Israel to honor late US soldier who protected Jews at Nazi POW camp

JERUSALEM â€“ The Nazi soldiers made their orders very clear: Jewish American prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate.

But Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds would have none of that. As the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer held in the German POW camp, he ordered more than 1,000 Americans captives to step forward with him and brazenly pronounced: "We are all Jews here."

He would not waver, even with a pistol to his head, and his captors eventually backed down.

Seventy years later, the Knoxville, Tennessee, native is being posthumously recognized with Israel's highest honor for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II. He's the first American serviceman to earn the honor.

"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," said Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial. "The choices and actions of Master Sgt. Edmonds set an example for his fellow American soldiers as they stood united against the barbaric evil of the Nazis."

It's a story that remained untold for decades and one that his son, the Rev. Chris Edmonds, only discovered long after his father's death in 1985.

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A wonderful story, perhaps missing some details.

In the waning months of the war, the Germans, desparate to accelerate work on tunnels to secure the manufacture at a "work" camp named Berga, made the decision to use POWs to supplement workers from Buchenwald, of which Berga was a subcamp.

The workers were chosen from Stalag IX-B, about 30 miles away. I've read elsewhere the "call" was made for Jewish POWs. Some of which stepped forward, as did many non Jews. The Germans were reduced to a guessing game, and many non Jews with the wrong Jewish surnames ended up heading to the labor death camp at Berga.

Our government buried this for decades, don't think it came out till the 90s. I've never heard the name of the blessed Roddie Edmonds before, but the actions attributed to him are consistant with what I've read before.

Stalag 9b was also an unpleasant place, hundreds of American POWs died in a forced march as the camp was about to be liberated.

And a quick check of records, there's Roddie Edmonds at 9B.

A story suppressed for so long, Roddie's bravery and hundreds of POWs who dies, I'm tempted to rage at our government's duplicity at covering things like this up. But to Roddie, today, at some point the rest of us, whether it's coverage or coverup, media or government, doesn't matter.

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