Ep. 7: Holocaust Survivors in the US Military with Mike Rugel

            Did you know that a Holocaust survivor who served in the US Army in the Korean War won the Congressional Medal Of Honor?  Did you know that there were thousands of Holocaust survivors who fought the Nazis during WWII or served in the US military afterward?

            Today’s discussion with Mike Rugel looks at the fascinating stories of some of these individuals but also explores issues such as the liberation of concentration camps by Jewish soldiers and the various ways in which Jews fought the Nazis as well as how their experiences in the Holocaust affected their own service.

Mike Rugel is the Director of Programs and Content for the National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, DC. 

Cohen, Daniel. Single Handed: The Inspiring True Story of Tibor "Teddy" Rubin (2016)

Task and Purpose Article on Ted Rubin

Follow on Twitter @holocaustpod.
Email the podcast at holocausthistorypod@gmail.com

The Holocaust History Podcast homepage is here

You can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.

Transcript

Waitman (00:00.566)
Hello everybody. Welcome to the Holocaust history podcast. I'm your host, Whiteman Bourne. And today we have a really special guest to talk about something that I hadn't really thought about until I read an article on the online about an amazing individual who was a Holocaust survivor and went on to serve in the US military. And I'm not going to go any further than that. I'm going to let our guests talk about that. And so today we are joined by Mike Rugal. Mike, how you doing?

Michael Rugel (00:30.796)
I'm doing well, thanks for having me.

Waitman (00:32.574)
Yeah, no problem. Can you tell us a little bit about where you're coming from and how you get into the topic that we're going to be talking about today?

Michael Rugel (00:43.152)
Sure, I am from the National Museum of American Jewish Military History, or Museum in Washington, D.C., where we cover the history of Jews serving in the American military, and that goes back to colonial days up through Iraq and Afghanistan, but as you might expect, more World War II stories than anything else. Over half a million American Jews served in World War II, and the stories, endless supply of incredible stories.

Waitman (01:10.87)
Well, great. I think we're going to hear some of those today. I mean, I'm chomping at the bit, but I'm going to hold off a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit of the history of the museum? When did it start? Who founded it? These kinds of things.

Michael Rugel (01:24.3)
Yes, so the museum, initially created by a congressional charter and the Jewish War Veterans Organization gets that in 1958. And it exists at first as a pure memorial. It's called Shrine to the Jewish War Dead and then Jewish War Veterans National Memorial. And when they decide they wanted to have, go beyond just memorialization, do interpretive history exhibits, it opens up here in this building in 1984. We're at 1811 R Street, the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Michael Rugel (01:54.374)
then Vice President George Bush nailed the mizuzah up on the doorpost. And ever since then we've been telling the stories of Jews serving in the American military.

Waitman (02:03.36)
And how'd you get into this?

Michael Rugel (02:05.304)
Yeah, so my interest was just general American Jewish history, and I kind of just fell into this military niche. But like I said, it's been a great place to be because the stories are endless, and particularly the World War II stuff where you get Jews going off to fight Nazis, the ultimate enemy, fighting against an enemy who sought to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth. So that just right there, any single person serving is going to have a great story.

over half a million of them.

Waitman (02:37.226)
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I always say, you know, you don't necessarily need a good reason to punch Nazis, but being a Jewish American fighting World War II is a great reason to punch Nazis, put it that way.

Michael Rugel (02:49.376)
Yeah, yeah, and these guys were more motivated to defeat the Nazis than anyone.

Waitman (02:53.618)
Yeah, absolutely. And we, you know, we had a really interesting podcast. A couple of episodes ago, we talked with, um, Becky Erbelding from the Holocaust Museum about the U S response, uh, to the Holocaust, you know, and, and that was interesting. Um, because of the challenges of the, of the American Jewish community, which obviously is not a unified thing, but, um, you know, the challenges that they had sort of publicly in terms of, um, their support for particularly the U S entry into the war.

Michael Rugel (03:03.984)
Mm-hmm.

Waitman (03:23.694)
which I think it'd be interesting to hear about as well as we move forward a little bit.

Michael Rugel (03:28.328)
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of stories about that and the attitude of the typical Americans that they don't want to join and what's perceived as a Jewish war plays into that. So how do you navigate that divide between the American people and making it seem even more of a Jewish war that people want to avoid? That's something particularly through the 30s that you see a lot of people trying to figure out how to work that divide.

Waitman (03:56.914)
Is there, is there a, an influx? I don't want to, I don't want to get you with what we used to call it West Point number trivia, but is there a, is there an influx of Jewish and Lestiz, um, into the U S military in the thirties as a response, or is it something that we don't necessarily see if we see it until the United States actually gets into the war?

Michael Rugel (04:19.34)
Yeah, so you see there's definitely some, and the numbers are tough on this. You don't always have to identify your religion on your military records, so sometimes it's a little tough to get the statistics. You see Jewish folks joining the merchant marines and trying to contribute to the British war effort. You do see some folks enlisting out of ROTC programs and things like that in the 30s. And then, you know, in...

Waitman (04:26.784)
Okay.

Michael Rugel (04:48.52)
once Pearl Harbor hits and you see most Americans really motivated to defeat the Japanese, you really still see the focus of Jewish Americans on the Germans, knowing what Nazi policies were, knowing what the past decade had brought to Germany. So there's definitely an increased motivation to join the military and

desire to get to the war in Europe. There are plenty of great stories there as well.

Waitman (05:20.406)
Well, one of the stories that, um, the one that I'm talking about, and for folks listening, I will put a link to the, to the actual story, which, um, myth Mike is quoted extensively in, in the, in the show notes. So you can see it as well, but I think we're going to get a, hopefully a lot more detail, um, this guy called Ted Rubin and I'm going to leave it there because I want, I want Mike to get a chance to really explain that, to tell the story, but man, what a story. So tell us.

Michael Rugel (05:49.396)
Yeah, so T-Board Ted Rubin is born in Hungary, attempts to go across Europe to escape the Nazis, which as a young kid, as a preteen, is captured and ends up in concentration camps, where he's there for several years. As a young teenager in spring of 1945, he's imprisoned at Mathauzen concentration camp when American soldiers arrive to liberate the camp.

liberators and seeing Jewish soldiers amongst those liberators, Thibaut Rubin is inspired to come to the US and he wants to join the army. So he does make his way to the US. Initially in 1949 he tries to enlist and is at first rejected. He tries again and in 1950 does join the US Army and is sent to fight in the Korean War.

Waitman (06:41.618)
Is there a is there a citizenship issue in terms of in the list? Why was he rejected in 49?

Michael Rugel (06:49.236)
Yes, so it was connected to his citizenship status as well.

in going back to the World War II era, guys, you can join the army and there actually is an expedited citizenship process. The military service will get you through your naturalization process more quickly. But Rubin is also small. He speaks with a thick Hungarian accent, so he's not viewed as an ideal candidate for the army.

Waitman (07:19.998)
Oh, wow. Okay. Gosh. Do we know that from like the his rejection? We have the sources tell us.

Michael Rugel (07:27.988)
So that's from his accounts. I don't know. I don't know the record show on that early enlistment attempt That's a really good question. Yeah, we should try to look into that

Waitman (07:29.634)
That's okay.

Waitman (07:38.198)
That's fascinating. So he doesn't listen 55, knowing I guess that he's going to Korea.

Michael Rugel (07:41.2)
In 1950, yeah. Yeah, so in 1950 he sent to Korea, unfortunately has some of the worst stories of antisemitism in the US Army of anyone. He's got this...

First sergeant that's his superior and Rubin, like I said, speaks with a thick Hungarian accent, really stands out from the rest of the guys. And this sergeant just doesn't like him, doesn't like Jewish people in general, doesn't like Tibor Rubin in particular. And he ends up giving him all the worst jobs. Whenever there's something that no one needs to do, it's a get me that son of a bitch Hungarian Jew. And Tibor Rubin ends up being the guy who has to, whether we're talking about cleaning the kitchen,

you know picking up after the rest of the guys in the company Rubin's always given the worst jobs and that extends actually into combat so in Korea they're in the companies engaged with the North Koreans and they decide to retreat but Rubin's ordered to stay by himself hold the road for the rest of the guys to retreat safely

Waitman (08:46.498)
Bye.

Michael Rugel (08:46.588)
and T-Tibor Rubens left, he's left more or less to die, he's left by himself, he takes a hilltop position, he does have multiple weapons, and he ends up in a 24 hour long single-handed battle where he's fighting the enemy by himself for 24 straight hours.

Waitman (09:04.247)
Wow.

Michael Rugel (09:06.652)
He survives that, is eventually captured, and ends up in a prisoner of war camp, a POW camp run by the Chinese. So like I said, he was a, as a kid, as a young teacher, he kind of grew up in concentration camps. So at this point in his life, he's the guy that's skilled at being a prisoner. So the guys in this camp aren't getting...

any kind of nutrition. They're not getting any kind of medical treatment from the Chinese, but the Chinese do have a vegetable garden that they use for their own officers. So Ruben's the guy who sneaks out, he steals vegetables, he brings it back for all the other guys that are suffering pretty badly from malnutrition.

These guys have gangrene, gangrene is wounds eating away at their legs that the Chinese aren't giving them any treatment and he's learned some kind of guerrilla medical techniques over the years. So there's stories about Ruben, uh gathering maggots and putting them on these guys to eat away the dead flesh that uh, that's Infecting their bodies and everyone's like Ruben. What the hell are you doing? That can't be right, but he actually saves These guys lives that he serves with because he's learned these guerrilla medical techniques

him the opportunity to return to Hungary, which by this point has become a communist country so he can stay on that side of the Iron Curtain. And Tibor Rubin says, no, I'm an American now, I'm not returning to Hungary. So he says, stays in these horrible conditions in these POW camps rather than return to Hungary. Eventually he's taken out of this POW camp on a stretcher at the end of the war.

Waitman (10:45.091)
And does did his fellow prisoners they know that he was a Holocaust survivor Did he say you know when they ask him like where did you get in these ideas? Did he say well, you know, I've been here before

Michael Rugel (10:57.488)
Yeah, so some of the guys did. I don't know how widely in the camp that was known, but some of the guys he was close to knew his history. And one of the interesting things is when people ask him why he did these things, he wouldn't frame him so much in terms of the

surviving the Holocaust, but he would frame them in terms of his Judaism. He would say, these are mitzvah, these are the commandments as a Jew that I have to help other people. So they say, why do you put yourself in danger? He says, that's a mitzvah, that's something I have to do as a Jew. And then the other thing he would always do in later years after he'd become recognized, which took many years, people would say, Ted, you're a hero, and he would say, no, I'm just a little schmuck. That was his standard response. Whatever anyone called

just a little schmuck heroes or other guys. So that was often framed in terms of his Jewish identity.

Waitman (11:56.438)
And so did he, what happened after the war? Did he, what did he, what's the rest of his story?

Michael Rugel (12:02.496)
Yes, he lived in Southern California. He was very involved with Veterans Affairs. He went...

many years not being recognized in any way either for this unbelievable 24-hour military action where he's fighting the enemy by himself or all the things he does in the POW camp, but there's Efforts to get in this in this stems from that same first sergeant who was not going to let this Jewish guy Receive a Medal of Honor or any kind of award so he's not recognized anyway because this sergeant won't initiate the paperwork

They over the years so many people testify the Jewish War Veterans Organization was very involved in Gathering the testimony of the guys they were there with him for review There's reviews over the years on 2005 they gather all these eyewitness testimonies all these guys testify about all the things T borough and did the anti-semitism of his superiors and 2005 he was awarded the Medal of Honor and was still alive at that time to receive it to appreciate

and to be acknowledged.

Waitman (13:08.738)
That's an amazing story. That mean it's great that he finally got awarded. Of course, you can understand, given the antisemitism of the time, why that took so long, I guess. What was the climate like in the US military with regards to antisemitism in the 50s?

Michael Rugel (13:29.868)
Yeah, so it's a little tough to generalize because everyone has their own unique experiences. But there's plenty of anti-Semitism, I guess that's the straightforward answer. But you also hear the guys that say they got in day one, got along with all the other guys, never experienced a single moment of anti-Semitism. And then there's others that prove it in this stories about, you know, even guys.

in line to register for the draft and being called a stupid kike and things like that. So it's all based on who you ended up interacting with and I think it's not dissimilar from every other aspect of life and that there was some anti-Semitism in the military and some people managed to go without it. There's World War II, going back to World War II, there's...

Clearly, some guys that felt the need.

to hide their Jewish identity, to have successful military careers. And I'm thinking of Major General Maurice Rose as the prime example. He was a two-star general, grew up, grandson, and grew up through a line of rabbis and was writing letters home in Yiddish. But five times in his military records, where he specified his religion, he picked things other than Jewish. He would pick Protestant, Presbyterian, Catholic, whatever wasn't Jewish. And it seems to be for career reasons.

get promoted as a Jew and it was successful. He abandoned his Jewish identity within the military while he's still writing letters home to his family in Yiddish and he becomes a two-star general. Now others, other Jews did rise up through the ranks without having to do that. So again, everyone has their own experiences and there's a lot of the great kind of war movie type stories where the guys start off disliking each other and the Irish guy and the Italian guy and

Michael Rugel (15:24.258)
each other and then end up a year later as the closest of brothers. So there's a lot of overcoming antisemitism stories that are great in all kinds of bigotry, overcoming it in the military for the war effort.

Waitman (15:37.454)
Yeah, so one of the reasons that one of the questions I gave you, because I'm really excited about it, is that this one of the things that's really amazing about the story is that here we have an example of someone who survived the Holocaust and then joined the military and then sort of drew on that past, I suppose. Do you have other examples of survivors who've done similar things?

Michael Rugel (16:07.7)
Yeah, I mean, particularly within World War II, a lot of the folks that got out of Germany or out of Europe in the late 30s end up coming to the U.S. and joining the Army, and they serve in all kinds of different capacities. At the beginning of the war, these guys are all dubbed enemy aliens. They're Germans, after all, so they are tagged enemy aliens. At the very beginning of the war, a lot of them are being sent to the Pacific. That seems to be the answer. You don't want to send Germans back to Germany to fight.

some of these guys in the Pacific.

Waitman (16:38.442)
And it's kind of similar to the Japanese Americans who get sent to Europe, right?

Michael Rugel (16:43.392)
Yeah, yeah, right. So the same concept exists, but it's pretty early they recognize that how incredibly motivated these guys are to win the war to defeat the Nazis. And even more than that, how valuable they are for certain tasks like intelligence, military intelligence, POW interrogators. And in June 1942 they opened what's called the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Richey, Maryland.

and they start sending, they send folks there with language skills essentially, but it ends up being about 20% European Jewish refugees that get sent to Camp Richey and there they're trained in military intelligence. So that ends up being one of the major stories of these guys that had escaped Nazi Germany and end up in the US Army.

Waitman (17:32.522)
And so are they, um, are they specifically then trained as sort of interrogators or is it more just language skills?

Michael Rugel (17:43.546)
Yeah, so a interrogator was the most common task, but there's all kinds of different jobs in terms of intelligence analysis, analyzing documents. There's guys that are...

trained in psychological operations where they set up these mobile broadcast studios in Germany and try to convince German soldiers to desert, German civilians to cooperate with Americans as their beginning. There's lots of great stories like that. There's folks that are just brought into military intelligence. A famous example of that is Henry Kissinger serving in an infantry unit in Europe when they say, this guy knows the language. He knows everything about the geography here. We need to start using guys like this for

is brought into military intelligence in World War II. Some of my favorite stories are guys that show how the status of German Jews changed over the years and some of these guys that are actually decorated.

World War I, German World War I heroes that are initially are unquestionably national heroes and then end up having to deal with the Holocaust not that long after being decorated in World War I. A guy named Richard Stern is the example I use for that type of story. He was an Iron Cross recipient in World War I, was unquestionably a German hero.

enjoys a little over a decade of that status. In 1933 is when the Nuremberg Laws and Nazi policies are really kicking in and they're calling for a boycott of Jewish business. And this guy, Richard Stern, lives in Cologne. He has a business selling bedding there. And when these boycotts of Jewish businesses are officially recognized, they send out German soldiers to stand outside Jewish businesses to keep people from coming into these Jewish

Michael Rugel (19:38.227)
This is what became a very well distributed photo of Richard Stern.

stepping outside his place of business with the iron cross pinned to his chest. And there's this young German soldier looking at him. And Richard Stern's there as the decorated veteran and clearly seems to be the one that has the confidence, has the one in charge. And Richard Stern is enjoying a little bit of a privilege in 1933 that still exists for recognizing veterans, even Jewish ones, as heroes. And he passes out pamphlets talking about

Contributed to German history how Jews were heroes in World War one and how this boycott of Jewish businesses are wrong So, you know his veteran status gave him the ability to do something that very few other German Jews could do in 1933 And he ends up actually getting arrested at the end of that day when he's handing out these materials

uh, one of his World War I buddies is, is the local policeman. He releases him from the jail. And so, uh, Stern is okay for the, for the next several years. And, uh, what happens to these German Jewish veterans, uh, you know, it's a really interesting story that the, as their privileges decrease and decrease as Nazi policies become more thorough and, uh, eventually they're

They're sent to Riesenstadt, the kind of show camp is the place for dubbed for Jewish veterans, but that proves to be temporary. And eventually they're sent to Auschwitz, just like all the other German Jews. Now, Richard Stern did not go to the camps, like a lot of the guys he served with did.

Michael Rugel (21:20.248)
He leaves in May of 1939, is able to get a visa and come to the US. So he comes here, and he's here for four years in 1943. He's 43 years old, and he enlists in the US Army.

There's a family story where when these scrap drives are going on where everyone's collecting metal he takes that iron cross he receives in World War one and Donates it to the scrap drives as a kind of a symbolic Act of the turning this German metal into what are going to be American munitions of some kind so the

Waitman (21:54.577)
Wow, that's awesome.

Michael Rugel (21:56.468)
Yeah, so he's serving with the infantry sent to Italy, and he's in combat in his mid-40s at this point in near Mount Portio in Italy, and they're fighting the Germans in Italy. He ends up crossing a German machine gunfire multiple times, and he uses.

His language skill, he gets close enough to the Germans, addresses them in German, negotiates the German surrender in their native language, his native language as well, obviously. And this whole group of Germans surrenders to Richard Stern in Italy. For that, he earned the Silver Star. So he was an Iron Cross recipient in World War I for Germany, a Silver Star recipient for the US in World War II in his mid-40s.

Waitman (22:41.782)
That's got to be a very small category of people who have been decorated for bravery by both the Germans and the Americans in the same century.

Michael Rugel (22:51.444)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, there's a fair amount of, you know, father and son type versions of that story, but for the same guy to be doing it in both, he wasn't the only one, but it was one of a few.

Waitman (23:03.05)
And so, I mean, these are great, because there's a lot that we can talk about in terms of their responses to fighting, I think. But what else? Are there other stories of similar people doing things that are worth sort of thinking about?

Michael Rugel (23:18.799)
Hold on.

Michael Rugel (23:22.952)
Okay, hold on, you were breaking up there for a second. I don't know if that was my end or your end. You're just looking for more...

Waitman (23:30.067)
You can hear me now.

Michael Rugel (23:32.544)
Yeah, yeah, now it's going clear.

Waitman (23:33.642)
Okay, I'm just gonna put a note in here and I can go through and edit it out. Yeah, I mean, I'm loving these stories. I mean, are there other examples of this?

Michael Rugel (23:44.532)
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, so another one I like to share, a guy named Harry Ellinger. If you remember a movie that came out a few years back with a lot of movie stars, The Monuments Men. There was a character in there that they, I believe his name was Sam Epstein, and he was a analog for Harry Ellinger, who was the real-life guy who I was lucky enough to meet once or twice. Harry Ellinger was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, born in 1926.

Waitman (23:55.936)
Okay.

Michael Rugel (24:14.332)
He's there until his Bar Mitzvah. At age 13, he's Bar Mitzvahed in Germany. The day after that, his family gets a visa, he leaves for the U.S. and he's here. So he's still a pretty young guy in 1944 when he's drafted. He's drafted and assigned to the 99th Infantry Division.

He sent to Europe and there, when he's serving, he's identified by the Monuments and Fine Arts Commission guys, the Monuments men, as a guy who speaks the language, who knows the geography, similar type of story, and they need someone like that. And he's brought into the work of recovering art that the Germans had stolen from all over Europe, and they had hidden work from German museums, and they had taken stuff from churches, from museums, from all over Europe.

growing up in Karlsruhe had grown up down the street from a museum that had some of these fine works of art, but as a Jew, he wasn't even allowed to visit that museum. There was a prohibition against Jews visiting this museum in Karlsruhe where he had grown up. So he ends up working as a translator, translating both documents and acting as a personal translator. And in 1945,

he is assigned to what they call the Heilbronn salt mines, which they discover is loaded up with artwork looted from all over Europe. And he works in there for months recovering these masterworks, they had including some stuff that had been in that museum in his hometown. So you know, when I got to meet him, he discussed working in the mines. And you know, he started thinking like he was a coal miner or something. But he was referring to the work of recovering these

Michael Rugel (25:57.962)
salt mines and there's a great photo of him posing with a Rembrandt self-portrait in these salt mines so he ended up kind of putting together these exhibits he wasn't even allowed to see in his hometown and was ended up becoming a advocate for the arts and spoke about this.

his whole life and was featured both in the book, The Monuments Men, and then they used, they didn't use a real name for whatever reason, but as a character based on his story in the film.

Waitman (26:33.628)
How do these Jewish veterans, particularly those that are serving initially in World War II, how do they view the Germans? Because I think one of the tropes that I think has some basis in fact, is that Americans and British fighting the Germans felt a certain sense of, you know,

these are kind of people just like me. In a way they don't with the Japanese, right, for example. I'm imagining that must hit differently for these people, or does it?

Michael Rugel (27:14.836)
Yes, it does. I think it does hit differently, but it is still there. There's a guy, Ernst Krammer, who I wanted to talk about, really amazing story, but he, post-war, really dedicates himself to two things, ensuring that the Germans, the German people couldn't deny what was going on in the concentration camps, couldn't deny the Holocaust. He made sure they saw them.

he made sure that they'd be there he worked at the same bring out germans to do like very bodies and jobs like that the german civilians knew but he would say he part of the reason he did it is because he had uh... faith in germans in germans from when he had lived there so he thought they needed a lot of reeducation but he really dedicated himself to ensuring that something like national socialism wouldn't rise again he stays in germany becomes part of the uh... the military government there because he said he had faith

uh... could adhere to democratic pencils could be that this was a

disaster and he wanted to make sure everyone acknowledged how, how evil it was, how awful it was that the things that German civilians did, but at the same time, he really believed that they could be a democracy that respected human rights. So he worked in the military government. His, his story in particular is amazing because he was in prison in Buchenwald himself in he's arrested during Kristallnacht and in prison in Buchenwald and he manages

get a visa and come to the US in 1939. He's trained at Camp Ritchie at the Military Intelligence Training Center and then in a sub camp of Ritchie called Camp Sharp which was the psychological operations aspect of Camp Ritchie. So he ends up in the in a mobile radio broadcast company where they're very successful at getting German soldiers to desert the units because they set up these speakers and they broadcast over the German radio airwaves and

Michael Rugel (29:18.89)
spoken German and they have a lot of success in influencing the German soldiers and German civilians. And when the camps start getting liberated in the spring of 1945, Kramer and Scrumer is there and he re-enters Buchenwald seven years after he had been in prison there as a liberating American soldier. And so he's there, he's able to interact with the survivors, to communicate, to...

Waitman (29:41.326)
Wow.

Michael Rugel (29:46.104)
the liberator stories, that's probably, you know, at the museum, our other main angle in addition to survivors serving in the military, we tell a lot of stories about the American Jewish soldiers that liberate concentration camps, the way they interact with survivors, a lot of them would walk in, they'd say, they could say Jewish prayers, they would say the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, they would identify themselves, you hear the phrase, ik benayin, Amerikaner, Juden, things like that, you know, I am an American Jew, and you hear these stories about how...

The survivors in these camps are able to take that first step small as it may be to reestablishing Jewish community in Erzheim was a part of that. You know, he's inspired by these by these experiences to stay on in Germany and really work to return Germany to a the kind of country he had grown up with that had been lost.

Waitman (30:41.654)
Do you think that there's a different reaction from American born Jewish soldiers versus the one similar to Cramer? Cause I can totally see how, you know, he, he has a different experience with Germans, um, rather than sort of the, yeah.

Michael Rugel (31:00.124)
Yeah, yeah, right. The American-born ones, it might have been pure anger. In the World War II generation, a lot of these guys are going to be the children of immigrants, so not the more likely Eastern European Russian than German themselves. And I think that's probably right. There's less context for seeing the Germans...

as humans, they only see the people that did these monstrous acts that it would seem that you would want humanity to be incapable of, but of course, as we know, they were humans and they did act like that, but that humanity might have been a little harder for the American-born Jews to recognize and it might have just been more of the pure anger, certainly justified.

Waitman (31:51.742)
I think one of the questions then, I mean, this, this may seem like a very obvious question, but because certainly, um, you know, Jewish soldiers liberating camps have a different experience perhaps than non-Jewish ones, but can you, can you talk a little about, you know, how, how did they react? What are the different emotions and feelings that they had encountering, you know, in this case the German concentration camps?

Michael Rugel (32:05.328)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Rugel (32:19.388)
Yeah.

I mean, just incredibly powerful, overwhelming experiences. Most of these guys, most of these liberation spear experiences for the American soldiers are for like a couple hours that they're in these camps. And they had this tremendous lifelong impact where these guys could not get the images out of their mind. They could not get these brief interactions with the survivors out. A lot of them are, you know, you see people affected in wildly different ways.

embracing religion, some rejecting it, some saw Zionism in the state of Israel as the answer, some saw embracing American ideals as the answer. So much different response, but like, for everyone, it was incredibly strong responses. And then the idea that...

Cromer had to, uh...

make sure that the German civilians had to acknowledge this was that was something that was universally shared by American Jewish soldiers and they that's something that's expressed by virtually everyone that you know they really wanted to work to make sure no one could pretend this didn't happen. They also the American soldiers has really important role in reporting what they saw in these camps to the world. These are kind of the first reports that's coming to the US it couldn't just be dismissed as wartime propaganda.

Michael Rugel (33:53.692)
So the feelings, they undoubtedly related and connected to the European Jewish civilian victims of the Holocaust, and they certainly recognize, except for the small coincidence of their having come to the US, could have been them as well. So these are strong, lifelong, impacting events at liberation.

Waitman (34:24.03)
And did they, I mean, I'm asking, were there instances where this changes the relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish soldiers in a unit in the sense of, oh, I mean, I see what, now I sort of see what, what was at stake for you as a Jewish person.

Michael Rugel (34:44.825)
Yeah, there's certainly stories like that where there's some mistreatment of survivors by American soldiers who don't have trouble seeing the humanity in these walking skeletons. I mean, there's tragic stories.

of well-intentioned people overfeeding the survivors and things like that, but then there's some intentional or at least thoughtless abuse by American soldiers and that really did anger some of the Jewish American soldiers that witnessed this. And then there's also the other things, the people that did get it, that did do everything they can to help these survivors and that helped.

intensify the bonds between Jewish and non-Jewish soldiers. So it worked both ways.

Waitman (35:34.154)
Did this, did this come as a shock to the Jewish, the Jewish soldiers? And I asked this because, you know, they're one of the things that we know in terms of what did, what did people know about the Holocaust is that there are sort of multiple different sort of echelons of knowledge, but that often within Jewish communities, there's a fairly significant amount of information available about the Holocaust.

Michael Rugel (36:02.36)
Yeah, they are pretty uniform in their shock at what they encountered. Remember, there's no orders to liberate the camps. These are all just happening upon these camps and walking through the doors and seeing what they see. So it's pretty consistent that these guys.

knew they were camps, they knew people were getting murdered, they knew Jews were getting murdered in these camps. They did not expect to see anything like what they saw in terms of the mass execution, the systematic execution, the number of bodies that they witnessed it. So it's pretty consistent that these guys...

did not expect to see anything like what they saw even though they were aware of camps they were aware of murder they did not expect to see what they saw

Waitman (36:49.95)
And I'm assuming that then they shared this with family back home, or did they? Or did they not? Like, did they sort of try to protect people from this?

Michael Rugel (36:54.08)
Yeah.

Michael Rugel (36:58.516)
Yeah, there's some of both, but they documented it well in a...

Michael Rugel (37:10.87)
in official, they documented it well both in official reports. And you see the difference in the letters home written maybe to a brother versus a mother where they need to protect.

Michael Rugel (37:28.52)
But they certainly recognized what was going on, the need to tell people what had happened, and it's the photographs, the video, the reports, and then.

Some of these guys would stay on in the DP camps, and the American soldiers would stay on in the DP, in the displaced person camps, and do things like coordinate with folks back home to try to find families, to try to find some place for the survivors to go. In the post-war years, so that involves more communication with Jewish communities back home where they described and they talked about what they had found.

Waitman (38:12.802)
Did they have the opportunity to sort of transfer out of, certainly at the end of the war, because it sounds like what you're saying is that there are people who liberated the camps, perhaps as like an infantry unit or something, but then were able to say, you know, I have a particular set of skills, connections, et cetera, I'd like to work with the displaced persons.

Michael Rugel (38:26.628)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Rugel (38:36.16)
Yeah, yeah, and some of the same skills that we've been talking about, some of his language. Yeah, so you do see folks volunteer. This is a subgroup. Most people want to get home, but there's some that are dedicated to trying to help these survivors and that make choices to stay on in the DP camps.

Waitman (38:50.722)
Go home, yeah, exactly.

Waitman (39:00.434)
Yeah, I mean, that, that has to be, I mean, that's an exceptionally selfless thing to say at the end of World War II, actually, I'm going to stay longer voluntarily, even though it's obviously doing, you know, great work.

Michael Rugel (39:10.681)
Yeah.

Michael Rugel (39:14.)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and there's stories about these guys connecting to the Yiddish language radio in New York. And they would broadcast who's in these camps and try to find family and then write letters to the Jewish press and have them.

identified so the role continues and one of the interesting things with chaplains, Jewish chaplains end up essentially performing weddings, kind of acting as civilian rabbis for survivors in the DP camps. So the role of American Jews definitely continues through, you know, 46, 47, by 48, the DP camps are still up but most of the Jews are, have gone either to the US, to Israel or elsewhere.

Waitman (40:00.251)
And is there an attempt to find family members for people who are recent emigres to the United States?

Michael Rugel (40:05.38)
Yeah.

Michael Rugel (40:10.292)
Yeah, yeah, so there's organized societies that work to do that, that work to try to find family members and make connections so these people have a place to go. And American soldiers were a big part of that.

Waitman (40:26.154)
And then I'm imagining that if we move forward a little bit, you know, we have individuals potentially, um, who either were oppressed by the Nazis or very close to that, who then end up in the army of occupation in Germany. Is that, is that, is that a phenomenon that you've, that you've noticed as well?

Michael Rugel (40:49.972)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so folks do stay in the Army of Occupation at the chief headquarters. A lot of Jews involved in things like the Nuremberg trials after the war. There's some of these folks trained at Camp Ritchie do things like they stay on in administrative capacities in German towns or cities. And they run German language newspapers that are published by the US Army.

and some of the folks that came through these military intelligence training centers and these psychological operation training end up with post-war jobs in Germany or in Austria doing that kind of work, either administrative government or essentially press type jobs within occupied Germany. Yeah. Yeah, well, this both. This both.

Waitman (41:41.046)
And are they still in the military when they're doing this? Or is this as civil, yeah. So they're like, so these are more like career people.

Michael Rugel (41:47.084)
Yeah, yeah, or some of them just to stay around for another year or two and then, you know, get out of the military. But yeah, and then there are some that volunteer with organizations when the UN takes over the camps so that they end up working with there. But yeah, initially they are still with the military.

Waitman (42:09.054)
Yeah, and so how do we, we think about people like Ruben, right, who then joined the military in the post World War II period. Do we have other examples of Holocaust survivors fighting sort of in other wars?

Michael Rugel (42:26.912)
Yeah, yeah, so that continues definitely through Vietnam. Sidney Shack now is an example. He becomes a two-star general that's essentially running Army Special Forces. He's kind of an Army Special Forces legend. So he has this pretty wild life path from Holocaust survivor to this two-star general special forces guy.

Waitman (42:50.046)
Oh, go on then. Tell us, what is it?

Michael Rugel (42:54.164)
Um, on Shaq now? Yeah, I think that's the, that's, I mean, that's, that's the gist of the story that he, uh, he, uh, his, his period is mostly in Vietnam. Yeah.

Waitman (42:56.971)
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Rugel (43:11.424)
And this focus, yeah, so it does continue. Even in through the Gulf War, there's some stories of some older officers that had survived the Holocaust. And I guess that's, I think everyone just about ages out shortly after that, but it does continue.

Waitman (43:30.796)
Right.

Waitman (43:34.09)
And so what, what reflections do they have about, you know, their military service, connecting it to their experience in the Holocaust or, or maybe not. I mean, maybe we're pushing, reflecting things too far back.

Michael Rugel (43:47.869)
Yeah, no, I think most of them did. Even if you were just a kid, these were formative experiences that absolutely affected your life view.

And so for some of them, particularly for those that went career in the military, the lesson was fight and fight as hard as you can. Others took different routes out of it, but for those...

that continued in the military, wanting to be empowered by military service was an important part. And that's where Never Again came in for these guys. By serving in the US military, they saw it as a way to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

Waitman (44:38.134)
Was there a sense of gratitude towards the United States? And I know that that's, I'm intentionally, for those of you who can't see me, I'm using scare quotes here because we all know the United States could have done a lot more to help, but I imagine for some of these people, particularly those that saw American soldiers enter, that's also formative. You know, these giant guys with weapons coming in and freeing them.

Michael Rugel (44:47.746)
Yeah.

Michael Rugel (44:55.712)
Yeah.

Michael Rugel (45:05.62)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think the Tibor Rubin example where he's inspired by the liberation and wants to join the US, I think that's absolutely people were.

Michael Rugel (45:21.424)
inspired and thankful and praised the US liberators to a huge degree. The stuff around what the Roosevelt administration knew, whether they could have bombed the tracks, people, they're not thinking in those terms. And so I think the gratitude towards the US, both from

those that escaped in the late 30s, like most of the folks that we've talked about, as well as those that are liberated at the end of the war, is pretty consistent and pretty unambiguous.

Waitman (45:55.326)
And do we have information about, you know, did they, those that carried on, you know, it's Holocaust survivors who joined the American military after the war, had a career, or spent significant amount of time there, did they share their experiences, you know, either formally or informally with their fellow soldiers or with the services, or is it something they sort of kept to themselves?

Michael Rugel (46:23.348)
Yeah, again, that's a little tough to generalize. I think it probably leans more towards keeping it to themselves. And they knew something had happened back in Germany, but the details probably were mostly kept to themselves. I feel like that's most typical.

Michael Rugel (46:49.208)
But they made it clear in a time when some other Americans might not necessarily have recognized, this guy is a German. The German Jewish experience was at this point so different from the other Germans.

They made it very clear that they hated the Nazi regime, that they hated the current atmosphere in Germany. So from at least from that perspective, they shared some of their experiences, if probably not the details.

Waitman (47:30.558)
And I know you, I'm going to put you on the spot. I know you told me not to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Um, do we get a sense of, you know, rough numbers of how many, um, survivors, you know, from, from the Holocaust end up in the U S military?

Michael Rugel (47:34.256)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Michael Rugel (47:47.948)
Yeah, it's thousands. And you'll see some wildly divergent estimates. We know through Camp Richey a couple thousand European Jewish refugees using Holocaust survivors, using the broader definition of it, just come through Camp Richey.

Waitman (48:06.315)
Right.

Michael Rugel (48:12.64)
Yeah, so there's no single source for the paperwork, single record to determine if this soldier is refugee or not. So the numbers are tough. And you'll see people say in 2000, you'll see, if you search for it, you can find 100,000 out there. But

But yeah, it's in the thousands and yeah, hesitant to ever try, this is true for a lot of it. After World War II, there was a Bureau of Jewish War Records who tried to account for.

how many Jews served in the American military period with not making that distinction between a refugee and otherwise. I apologize, my phone keeps ringing. So the Bureau of Jewish War Records compiled surveys, they sent questionnaires to families, can you confirm your son or daughter was Jewish and that they served in the war and they came up with the number 550,000 for American Jews as a whole.

serving in the military. So we have that number based on this huge statistical effort. Something similar happened after World War I as well, and you know, at that time in American history, the Jewish community felt the need to document that Jewish Americans did their bit just like everyone else. Nothing like that has happened since, but the numbers on Holocaust survivors, on refugees specifically, are tough to get to a good number.

Waitman (49:38.774)
I was going to ask precisely that because of course the, the Germans do this as well, right? Um, during World War I, um, they, they do this so-called did you count? Right. And so that sounded very reminiscent of like, oh my gosh, now American Jews are, are literally trying to fight the same antisemitic trope of, of Jews, not pulling their weight.

Michael Rugel (49:47.448)
Yeah, the Jew count in Germany. Yeah.

Michael Rugel (49:59.7)
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely what. In World War I and World War II, Jews are serving in a slightly higher percentage in the military than they are of the population as a whole. Some of that is connected to immigration patterns, just demographics where the population skews slightly young, more of military service age, unlike today where the Jewish population skews old. But they're a higher percentage in the military than they are the population.

Waitman (50:26.09)
And so this Bureau of Jewish War Records, is that a government agency or is it? No, okay.

Michael Rugel (50:30.404)
No, no, so it was it was put together by.

After World War I, AJC, the American Jewish Committee, was the lead organization. In World War I, the Jewish Welfare Board is created as the morale organization for Jews in the military. So prior to World War I, the YMCA had been the morale organization for everyone. In World War I, with over 200,000 American Jews in service, they realized the YMCA doesn't work for everyone anymore. So the Jewish Welfare Board is created in World War I. So that organization, JWB, still exists. It's now called the JWB Jewish Child.

Waitman (50:57.97)
Yeah.

Michael Rugel (51:18.629)
the Rebellion

Waitman (51:25.95)
And so, you know, as we sort of reflect on this a little bit, what are the sources that you have for all of these stories that you've told us? How do we know about them?

Michael Rugel (51:36.064)
Yeah, there's a fair number of good books on the subject. I think the first one I came across was Stephen Karras's, he did a book and a documentary film. The book is The Enemy I Knew, German Jews in the Allied Military in World War II, and the film is called About Face, so he probably came out about 15, 15 to 20 years ago.

uh... that book and documentary so that was probably the first one came across and he was able to at that time a lot of these guys are still around so we got a lot of good interviews uh... we're getting to the uh... very end now it is

very few of these guys still around. There are a few, but it's, and we're pretty much at the end of being able to conduct the interviews. There's several good books on Camp Richie, on the Military Intelligence Training Center, including Richie Boy Secrets by Beverly Eddy. And she also wrote another book about Camp Sharp called The Psycho Boys, which focuses on the psychological operations in the mobile radio broadcast companies. Bruce Henderson's

Michael Rugel (52:42.754)
stories he focuses on six or seven soldier stories and kind of follows them through getting out of Europe and training at Camp Richey and then going back primarily as POW interrogators.

Waitman (52:56.139)
And are there oral histories or interviews that are available of some of these people?

Michael Rugel (53:01.312)
Yeah, yeah. So we do have some of those here at the museum. In the early 90s, a guy named Mort Horvitz, and he is a liberator, married a Holocaust survivor. So it's his personal story he collected.

A lot of oral histories for us here. We've done two exhibits here at the museum, one called G.I.'s Remember, which focused on liberator stories, and one called Rescue and Renewal, which also included the DP camp aspects of it. So those are liberator stories specifically. So we collected a lot of those. And then Steve Karras collected these oral histories for his book that are generally on German Jews in the US military. And there are.

uh, some, uh, interviews from the Holocaust Museum, from the Shoah Foundation. Uh, yeah, so there's a lot out there in terms of oral history. It's well documented, thankfully.

Waitman (53:57.582)
Well, great. Mike, thanks so much for coming on. I want to close with the question that I ask everybody, which is sort of what is one book on the Holocaust or Holocaust related book that you found particularly influential or meaningful or interesting?

Michael Rugel (54:15.2)
Yeah, since we started with Tibor Rubin, I should mention there's a book on him. It's called Single-Handed by Daniel Cohen. So there's a whole book devoted to Tibor Rubin's story. I would recommend everyone check out Dan Cohen's book. Broader, I tend to think of the David Wyman abandonment of the Jews. That's definitely one that stuck with me. Yeah.

Waitman (54:40.766)
about the US response. Um, yeah.

Michael Rugel (54:43.38)
Yeah, and then some of the stuff that Rafael Mendoff has written more recently on the same themes. Those tend to stick with me. It's been a lot over the years. So yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, so thankful that so much has been written about the Holocaust Center. It is so well documented. It just makes it hard to choose a book or two.

Waitman (55:03.014)
Right. No, yes. And we're still able to keep writing new things. Well, Mike, thanks so much for taking the time to tell us about these stories. I mean, they're really, really amazing. I think one of the things that I find particularly, I guess, inspiring about the Holocaust survivors, particularly ones who chose to go back, but also ones who chose to serve later on is you have people who have survived against the odds a very

you know, horrible life threatening situation. And then they've decided, Hey, I'm going to go ahead and risk my life again. Um, and I'm, you know, for, for something else. And I think that's, that's particularly powerful as a story.

Michael Rugel (55:47.84)
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It's been a pleasure and thanks for all you're doing to share Holocaust stories. I appreciate being on. Oh.

Waitman (55:55.598)
All right, great. Everybody else, thank you so much for listening. As I always say, please, if you have a chance, subscribe in all the usual places. Give us a like. Give us a review. If you're enjoying is the wrong word, but if you're finding what we're doing interesting and meaningful, please let us know. And as always, I will put in the show notes links to some of the things that we've talked about today, including the books.

that Mike has mentioned.