Today, I want to tell you the story of Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds, a Christian from Knoxville, Tennessee. It is a story that was unknown to his family and the public until a few years ago.
In December 1944, six months after D-Day, an infantry division of the United States Army landed in France. During the cold and wet winter the soldiers travelled across France and Belgium. After an arduous journey, they reached the Schnee Eifel area at the border of Belgium and Germany and took up their positions. On December 16, 1944, Master Sgt Edmonds’ regiment was attacked in a counter offensive by the Germans in an offensive that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.
On December 17, Roddie Edmonds had his last hot meal. He wrote in his diary, “Believe me when I tell you we really had to keep our heads down. This was no picnic.” Though outgunned and outmanned, the Americans delayed the Germans long enough to allow General George Patton’s Third Army to ultimately come to the rescue. But the rescue came too late for the Edmonds’ regiment. They were encircled and taken prisoner along with 20,000 other American soldiers. “We surrendered to avoid slaughter. We were marched without food and water, except for the few sugar beets we found along the road and puddles,” the 25-year-old wrote.
Paul Stern, also a POW, described a four day forced-march in the bitter cold. Some soldiers died on the way. In Gerolstein, Germany, they were crammed into boxcars, 60-70 men in each railcar, and transported, without food, to Stalag IX B, a camp near Bad Orb. For those of you who remember the old TV show, “Hogan’s Heroes,” this was no laughing matter.
They arrived on Christmas Day. The American POWs were divided into three groups—officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and enlisted men. The Jews among the enlisted men were separated from the other soldiers and shipped to slave labor camps where many died. Stern was among 1,292 noncommissioned officers who were taken to a nearby camp, Stalag IX-A .
Lester Tanenbaum also was captured in the Battle of the Bulge. Using the name Tanner, he had trained with Sgt Edmonds in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. “He did not throw his rank around. You knew he knew his stuff, and he got across to you without being arrogant or inconsiderate. … We were in combat on the front lines for only a short period, but it was clear that Roddie Edmonds was a man of great courage who led his men with the same capacity we had come to know him in the States.”
On January 27, 1945, a Major Siegmann, the commandant of Stalag IX-A instructed all Jewish POWs to report the next morning. Tanner explained that by this time, they were well aware that the Germans were murdering Jews and they understood separating the Jews from the other POWs would put them in great danger. “There was no question in my mind or that of M/Sgt Edmonds that the Germans were removing the Jewish prisoners from the general prisoner population at great risk to their survival.” Edmonds ordered all 1,292 of his soldiers to stand together when the Jewish prisoners were to report.
Tanner described it: “… there were more than one thousand Americans standing in wide formation in front of the barracks, with Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds standing in front of the formation with several senior noncoms beside him, of which I was one …”
When Major Siegmann, the German officer in charge saw that all the camp’s inmates were standing in front of their barracks, he turned to Edmonds and said, “They cannot all be Jews.”
“We are all Jews,” Edmonds replied.
Paul Stern stood near Edmonds when the German officer confronted him. “Although seventy years have passed,” said Stern, “I can still hear the words he said to the German camp commander.”
“We are all Jews here.”
Major Siegmann jammed his pistol to the forehead of Edmonds and said, “I'll give you one more chance. Have the Jewish men step forward or I will shoot you on the spot.”
In earshot of Tanner and Stern, Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds stated, “According to the Geneva Convention, we have to give only our name, rank, and serial number. If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us. The war is almost over, and after the war, you will be tried for war crimes. We are all Jews here.”
The German officer stalked away. There were 200 Jewish GIs among the almost 1300 American POWs. Their lives were saved by Edmonds’ act of courage and by the awareness that international law meant something.
Eventually, the American soldiers were liberated. Roddie Edmonds returned to his home near Knoxville, Tennessee. He found work, and then, because he had joined the National Guard, he was deployed to Korea. Eventually, he returned home, married, and had two sons. He coached their baseball teams, worked in sales, had a normal life, and died in 1985.
Roddie spoke little of his wartime experience and nothing of that day— not to his wife, not to his children, not to his grandchildren. Edmonds’ son, Chris, a Protestant minister, explained, “I asked him about it several times as a teenager and in college. He’d say, ‘Son, there are just some things I’d rather not talk about.’” After his death, when a granddaughter was assigned to prepare a video about a family member, her grandmother gave her the war diaries of her deceased husband.
As the family sought to understand the significance of the diaries, Chris set out to find soldiers that had served with his father. He read a newspaper article about Lester Tanner, a prominent New York lawyer who mentioned in passing how Edmonds had saved him and dozens of other Jews during the war. Lester Tanner led him to Paul Stern. These two Jewish vets told Chris Edmonds the details of what they witnessed on that fateful day in January 1945.
Chris Edmonds: “When Dad got the orders and told his men that they were not giving up the Jewish soldiers, they could have said no. When the commandant pressed the gun against my father, some of the men could have pointed out the Jews. None of them did that. They all stood together. What he did [that morning] sent an incredible bolt of hope through the men. They saw they could resist. They saw they could survive.”
On January 27, 2016, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, M/Sgt Edmonds was posthumously honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Edmonds is one of only five Americans to receive the honor, and the only American soldier. For the first time, the ceremony was held at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
There was another first. An incumbent American President came to the Israeli Embassy. President Barak Obama quoted Edmonds saying, “We are all Jews” before warning: “Too often, especially in times of change, especially in times of anxiety and uncertainty, we are too willing to give in to a base desire to find someone else, someone different, to blame for our struggles. So here, tonight, we must confront the reality that around the world anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it.”
The Chair of Yad Vashem said, “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. These attributes form the common thread that binds members of this select group of Righteous Among the Nations. [His] choices and actions … set an example for his fellow American soldiers …”
For sure, we must be cognizant of dangers to Jews and raise our voices against those who hate us. But we are reminded of the significance of international law. We should also be alert to threats to others who are marginalized as different, scorned as refugees, or loathed because of colour or belief. There is a common humanity to us all.
In the Haggadah, we read, “In every generation, we are obligated to see ourselves as if we were redeemed from Egypt.” Each year, on the second day of Passover, Paul Stern tells the story of how his commanding officer, M/Sgt Roddie Edmonds, saved the lives of 200 Jewish NCOs and gave a future to thousands of their descendants.
Why the second day? Because, after 100 days of captivity, M/Sgt Roddie Edmonds and his fellow POWs were liberated on March 30, 1945. It was 16 Nisan 5705, the second day of Pesaẖ.
On this Pesaẖ, let’s keep telling our stories. They add meaning to our lives and motivate us to aspire to the ideals to which we give voice during our sedarim.
For further information:
“Following the Footsteps of My Father” https://vimeo.com/198357872
http://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/edmonds.html
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-honors-us-gi-who-told-the-nazis-we-are-all-jews/
