪♪

♪♪

...going home.

♪♪

-Rabbi David Max Eichhorn
arrived at Dachau on April 30th,

the day after he was liberated.

"We cried not merely
tears of sorrow.

We cried tears of hate,"
he wrote later,

"Combat-hardened soldiers,
gentile and Jew,

black and white
cried tears of hate."

[ Singing in Hebrew ]

-After 6 days of tending
to the survivors at Dachau,

Rabbi Eichhorn held
a religious service for them.

♪♪

-Today, I come to you
in a dual capacity

as a soldier
in the American Army

and as a representative of
the Jewish community of America.

We are proud to know
that we have had a share

in the destruction of the most
cruel tyranny of all time.

We are proud to salute you

who have been the bravest
of the brave.

We know your tragedy.

We know your sorrows.

We know that upon you was
centered the venomous hatred.

♪♪

[ Singing in Hebrew ]

-The Torah Eichhorn prayed with
had been given to him in France,

salvaged from
a desecrated synagogue

and hidden from the Nazis.

[ Singing in Hebrew ]

-Eichhorn would discover later

that one of his own
family members,

his namesake, Uncle Max,
had been murdered at Dachau.

♪♪

Nearly 6 million Jews had been
killed by Nazi Germany

and its collaborators.

One thousand years of Jewish
life and culture in Europe

had all but been destroyed.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

On May 7, 1945,

Germany surrendered
to the Allied forces.

Just one week earlier,

Adolf Hitler had committed
suicide in his bunker in Berlin,

where he had been
hiding for months.

Although the war
against the Japanese

still raged in the Pacific,

the Allies declared
victory in Europe.

-"It's V.E. Day!"

Everybody was yelling
and screaming

and running in the streets.

-V.E. Day happened.

We were in Pilsen,
Czechoslovakia.

That's where all the good beer
comes from.

So we had a good drink of beer.

♪♪

-While many celebrated,

some Jewish servicemen
were overwhelmed

by the horrors
they had witnessed.

26-year-old
Sergeant J.D. Salinger,

the grandson
of a rabbi from Lithuania,

had survived D-Day
and the Battle of the Bulge

and helped liberate
the concentration camps.

Throughout it all, he had
carried with him

a collection of stories

he had written
during his service,

the first draft of
"The Catcher in the Rye."

Now, he spent V.E. Day alone
sitting on his bed,

holding a loaded pistol.

Soon afterward, he checked
himself into a hospital

in Nuremberg

and was diagnosed
with battle fatigue.

♪♪

-J.D. Salinger
experienced firsthand

many of the most horrific
campaigns in Europe.

If you look at his stories, the
shadow is so strong of the war,

particularly in the short story
he wrote

in which the main
protagonist is a Jewish GI,

and the story ends with him
committing suicide.

So it's this deep shadow over
this notion of what it meant

to be a Jew after the war.

[ Explosions ]

-Meanwhile, in the Pacific,

the Allies continued
to battle the Japanese.

Then, in August 1945,

the United States dropped atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On August 14th,

Japan formally agreed to
an unconditional surrender,

and the Allies declared
victory over Japan.

Now, finally, World War II
had come to an end.

-I recently came upon a letter
that I had written from camp

to my parents
on the day the war ended.

The last sentence
was underlined and said,

"Fred will be coming home soon."

My brother, in the Pacific,
would be coming home.

Just multiply that by
15 million families

who also had somebody saying,

"And now, Charlie
will be coming home."

♪♪

-The servicemen were joyfully
reunited with their parents,

their siblings and their wives
and girlfriends.

-I saw my wife.
We didn't talk.

We sat in the back of the car
that picked us up

5 to 10 minutes
without saying one word,

just staring at each other,
just staring.

No words were spoken.

Then finally, we broke down and
hugged and kissed each other.

It was wonderful.

-Synagogues stayed open
around the clock

to accommodate all of
the couples who wanted to marry.

Some rabbis performed as many
as eight weddings a day.

♪♪

♪♪

In the years after the war,

the returning servicemen
would challenge America

to live up to the values
they had fought for so fiercely,

democracy, equality, and
religious tolerance for all.

♪♪

-One of the things that happens
to Jewish soldiers after the war

is that the military
teaches you how to fight,

how to stand up for yourself,

and Jewish servicemen
in Miami, for example,

would put on their uniforms
and go from hotel to hotel

that had these signs of,

you know, "No Jews, no dogs,"
and say, "We're Jews.

You should not discriminate.
We served."

-I think seeing what had
happened to Jews

and knowing that people

were trying to wipe us
out completely,

I knew I had to do more
about being a Jew

than just being a Jew.

I had to be active in some way.

♪♪

-Some Jewish veterans
chose to fight

for a Jewish homeland in Israel.

They smuggled arms
into Palestine,

helped refugees
emigrate from Europe

and even joined
the Israeli Air Force.

-Many American soldiers
became stronger Zionists

after they witnessed what
had happened in the Holocaust.

They believed that Israel
was the solution.

They worked hard for it
to become the Jewish state

in the years after the war.

-In May 1948, the state
of Israel was established.

One-third of its citizens
were survivors of the Holocaust.

The United States now had
the largest Jewish community

in the world numbering
some 5 million.

It would be their responsibility

to create a new Jewish-American
culture and society.

♪♪

In the next decade,

they broke ground
on thousands of synagogues

and supported hundreds of
philanthropic organizations

at home and abroad.

♪♪

-I joined the B'nai B'rith
right after the war.

I became active
in United Jewish Appeal

I just think you had
to remember,

you know, where you came from.

♪♪

-In the 1950s,

Judaism really becomes
an American religion.

You can't talk about
a Christian country anymore.

Now you talk about
a Judeo-Christian country,

and discriminating
against people who are Jews

or who are blacks makes us like
the very Nazis

whom we defeated.

-For some of the GIs,
getting involved in civil rights

was really an extension

of what they had been
fighting for in the war.

Fighting for democracy
or for equality,

all of this translated into
fighting for civil rights.

-I went on five Freedom Rides.

I spoke to many churches
down South.

I went with Martin Luther King
across the bridge in Selma.

I'm not going to be part
of a silent majority

when people
are being persecuted.

I want to help people.

♪♪

-The triumphs and horrors
of World War II

had changed the Jewish
servicemen and women forever.

Some would become the voices
of their generation,

describing the war
they had lived through

with a critical eye.

Norman Mailer's novel,
"The Naked and the Dead,"

based on his service
in the Pacific,

would skyrocket its
25-year-old author to fame.

J.D. Salinger would draw on
the pain of his own experience

in "The Catcher in the Rye,"

which would become a great
classic of American literature.

Other Jewish veterans
of World War II,

including Herman Wouk,
Leon Uris, and Joseph Heller

would also write
bestselling novels,

bringing a Jewish perspective
to the story of war.

♪♪

Si Lewen, who would become
a celebrated artist,

incorporated his memories
of the war into his painting.

In 1951, Albert Einstein
sent Lewen a letter

after seeing his drawings.

"Our time needs you
and your work," he wrote.

-Perhaps it makes people
think I hated war.

Much of my work consists
of what I like

to think of anti-war material.

-Max Fuchs became
a cantor in 1946,

continuing the religious
singing he loved so much.

He would always remember leading
his fellow servicemen in prayer

that victorious day
in Aachen, Germany.

-After the war, I went
back to orthodoxy,

religious all over again.

-After the war,
I was badly scarred.

I'm badly scarred and no teeth.

I looked terrible until I got
my plastic surgery.

I thought, "God saved me
for a reason,

to help people and do
good in the world."

I became a doctor.

I helped a lot of people,
saved people's lives.

-Dahlia Pobianski became
actively involved

with the League
of Women Voters

and the local democratic party

and ran for mayor
of Stamford, Connecticut.

-The greatest thing,
personally, was I found

that I could do things that
I had no idea I was capable.

I think it has
strengthened me in terms

of what I knew
I could do.

After the war, there was
nothing I was afraid to do.

-After the war,
I had to decide,

what am I going to do now?

I thought, "I've done
so much destruction.

I want to help people now."

I thought, "I'll
become a rabbi."

I encouraged Jews
to maintain their faith,

not to lose faith.

We have to improve mankind.

That's our mission.

-I didn't talk about
my service for 50 years,

but now, I speak all over.

It's like a calling with me.

I want these young people
what happened back then.

I've always felt proud
to be a Jew,

and I try to get along
with all different people.

I always repeat what
Maya Angelou said,

"We are more alike
than different,"

no matter whether you're Jewish
or Catholic or black or white.

I do the best I can to try
to get rid of the hate.

That's the only reason
I talk about it.

I'm just telling how it affected
me as a young American GI

because I want the young
people to know the truth.

I want to be sure that
they have a better world.

♪♪

♪♪

-"GI Jews" is available on DVD.

To order, visit shop.pbs.org

or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

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