Jewish Troops and Jewish Victims: soldiers encounter the Holocaust

Whether they came from Sioux Falls or the Bronx, over half a million Jews entered the U.S. armed forces during the Second World War. Uprooted from their working- and middle-class neighborhoods, they joined every branch of the military and saw action on all fronts. Deborah Dash Moore offers an unprecedented view of the struggles these GI Jews faced, having to battle not only the enemy but also the prejudices of their fellow soldiers. Through memoirs, oral histories, and letters, Moore charts the lives of fifteen young Jewish men as they faced military service and tried to make sense of its demands. From confronting pork chops to enduring front-line combat, from the temporary solace of Jewish worship to harrowing encounters with death camp survivors, we come to understand how these soldiers wrestled with what it meant to be an American and a Jew. Moore shows how military service in World War II transformed this generation of Jews, reshaping Jewish life in America and abroad. These men challenged perceptions of Jews as simply victims of the war, and encouraged Jews throughout the diaspora to fight for what was right. At the same time, service strengthened Jews' identification with American democratic ideals, even as it confirmed the importance of their Jewish identity. GI Jews is a powerful, intimate portrayal of the costs of a conflict that was at once physical, emotional, and spiritual, as well as its profound consequences for these hitherto overlooked members of the "greatest generation."

At the age of 14, Broner along with an older brother escaped Nazi-occupied Lodz, Poland, and enlisted in the Soviet Army, only to be sent to Siberia when their Jewish status was discovered. After escaping yet again from a Siberian labor camp, Broner hid his Jewish origins and joined up with the Soviet-provisioned Polish Kosciusko Army and served till the end of the war, participating in the liberation of Poland including the discovery of the first death camps.

You went with me
Into the army, where
One night in a foxhole
On Leyte a fellow soldier
Said Where are the fuckin’ Jews?
Back in the PX. I’d like to
See one of those bastards
Out here. I d kill him!
I decided to conceal
You, my you, anyway, for a while.
Forgive me for that.
..........
From the poem "To Jewishness"
From the collection, New Addresses, by poet Kenneth Koch, Columbia University Professor and award-winning poet, including the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1995, the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry (Library of Congress) in 1996, and the first Phi Beta Kappa Poetry, awarded a year before his death in 2002.

"Edith Bruck tells the story of the 'Lager' with the inherent strength of a wounded animal and in confronting the unbearable sadness of it closes the account and does not surrender to the void...Unforgettable testimony."--Primo Levi "With a style both warm and spare, Edith Bruck recreates the hardships of her existence as a Jewish child in Hungary before the Holocaust, the horrors of her time in the camps, and the protracted pain and disorientation of her lonely return to 'normal' life after the war. Her readers will marvel at her ability to perceive good as well as evil in those who preyed upon her. This is a beautiful book."--Susan Zuccotti, author of The Italians and the Holocaust Passover, 1944. Edith Bruck's family sits in a darkened kitchen isolated from the other villagers by the black cloth on the window, their poverty, and their Judaism. Her mother explains that the Germans have reached their Hungarian village--that they will soon have to endure more than the cries of "Jewstink" and the deprivations that have been their lot for months. The next morning twelve-year-old Edith is roused by shouts of "Wake up! Outside! Quickly! I give you five minutes, you animals!" In this memoir, Bruck tells the story of her imprisonment in Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen. She and her older sister endure almost untellable horrors, and hunger so savage that the author tells of ripping bread from another's teeth. The end of the war brings freedom but little security. With no parents and no home, she moves from country to country, from household to household, and from relationship to relationship. In search of peace she and other family members immigrate to Israel, but even there peace eludes her. Bruck avoids both sentimentality and cynicism; she sees with clarity and passion, learns what she needs to survive, and catalogs other lessons for future use. At the end of Who Loves You Like This, she leaves Israel for Rome, where she lives today. In another country and in a foreign language, she finds the words to describe her life--without homeland, family, or native language. Edith Bruck has lived in Rome since 1954. She is the author of several novels, collections of short stories, and volumes of poetry. She writes for radio and television and has directed several films. Bruck's works--for which she has won numerous literary prizes--have been translated from the original Italian into Dutch, German, Swedish, and Hungarian. Who Loves You Like This is Bruck's first work to be translated into English.