“I wanted to fly planes on an aircraft carrier, but my father had fought in World War I, and he told me that we’re a family who goes into the army. So I enlisted in the infantry. I wasn’t worried about a thing. I was only eighteen years old. I was too young and too stupid to be afraid. The government sent me to Europe on the Queen Mary. I had two sets of dog tags. One of them designated my religion as ‘Hebrew,’ which I planned on throwing away if I got caught. I was sent to the Battle of the Bulge. When I arrived at my post outside of Luxembourg, I learned that all the officers in my company had been killed, except for one. He assigned me to be an advance scout. It sounds like a glamorous job, but my orders were to walk in front and draw fire so everyone behind me knew there was danger. At one point a shell exploded over my head and my ear started bleeding. When the medics finished bandaging me up, they told me: ‘That will be enough to get you a Purple Heart!’ But I told them to keep it because I knew they’d notify my parents, and I didn’t want them to worry. After I recovered I was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp. I arrived on my 19th birthday. My new job was to guard the liberated prisoners so the Nazis didn’t come back and kill them. These people were so emaciated from being starved to death. I was helping to bury hundreds of bodies per day. But I couldn’t cry. Because I had be strong for the prisoners. They needed my strength. I would walk around the courtyard at night, and sing a popular Jewish song called ‘My Yiddishe Momme.’ It’s a whole long story about missing your mother, but the lyrics didn’t matter. I’d sing it as loud as I could. Because I wanted everyone to know that a Jewish boy was there to protect them.”
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