Every Veteran's Day for the past two decades I had the honor and privilege to perform at an upscale Jewish retirement community, Atrium Village. One of the residents there always came to see me every time I performed, which is normally once per month, and on at least three holidays, including Veteran's Day. During the Veteran's Day performance it's pretty much just a ceremonial thing, the reading of Flanders Field, I play Taps, God Bless America and all 4 service hymns. This year, unfortunately, that resident was no longer with us - he had recently passed away.
He was a Major in the Hungarian Army during WWII, captured by the Germans and interned at Auschwitz. After three years on a labor gang, he health began to fail horribly, he said he was down to under 100 pounds, and stood 6'4" tall. The day before he was to be executed, the American army liberated Auschwitz, he spent a year in a hospital recovering, and immigrated to the United States in the late 1940s. When I met him a decade ago, he showed me the serial number the Germans tattooed on his forearm - it was somewhat unnerving to say the least. He was a wonderful person to talk with and I will miss him dearly.
Monday, I met a lady that was interned at Buchenwald, and also liberated by the American army a few days before she was scheduled to be gassed. She said that if WWII were fought by today's rules of engagement America would have lost the war. Super nice lady and she said she is eternally grateful to the GIs that rescued her from what would have been certain death. She was the sole survivor of her entire family and she too had the arm tattoo.
I served aboard the U.S.S. Newport News for four years, entering the service in 1957 at age 17. I was sent ashore in Famagusta, Cyprus during the Cypriot Revolt as part of a security force to quell riots, then searched for survivors and dug bodies from the rubble at Agadir, Morocco after the earthquake in 1960 that killed 12,000 people. Unfortunately, that gallant ship was cut up for scrap metal at a ship yard in New Orleans in 1993.
Gary
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