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The Story of the Jewish Refugee Soldiers of World War II

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SUMMARY:
Here is the remarkable, untold story of thousands of young Jewish immigrants who fled Germany and Austria in the early days of Hitler's regime, only to perform an “about face," returning to confront their oppressors on the fields of battle as Allied soldiers in World War II. These are their stories of heartbreak, courage and the triumph of the human spirit as the veterans recount their journeys back to their homelands and the battlefronts, experiencing emotions more complex than revenge as they re-examine their identities as refugees, immigrants and soldiers.

NARRATED BY: Peter Coyote
ORIGINAL MUSIC SCORE BY: John Cale
DOCUMENTARY, 97 Minutes, 2007

DETAILED SYNOPSIS:
Here is the previously untold story of thousands of young refugees who fled from Nazi-occupied Germany and Austria between 1933-1938 and found safe havens in the U.S. and Great Britain, only to perform an “about face,” putting themselves once again in harm’s way by returning to fight the Nazis as part of the Allied Forces. The film is told through interviews with these refugees-turned-soldiers, now veterans of World War II who describe their uniquely powerful and unexpected experiences, along with commentary from historians/authors Michael Berenbaum, Peter Hayes and Joseph Persico.

At the time they emigrated, most of these refugees were still teenagers, and in many cases, they emigrated without parents or other family members. They arrived with little or no money to places like New York and London, where they would be met only by distance relatives or no one at all, and were left to fend completely for themselves.

Despite these difficulties, these young men and women arrived full of hope and relief. As one of the veterans, Karl Goldsmith describes it, “Can I say it was like a dream? When I came to America, I didn’t have to look around the corner to see if someone was coming to kick the daylights out of me... It was like all this crap fell off me...”

But feelings of relief were quickly overtaken by thoughts of loved ones left behind. Filled with the desire to take back what was taken from them and to deliver the world from what veteran Kurt Klein described as, “this tremendous evil,” these brave young refugees, with little regard for their own safety, joined the ranks of the Allied forces to face their former oppressors, who were now their military opponents and would later become their prisoners during the war. As veteran Bernie Baum recalls his desire to get into the war, “I didn’t see at as a choice... They were killing people, including my own family...”

The film opens with phone messages responding to film inquiries looking for German and Austrian-born Jews who fought for the Allies in WWII: “I am calling about that film-making thing. I fit your condition as far as German born and being a World War II veteran...”

Fast forward to veteran Eric Hamberg describing the field of battle, “The first mortar shell I ever fired landed in a ditch where there was five German soldiers. I wasn’t just killing people, I was killing my enemy, my personal enemy.”

Next, the film provides a glimpse into pre-Hitler Germany and what it was like for these youngsters whose fathers had fought on the side of Germany in the First World War and who were intensely patriotic Germans. Their feelings of security are shattered the moment Hitler comes to power in 1933.

One of the more intriguing interviewees introduced here is veteran Adelyn Bonin, who as a young girl finds out that she is Jewish after her distraught father sees the swastika pin on her school uniform and tells the Lutheran-raised Berliner that she is in fact Jewish: “The day that Hitler took power, I just thought it was the most wonderful thing. We all ran across the streets and said "Heil Hitler" you know, and I bought myself a swastika, put it on my coat. And that evening... when I came home my father saw the swastika on my coat and said, ‘we have to have a long talk.’”

Immigration restrictions and violence against these Jews and their families made it very difficult but imperative for them to leave. Historian Michael Berenbaum explains the ambivalence abroad and the reluctance to receive Jewish refugees over the quota limits as well as the agonizing chaos of finding ways to get out of Germany. Here, Karl Goldsmith also describes the scene at the American consulate in Stuttgart and the pressure to get visas to leave: “my father, a 60-year-old man, broke down and cried...”

The film then returns to the refugees who successfully immigrate and subsequently are labeled, “enemy aliens.” Ironically, these immigrants come under the suspicion of the American and British governments, who fear these former nationals of countries who have declared war on Europe, may in fact be enemy agents disguised as refugees. Overcoming these suspicions, they go on to enlist or are drafted into the American and British armies.

Armed with a sense of purpose and a feeling of acceptance in the military, these former refugees are transformed from victims into soldiers and citizens. With their identities restored, they become intensely patriotic Americans and Brits who, as native German speakers, become members of elite commando units and highly specialized intelligence units. As veteran Peter Masters describes it, the transformation was “Like a butterfly out of a cocoon...”

On the eve of their entry into war, they experience a wide range of emotions, from fear to rage. Karl Goldsmith states that he had a grudge to settle but more importantly he wanted to help America win the war, while veteran Jerry Bechhofer remembers, “You were sad that all this had to happen... Like all wars, it was crazy...” Veteran Fritz Weinschenk somberly recalls stopping an American soldier from injuring and perhaps killing a captured Nazi soldier, in what would he says have been a “war crime.” Veteran and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explains, “It wasn’t something that we were looking forward to doing, it was something that needed to be done.”

Though they emerge as conquering who participate in the many decisive battles of the war and assist in obtaining the unconditional surrender from Hitler’s generals, it is far outweighed by their sense of humanity. Kurt Klein recalls: “I went back with hatred in my heart for all they had inflicted upon Jews and on the world... But what I found was the key to my own future.” In a small town he helps to liberate, he finds a Jewish refugee, barely alive, who later becomes his wife. Veteran Manfred Gans leaves his unit and drives from Germany to Terezen, Czechoslovakia, where he finds his parents, alive, in the concentration camp.

As the film reaches its climax and unexpected conclusions unfold, veteran Fritz Weinschenk walks along the beach of Normandy on the 60th anniversary of D-Day: “Fritz, what do you want people to remember about this?” Pause. “Never let a fanatic get a hold of your country. I think that’s the big lesson here.”

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