'We Are All Jews Here'

Some of you may have noticed that often a “Road Yet Taken” column is tied to an anniversary. Not this time — for two reasons.

One is, because of all the political divisiveness and especially antisemitism going around, I decided it was time to tell the story of someone who inspires us to be better people.

Two: This is a salute to the folks who, Sunday after Sunday, in all kinds of weather, gather at the windmill in Sag Harbor to protest the violence in Gaza. Recently, a group supporting Israel has been having its own protest a few feet away. A couple of weeks ago, the police intervened when there was a confrontation between the two groups. Later, there were handshakes.

I hope both protests continue. I see these Sag Harbor demonstrations as a microcosm of the impact of the Gaza crisis throughout the U.S.

Now, that story:

It begins with Roderick W. “Roddie” Edmonds, who was born in 1919 in South Knoxville, Tennessee. He grew up attending a Methodist church and graduated from Knoxville High in 1938. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, and during World War II he rose to the rank of master sergeant.

Edmonds was with the 106th Infantry Division when it arrived in the Hurtgen Forest in December 1944. Only five days later, the Germans launched a massive offensive in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge.

During the battle, on December 21, 1944, Edmonds was captured, along with 20,000 other American soldiers. He was sent to the prisoner of war camp Stalag IX-B, then soon after he and other prisoners were transferred to Stalag IX-A near Ziegenhain in Germany.

As the senior noncommissioned officer there — though only 25 years old — Master Sergeant Edmonds was responsible for the camp’s 1,275 American POWs.

On January 27, 1945, as Germany’s defeat was clearly approaching, the commandant of Stalag IX-A ordered Edmonds to tell only the Jewish-American soldiers to present themselves at the next morning’s assembly so they could be separated from the other prisoners. Fearing for their lives, that morning, Edmonds ordered all 1,275 POWs to assemble outside their barracks.

The German commandant rushed up to Edmonds in a fury. He placed his Lugar against the master sergeant’s forehead and demanded that he identify the Jewish soldiers under his command.

Instead, Edmonds responded, “We are all Jews here.”

“You will order all Jews to step forward or I will shoot you right now!” several witnesses recalled the commandant screaming.

Edmonds calmly told him that the Geneva Convention required a soldier only to give his name, rank and serial number, not his religion. “If you shoot me,” he said, “you will have to shoot all of us, because we all know who you are, and when the war is over you will be tried as a war criminal.”

Aware that Allied troops were approaching, and that Edmonds was right, the German officer turned red, holstered his pistol and stormed back to his office.

The Americans returned to their barracks, the 200 Jews still safely among them.

On March 30, 1945, the second day of Passover, the Jewish holiday of liberation, the American Army arrived at Stalag IX-A. Edmonds had made the brave decision to refuse Nazi orders to evacuate his men with the other prisoners and, frustrated and frightened, the Germans simply fled.

When Edmonds was back in Tennessee, he kept the event at the POW camp to himself — he never even told his family about it. He was again recruited to service during the Korean War. After returning from that conflict, Edmonds worked various jobs, including for The Knoxville Journal and in sales related to mobile homes, and the early days of cable television.

When Roddie Edmonds died in August 1985, 12 days shy of his 66th birthday, he still had not told anyone about his lifesaving act in the prison camp, and thus had not received any official recognition, citation or medal for it.

Sometime after his death, Edmonds’s widow gave his son, Chris Edmonds, a couple of the diaries his father had kept while in the POW camp. Chris Edmonds, a Baptist minister, began reading the diaries and stumbled upon a mention of the event at the POW camp.

He located several of the Jewish soldiers his father saved and they provided witness statements to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Among the Jewish-American POW servicemen who were saved was Sonny Fox, an American television host and executive, who witnessed and later testified about Edmonds’s remarkable act.

On February 10, 2015, Yad Vashem recognized Edmonds as “Righteous Among Nations,” Israel’s highest honor for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

The awards ceremony was held on January 27, 2016, at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama praised Roddie Edmonds for action “above and beyond the call of duty,” and echoed Edmonds’s statement: “We are all Jews here.”

On his father’s behalf, Chris Edmonds received the Righteous medal and certificate of honor from Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer and Yad Vashem Council Chairman Rabbi Lau.

Chris Edmonds sought to have his father’s bravery recognized with the Medal of Honor. However, the U.S. Army position was that Sergeant Edmonds was a captive, and therefore ineligible, because his actions were not in combat — ignoring that a pistol had been put to his head.

To overcome this obstacle, on March 23, 2016, U.S. Representative John Duncan of Tennessee introduced H.R. 4863 to recognize Edmonds with a Congressional Gold Medal, one of the two highest civilian awards in the U.S. (The other is the Presidential Medal of Freedom.)

On February 13, 2017, Republican U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee were joined by Democrat Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Ben Cardin of Maryland to introduce a bill to have Sergeant Edmonds honored with the Congressional Gold Medal.

The legislation continues to languish in Congress. However, a historical marker honoring Edmonds was placed in Knoxville, Tennessee, in November 2020. It was donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and the Knoxville Jewish Alliance.