>> Monica Mohindra: Hi.
Welcome. I'm going to use notes
today because I don't want to muddle other people's
words or introductions. But please know that
I'm so pleased to be here with each of you today. I'm Monica Mohindra. I'm the director of the
Veterans History Project here at the Library of Congress. And of all days,
it makes so much sense that we are here today. Well, you can't see behind
all this lovely apparatus is the Supreme Court
is just there. So take a minute before you
leave to peek out the blinds. And the Capitol is just there. But more importantly, this
is the Library of Congress, which is our nation's oldest
federal cultural institution. It began as a law library
with just 700 books and three maps
and big aspirations to house our nation's reason,
memory, and imagination. And today we are here witnessing
the realization of that. With over 160 million items,
it is a remarkable place and workforce, which
sustains and preserves a universal collection
of knowledge and creativity for now and for
future generations. History and memory
are a crucial dyad here and particularly today. The Veterans History
Project is honored to join with you today and
to welcome you to the Library of Congress. Congress created
the project in 2000. The idea was to give
veterans a platform, a place to have and preserve
their first-person memories, their personal experiences
about their time in uniform, about their service, and for
us, so that we, through their individual
stories, could connect with our collective
and national history. In addition,
I hope you all saw -- in addition to the voices you
may have seen today during display, and that
you'll hear more about as the afternoon
progresses, the project is our collective repository
of our veterans first person experiences,
and now over 119,000 of those voices, strong
and growing because of people like you. Their voices are resounding
and informing also because of people like you. Our collections range from
a rare journal of World War I to the first-person accounts
of the women and men who served in recent conflicts,
such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Just one such veteran
in our collections, Mr. Benjamin Cooper,
was among the first American
troops to enter the concentration
camp Dachau. A Jewish veteran,
in discussing the importance of relating veterans stories,
he gave examples of the benefits personally
and globally. He said, and here I really need
to read my notes. He said, and it bothered me. It just like festered
there all the time and I couldn't talk to
anybody about it. There was no one to
talk to, you know. That's why I didn't talk
for 45 years. I still have the little
pictures of Dachau when I came home, and I
showed them to some people. Well, you couldn't grasp it, and I couldn't talk
about it, you know. But now I do. Now I want people to
know it happened. There was a Holocaust. He began sharing his story
after meeting survivor and author, Henry Simon
and speaking to students and the public because she
encouraged him to do so, they shared a message
against hate, and they proliferated through
their Connecticut community his term for what they
were doing, sharing a message of
no act of kindness, no matter how small,
is ever wasted. Of himself, reflecting
on the benefits of this experience of
coming back to himself by sharing his story,
he said, and I was revived. But back to here and now,
together in this place, these collections of narratives,
some amongst us of lived experience do not just
sit on dusty shelves under the eaves. What is the point of
collecting them if we don't do something
with them? You, you are the essential
element in this equation by gathering and sharing
these important stories. These memories shape
our collective reason and give wing to imagination
so that together, we create a brighter future. Thank you.
I'd like to now introduce -- It's my great pleasure to
introduce Shanita Jones, the senior operations manager for the Office of Human
Capital Services within the Veterans
Benefit Administration. Ms. Jones began her VBA
career in 2015, when she joined the Appeals
Management Center. Following years of distinguished
service, in April 2021, she was hand-selected to be
one of four managers for the inclusion,
diversity, Equity and Access Task Force,
IDEA. A month later,
Ms. Jones joined the Office of Policy
and Oversight OPO, where she served as
a Senior Management and Program Analyst co-leading
OPO's Front Office Division. Ms. Jones Shanita
is a 2016 graduate of VBA's Performance Analysis and Integrity Inaugural
Mentorship program and has since received several
awards, numerous awards. Her previous work includes with the Social Security
Administration and the Voluntary Service of the
Veterans Health Administration, both in North Carolina
and several years in the private sector. Ms. Jones has a BA
in sociology and an MA in Organizational
and Strategic Communications. She is an active member
of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and a Veteran affairs
IDEA influencer. In addition, Ms. Jones is a
proud United States Army veteran who honorably served her
country in Afghanistan. Thank you, Ms. Jones.
Thank you all. [applause] >> Shanita R. Jones:
Good afternoon. As has been stated,
my name is Shanita Jones and I am a senior
operations manager with the Veterans
Benefits Administration, Human Capital Services,
and I am privileged to lead this ceremony
today on behalf of the United States
Department of Veterans Affairs. Thank you, Ms. Mohindra,
for those moving opening remarks and for making us feel so
welcome here today in this hallowed space. We are so fortunate
to be with you all in this beautiful building. The Library of Congress
is one of our nation's most valued treasures. For those of you who are
joining us online today, please plan to visit this
stunning building. I really cannot put into words
how ornate, impressive and special this room is
where we gather today for this somber occasion. And before we start
with our program, we in VA are grateful
for our partnership with the Library of Congress. And to those here today
for your dedication and your hard work on
the Veterans History Project and to the Jewish War Veterans
of the United States. We would also like to thank
our VA secretary, Denis McDonough, Deputy
secretary Tanya Bradsher, Under Secretary for Benefits
Joshua Jacobs, and Under Secretary for
Memorial Affairs Matthew Quinn for attending today's ceremony. Please join me in welcoming
our first speaker, Rabbi Chesky Tenenbaum. Rabbi Tenenbaum is a dedicated
spiritual leader and chaplain. He is a staff chaplain at the VA
Maryland Health Care System. Rabbi Tenenbaum is also
the founder and the director of the Jewish Uniformed
Service Association of Maryland Chabad,
an organization dedicated to supporting service members,
veterans, and first responders. Good afternoon, Rabbi. We look forward to
your invocation. [applause] >> Rabbi Chesky Tenenbaum:
Thank you. Father in heaven,
creator of all life. In your hands is the soul
of every living thing and the breath of all creations. Almighty God, we are
gathered here today to commemorate the
Jewish American Veterans for their contribution to
our nation and the memory of the six million Jewish
souls who perished during the Holocaust. We are here not only to weep,
even though our hearts and minds are full of
horrors committed against the six million holy
and beloved souls. We are also here to honor
them and to proclaim the everlasting sanctity
of their being. Grant us the courage,
O Lord, as we reflect that over 70 years have
passed since the end of the Holocaust, so we may
strengthen our hearts and take into our hearts
the purity and righteousness of the millions
of innocent people whose lives were cut short. Our country was founded
on the basic principles of liberty and justice for all. It is thanks to our brave
men and women of our armed forces,
both here and overseas, that we continue to enjoy those
God given rights and freedoms. Master of the Royal Police
Guard our military who support and defend
this great nation and its values of truth
and loyalty, we pray for your guidance
as we affirm our sacred duty
as their descendants. We are here not only to reflect
upon the lost generations, but to actively honor
their memory by emulating their actions
and the values they practiced every day. May it be your will,
God of mercy, that you grant us
the strength and vigor so that we can
add light to darkness. Let me share my
personal family connection to the horrors of the Holocaust. My dear grandfather,
Rabbi Mendel Tenenbaum, a Polish Jewish refugee
who in 1939 had fled to Vilna, Lithuania,
to escape the Nazi occupation. However, as the Nazis
closed in on Vilna, my grandfather found himself
in a desperate situation. That's when he heard about
Mr. Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Vilna, who was issuing transit visas
to Jewish refugees. Mr. Sugihara had been posted
in Vilna in 1939, was aware of the dire situation
by the Jewish population. Sugihara was deeply moved by
the plight of the refugees and decided to take action. Without permission
from his superiors, Sugihara began issuing
transit visas to Jewish refugees,
including my grandfather. Over the course
of several weeks, in 1940, Mr. Sugihara
issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees,
many of whom were able to escape to safety. The visa issued by Mr. Sugihara
enable my grandfather to escape the Nazi occupation and ultimately find safety
in the United States. My grandfather,
one of eight siblings, was the only member
of his family to survive the Holocaust. After relocating to New York
on May 29th, 1945, just a few weeks after the
end of World War II, he married my
grandmother, Devorah. Together they raised
five children, one of whom is
my beloved father and welcome
over 35 grandchildren. Today, his legacy is carried on
by more than 120 descendants. He served as an educator
and principal at the local yeshiva,
New York City, imparting knowledge to
thousands of students. I was fortunate to
have grown up just a few blocks from
my grandparents. Sadly, only four days after
celebrating my bar mitzvah, my grandfather suffered
a major stroke, which he never recovered. He passed away in the winter
of 1994 at the age of 76. My grandfather's story serves
as a testament to the power of courage
and compassion in the face of
overwhelming adversity. He was able to escape
the horrors of the Holocaust
and start anew. I would like to end with
a prayer for world peace, especially in Israel and
the Middle East, as is written in
the Book of Job. I'll read in the
original Hebrew text and then translate. [foreign] He who makes peace on high
may bring peace upon us and upon all of humanity.
And let us say Amen. [applause] >> Shanita R. Jones:
Thank you, Rabbi. It is now my pleasure
to introduce the Honorable Joshua Jacobs, Department of Veterans Affairs,
Under Secretary for Benefits. Before being nominated
by the president to serve as Undersecretary
for Benefits, he served as the VA Secretary,
Senior Advisor for Policy and at VA and two
other positions, and spent nearly
a decade working in the United States Senate. Under Secretary Jacobs
believes passionately it is essential veterans,
their families, caregivers and survivors are provided
access to benefits quickly, accurately, equitably and with a world class
customer experience. Please join me in
welcoming the eighth Undersecretary for
Benefits, Joshua Jacobs. [applause] >> Joshua Jacobs: Well,
thank you very much for that kind introduction, and thank you all for
joining us here today. I want to begin by thanking
Monica and the entire Library of Congress team
for opening their doors to us for this really
incredible event, and for their commitment
to preserving the history and the memories
of America's veterans for future generations,
as well as today through the Veterans
History Project. I also want to
acknowledge some of the special guests that
are here with us today. Secretary McDonough,
Deputy Secretary Bradshaw, Under Secretary of Memorial
Affairs Matt Quinn, as well as many other
VA senior leaders. We have Congressman
Derrick Van Orden, a number of white House
and interagency partners. We have Jewish war veterans
National Commander Barry Lashinsky and executive
Director Ken Greenberg. Many other Jewish war
veteran members and VSO leaders as well. And especially to
our speakers, my wife's favorite professor
from her time at Vassar, Professor Deborah Dash Moore, as well as Medal of Honor
recipient, Jack Jacobs. I also would like to take
a moment to honor the recent passing of
Rabbi Lowell Kronick, who served as chaplain
and associate national director
the recent passing of
Rabbi Lowell Kronick, who served as chaplain
and associate national director of the VA National
Chaplain Center with special responsibilities for education
and Jewish affairs.
with special responsibilities for education
and Jewish affairs. Rabbi Kronick truly cared
for his fellow human beings from all walks of life,
and he is sorely missed. We're here to commemorate
Jewish American Heritage Month and to celebrate
the contributions, the experiences
and the sacrifices of Jewish American veterans. Who since the
American Revolution, have stood valiantly
in defense of the freedoms that we hold most dear. Yet as we celebrate,
we also must remember. Today marks Yom Hashoah, a day of solemn remembrance
for the millions who were murdered during
the Holocaust. It's a day to honor the memory
of those who perished, to bear witness
to their suffering, and to reaffirm our
commitment to stand up to anti-Semitism and all other
forms of hatred and bigotry. In that spirit, I'd like
to share a story. Story of a Jewish veteran who
you can learn more about in the room behind us,
Major Milton Stern, a Jewish officer in the
US Army Air Corps during World War II. And like many men at that time, Milton felt the pull
to serve the nation. So he left a lucrative job to
enlist in the Army Air Corps. And when he found out he
was going to be stationed in Alaska, far away
from the fighting, he tried out for the Aviation
cadet program and was accepted, ultimately
becoming a navigator. On March 8th, 1944, during his
second flight over Berlin, one of the engines on his B-17G
plane was shot. He and his airmen
had to fly lower to evade German detection while
hoping to make it safe -- safely to a place to land. And when Milton and the
bombardier suddenly realized they were flying over
German Air Force field, they hopped on the
plane's two-gun turret and began shooting
at anything they could, ultimately destroying
six or seven aircraft while leaving a path
of destruction. Unfortunately, some of
the surviving German planes quickly took up the chase
and just as they thought, they were on the path of safety, their other engine was shot out
and they had to jump. Luckily Milton was found by
a young Dutch man who helped him into
the Dutch-paris line resistance network that
helped Jewish families and downed allied aviators
by hiding them or taking them
to neutral countries. For three months, he made
his way across Europe by bike, trolley train
and rowboat, hiding in different rooms and
haystacks and even a castle. But his luck would run out on
the morning of May 27th, when he woke up to
see a gun pointed at his face by a member
of the Gestapo. He and the family hiding
him were brought to a Nazi prison camp. Milton was put into
solitary confinement. And a month and a half later
on his 21st birthday, Milton was forced to
witness the execution of 14 of his Belgian friends. And shortly after that
execution, he was told, you're next, unless you tell
me what I need to know. But Milton said nothing. And after saying nothing,
he was joined with other American
service members who were put into
boxcars and sent to a German
interrogation center. After enduring six months
of interrogation, the Germans ultimately
segregated more than 200 Jewish officers
to send them to a concentration camp
where death was certain. But thanks to a Russian
offensive that began only two days later, their
departure was prevented and ultimately they were
liberated six months later. Milton spent the rest of his
life caring for the wounds of war of his fellow veterans,
serving as an active volunteer at the Lyons VA medical
Center in New Jersey with the Jewish War Veterans,
the Air Force Association, and the American
Ex-Prisoners of War until he passed away in 2007. Milton's story reminds me
of the power of hope to sustain us through
difficult times. But more important than hope is the power of our
collective action. So I look forward to
recommitting ourselves to the noble mission of
serving our nation's veterans with the compassion,
the dignity, and the unwavering dedication they deserve and have earned
even in difficult times. And these are difficult times. There is a harsh reality
that we face today. Antisemitism is on the rise,
both here in America and abroad. Social media has reinvigorated
Holocaust denialism and anti-Semitism
through the spreading of misinformation,
lies and hate, hate that leads to extremism
and violence. And the Holocaust is
a reminder of how fragile the freedom that
we cherish truly is. It's a reminder of
what can happen when we turn a blind eye
to the gradual, methodical erosion
of rights and dignity. and when the voices
of hatred go unchallenged. Through our celebration of
Jewish American Heritage Month, and by recognizing
the contributions of Jewish veterans,we wield
a powerful weapon against hate. By shining a light on their
stories of hope, resilience and bravery, and by
honoring their sacrifices on the battlefield like
the inspiring stories of Major Stern and the
remarks you'll hear shortly from Medal of Honor
recipient Jack Jacobs and those whose stories
will be preserved today in the Veterans History
Project, like that of Julia Cardozo's father,
Lieutenant Michael Cardozo. No one understands
the importance of honoring legacies through
the power of storytelling more than
Professor Deborah Dash Moore, whom you'll hear
from this afternoon. Her 2004 book, "GI Jews How World War II
Changed a Generation," follows the lives of 15
young Jewish men as they served in the
military while trying to make sense of its demands, and also wrestling with
what it meant to be both an American and a Jew, fighting anti-Semitism
on three fronts. So as we listen to
these stories, I'm reminded of the recent
celebration of Passover. Through the story of Passover, we witness
the Israelites oppression and the power of
their hope for freedom. Their journey from bondage
to liberation resonates deeply for me during Yom Hashoah, and it shows us how hope
can sustain us during difficult times. But even more important
than hope is our commitment to ensure that horrors
like those that happen in World War II never
happen again. Our commitment to
honor the legacies and inspire future
generations to unite and stand against intolerance. Loud voices are
trying to normalize the venom of anti-Semitism, but we will never allow
it to become normal. That's why the
president developed the first ever US
national strategy to counter anti-Semitism. And that's why we're
working with our interagency partners
to drive home the importance of countering
all forms of hatred so we can shape a more inclusive
and diverse and compassionate society. Across VA, we're focused
on combating anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all other forms
of religious bias. We're committed to ensuring that every veteran family
member, caregiver and survivor receives equitable access
to the benefits, care and services that
they've earned. And we're committed
to capturing the stories of Jewish veterans
and all veterans through the Veterans
Legacy Memorial, led by Undersecretary Quinn and the team at VA's National
Cemetery Administration. I'm proud to be a part
of an organization that advances an
inclusive environment, one that supports diversity and one that stands against
hatred and prejudice. I want to thank all of you for
coming today to join us to remember to mourn
the lives of those tragically stolen
in the Holocaust and to celebrate the
sacrifice and service of Jewish veterans,
which is as important today as it was 80 years ago. Before I close, I want
to reaffirm our commitment to learning about history, to never forgetting
what happened and to rejecting all
forms of anti-Semitism, racism, hatred and prejudice. Through this act
of remembrance, we will educate future
generations to never remain silent
in the face of hatred. It's our job, it's
our responsibility, both individually
and collectively, to ensure atrocities
like the Holocaust are never erased
and never happen again. Thank you very much. [applause] >> Shanita R. Jones: Thank you,
Undersecretary Jacobs. We appreciate your perspective
and look forward to hearing more from you
in a few minutes during your fireside chat
with our next speaker, Professor Deborah Dash Moore. Please welcome
Professor Deborah Dash Moore, the Frederick G.L.
Hartwell Professor of History and Professor of Judaic Studies
at the University of Michigan, where she specializes in 20th
century urban Jewish history. She is the author of
multiple books, articles, and collections, including "GI Jews How World War II
Changed Your Generation," which was made into
a documentary film. She also received the
Souvenir Prize for Best Book in American Jewish History, in addition to many other
awards and honors. Welcome,
professor Dash Moore. [applause] >> Deborah Dash Moore:
It's a real honor to be here. And thank you for that
lovely introduction. I want to take you back
in time to the middle of the 20th century, a little
bit before that middle to 1939, which was when
World War II began. The United States didn't
enter the war, right, for another two years, but it
starts in September 1st, 1939, with the invasion of Poland
by Nazi Germany. And American Jews
particularly watched what was happening overseas. It's an odd position to
be in, to be watching what's happening and
not necessarily being able to do that
much, right, because the United
States was neutral. There was aid that was
sent, of course, but there wasn't yet
involvement not until the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 41. And then American Jews, like so many other Americans,
could rush to enlist. Now, American Jews were
eager to fight Nazi Germany even more than they were
eager to fight the Japanese, because Nazi Germany
was an enemy not just for Jews, but also now
for Americans. And it was an opportunity
then for them to bring together these
two aspects of their identity by fighting
a shared enemy. Most American Jews
in those years lived in a handful of big cities; New York, of course, also
Chicago, Philadelphia. And that meant
that most Americans never met any
Jews because they weren't spread out
around the country. They were concentrated. 40% of American Jews
lived in New York City and even within
New York City, they lived in certain
neighborhoods. They knew other New
Yorkers, of course, But not many Americans. So when the war comes
to the United States and it mobilizes Americans
of all types, Jews suddenly meet all
these other Americans, and these other Americans
also meet Jews, which is not to say that
these other Americans don't have ideas about Jews. In interviews that
I did for the book, there are soldiers
who talk about having their head rubbed
right by fellow GIs because, you know,
where were the horns? They heard Jews
had horns, right? There were other kinds of
anti-Semitic stereotypes that were shared,
by fellow GIs that the Jewish GIs recognized
were really dangerous because they were supposed
to go into this together, right, all of them. They had to feel that they
didn't have to worry about their back, that their
back was protected. So if there were notions
about Jews as cowardly, that was really important for
them to overcome that. I'll give you an example from
a guy who is in the infantry named Paul Steinfeld, and he
was actually from DC, and their training in a camp
at Philadelphia. Excuse me, Pennsylvania. And this guy next to him,
they're shaving. He says to him, Steini,
that was his nickname. Everybody had
nicknames back then. I don't know if they still
have nicknames, maybe we'll find out. But everybody had nicknames. Steini, he says, what are you
doing here in the infantry? I thought all of your race was
in the quartermaster's corps. Now, I'm sure
everybody here knows about the quartermaster's
corps, right? That's for supplies and that's
not in the front lines. And Steinfeld is furious. So he drops the razor and
he's ready to fight. And he says, what kind of
a stupid question is that? Here I am, standing
right next to you. We're both in the infantry. And what do you mean
about calling us a race? And the other GI steps
back and he says, you know I didn't mean it. I've never met a Jew before. And I just thought, you know, Jews are a race and they're in
the Quartermaster Corps. So sunny decides,
Steinfeld decides, no, he's not going to fight. He's going to try to
educate his fellow GI, which indeed he does. But this task of
educating fellow GIs is something that is constant because Jewish experiences
were in fact different. Let's just take masculinity, which is an important
piece of those years when the military
was mostly men. They did have, you know,
Women's Army Corps and the waves and stuff like
that, but basically men. Masculinity, what does
it mean to be a man? Well, if you're a New York Jew,
being a man involved sports, doing well in sports
and aggressively. You play baseball or
softball aggressively. You play basketball
aggressively. When Jewish GI and another
one that am I interviewed, he gets down to basic training
in Mississippi. They have a softball game going
and he's playing the way -- you know, he played in the Bronx
and everybody was saying, what's the matter with you?
Why are you doing that? And he gets criticized for
being so aggressive because for many of
these other soldiers, masculinity was tied up with
driving a car, for example. Jews didn't drive cars
in New York City. No need to drive a car
in New York or Chicago or other big cities. You use public transportation. They also couldn't afford that. So there were these different
ideas, competing ideas of what it meant to be a man, what it meant to be
a Jewish American. The army, the military,
also had its own views as to what it meant
to be Jewish and they called Jews in
those years Hebrews. So you had a choice when
you got your dog tag of having a P for Protestant,
a C for Catholic, or an H for Hebrew, or nothing
of course, on your dog tag. most Jews took the H. It was a way of identifying
as a Jew, but it came along with
military recognition of the equality of Judaism. Judaism becomes,
in World War II, one of the three fighting
faiths of democracy, along with Protestantism
along with Catholicism. Now Jews,
unlike African Americans, are integrated into
the units, right? So they're not segregated
and therefore, this kind of recognition
is really important. And I will mention just one
or two instances of it. The in World War II, they built
chapels, for example. And one of the things
about those chapels was that they didn't
have crosses on them. They could be used by any
of the three religious' groups that were recognized
at the time. That was a very important
decision was made. Did this mean that
everybody respected Jews? No. But the fact that the military
did was really crucial. And when you had
ceremonies of -- especially at cemeteries,
when the dead are buried, you usually had both
a Protestant minister, you know, a Catholic
chaplain and a Jewish chaplain
all represented. So that kind of equality
was really valuable. And it gets epitomized in
the incident of the Dorchester, which goes down in
the North Atlantic. It's attacked by
German submarines with over 700 men
on board. And there are four
chaplains on that ship, a Jewish chaplain,
Catholic chaplain, and two Protestant
chaplains, one evangelical and
one liturgical. And their essence,
their officers, of course, they're on the upper decks,
and they decide to give up their life vests and
other gear to the men who are coming up from below
as the ship is going down. And then they go down
with the ship together. And it's a very powerful
moment because they each speak the
prayers in their own language. So the Protestants speak
in English, Catholics speaks in Latin,
and the Jews speaks in Hebrew. So that sort of symbolizes,
you know, what the military is trying to
do at this point in time. Josh mentioned how
Jews are fighting a threefold enemy,
you know, the enemy of Nazi Germany,
the enemy of Nazi Germany as Jews, not just as Americans and then the enemy
of anti-Semitism within the ranks themselves. When Jews, as part
of the military get to the in 45 -- get
to liberate some camps, the reactions they have
are extraordinarily diverse. But since Dachau
was mentioned before, I will just sort of end with
an account from Dachau. So Dachau is liberated in May, right near the end of
the European conflict. And later in May, a chaplain
named Eichhorn comes and he wants
to hold a service for the Jewish survivors. Dachau was a camp
that held a wide array of different types of prisoners, and Jews and Roma
gypsies were at the very bottom
of a rank hierarchy. And he's going
to hold this service, and he wants to do it in
the open area of the camp, the sort of most public area. And he told, no, he can't. There's been an objection. He needs to hold it
in the laundry room. So when George Stevens,
who was a colonel, maybe turned colonel, I don't
remember exactly hears this, Stevens was a
Hollywood filmmaker. He hears this
and he's furious. What's going on? So he goes and he
complains, and they -- you know, the US military
steps in and they say, No. Jews, you can have your
service in the main camp even though the other
Dachau prisoners are objecting. Not only that, but
we're going to film it. So if you go to Signal
Corps Records, you can see a filmed version
of the Dachau service. It's a powerful and
very moving service because Stevens was
a really, adept filmmaker. So you don't just hear what
the chaplain, the rabbi says when he says the
Shehecheyanu prayer, which is the prayer
thanking God for having brought us alive to
this point in time, but he lets you see the
responses of the survivors, some of whom
are intently watching and some of whom
are in tears. And I think that, as the
chaplain says, at that moment he came to them as
a member of the US military, but also as a representative of the American
Jewish community, it was that moment
of coming together in those two identities
that occurred in World War II that's
so important. And it's great to be able
to celebrate and remember how that happened,
for us today here. So thank you. [applause] >> Shanita R. Jones:
Thank you, professor. Let's invite Undersecretary
Jacobs back up to join for the fireside chat. Come on up, Mr. Jacobs. [applause] >> Joshua Jacobs: All right. Well, thank you very much,
I appreciate that. You mentioned
in the 30s and 40s, American society was
often hostile and suspicious of American Jews,
and that many, if not most, had not met
someone who was Jewish. And similarly, many
Jews grew up in very insular environments, even if they had friends
outside of those communities. And so I'm wondering
if you can expand on, you know, how Jewish
service members navigated this kind of uncertainty,
having to prove themselves both individually but also
to their new colleagues and fellow service members? >> Deborah Dash Moore:
Well, it really depended upon who the person was and
where they came from. And sometimes
the struggles were, out in the open as
the Steinfeld example, but sometimes
they were also internal. one of the people who
whose correspondence I looked at and they wrote
letters back in those days, which is really wonderful
in terms of resources. And you have some of them
outside here, which is great. Arthur Goren writes
home to his parents. You know, he has enlisted. He's 18, and they haven't
even started basic training. He's in new Jersey in the camp. And he writes home
and he says, the bugle blew and your
son, you know, got up and immediately didn't
have his uniform yet, but he marched off
to the mess hall. And there was your typical
American breakfast. There was cereal and milk
and coffee, right, and orange juice and
eggs with ham. And Goren, you know,
had never eaten out, right? He ate at home and his
mother had a kosher home and he never really
thought about that. And so he's looking
at the ham and he's trying to figure out, well,
what do I do? Do I eat it or do I not eat it? And he decides, well,
it's a long time to lunch and we're going to
have a, you know, a lot of things we're
going to have to do. And so he starts to eat
the ham and eggs, but he washes it down
with the coffee and he writes to his parents,
I ate it the way you would an aspirin, just sort
of forcing himself. But now what's going on here
is really so interesting because none of the
other recruits sitting around that table would
have had any idea that he was struggling to
eat the ham and eggs. And that is sort of symbolic
of the way in which he was internalizing
his Jewishness. Some things now, you know,
you don't say and I think that's one way in
which people coped. >> Joshua Jacobs: It's a good
segue into a point you made in your book, is that
there was incredible diversity. Notwithstanding that,
I think about half of Jewish service members
were from the New York City. That there was still
significant diversity, you know, religious,
non-religious, rich, poor, urban, rural. And so I'm curious, you know, many of these service
members are coming in very aware of the differences
between them and their fellow service
members, but they're also going through
a very similar emotions. They're trying to get ready. They're training, preparing for
the unknown of going to war. And so I'm curious how
they navigated those similarities
and the differences. >> Deborah Dash Moore:
So I think that, you know, I mentioned about the H. Everybody got an H irrespective
of whether you were, you know, Orthodox or Reform
or secular or an atheist. You had an H, which
was a way of dealing with
Jewish diversity. But some of the people
who came from small towns, I have one of the guys
I talk about in the book is IRA Kaplan, who comes
from Sioux City, Iowa. So in Sioux City, he knows
what it's like to be a minority. And in a sense, he's much
more familiar with how to deal with the non-Jews
in his unit than the Jews coming
out of New York, who have more
problems with it. In addition, I hate to say
this as somebody who comes from New York,
but New Yorkers were not thought of very
highly by other Jews. they were seen as, you know,
too pushy and too-- some of the more
negative attributes. So there was that kind of
tension as well that existed. >> Joshua Jacobs: Yeah. One of the points that
I took away from your book is serving in the military,
taught a number of Jewish service members
and veterans to stand up for themselves. And war changes everyone. That is certainly true of
Jewish veterans like it was for the rest of the
broader population. I'm interested when they
come home from war, many of them become
active in fighting for social justice and
trying to address kind of what they perceive to
be wrongs within our country. Can you talk about how
military service changed Jewish veterans and what
that did to them when they came home? >> Deborah Dash Moore: Sure. So in order to understand
the change, you have to keep in mind
what Jews just accepted as normal. You know, they accepted as
normal prior to the war, there were neighborhoods
they couldn't live in. There were jobs that
they couldn't get because they were Jews. There were schools
they couldn't attend because they were Jews. There was a whole list of things
that this was normal, right? You had to figure out how
to navigate around them. When these veterans come back,
it's like, no, I fought for this country. I don't want to be told that
I can't rent an apartment in this neighborhood,
or I can't buy a house with my GI mortgage in this
section of, you know, of a city or whatever. I want to be able to
apply for schools, you know, for colleges
and universities and medical school and stuff
and not be told that, no, there's a quota
and you can't get in. So there was a sense that
they weren't going to take what they had
previously accepted, and they had learned
how to fight. The military taught them
how to fight, and they knew how to do it. So when they wanted to
try to desegregate places, they often put on their
military uniforms, right? And would go around
right to say, how come you're
not renting, right, to Jews and stuff like that? It was it really marked
a big change and it happens very quickly. 1945, 46 you start to see,
you know, Jewish organizations and
Jews active in saying, we have to make
a different America. We have to make
a better America. >> Joshua Jacobs: Yeah. You know, it's often said
that war has a way of making even the most
committed atheists religious. But for many who fought
in World War II, the exposure to
the horrors of the war and the liberation of the
concentration camps made them question or
even renounce their faith. Can you talk a little bit about
how military service and these experiences
impacted Jewish veterans? >> Deborah Dash Moore:
So that's a very big and hard question,
because the way in which it had an impact
varied enormously. Okay, so Jews who
actually went into the camps among
the first, you know, what they don't talk
about particularly is that the first thing that
you notice as you approached a concentration camp
was the smell. All right, it was
the smell of death and of burned bodies
and stuff like that. And as they're getting
closer, you know, they come into camps like this. I mean, one guy, for example,
my quote name Dressler, he goes into, I believe it
was order of, you know, this is not a military
target, right. And you see these prisoners and you're trying to figure out
what, how to understand it. But many of the units that
go in early don't stay. They immediately
leave because in fact, it's not a military target. And so it's the troops
that are further behind the lines that come in
and then have to deal with it. So it's like repeated
encounters. And some of the GIs
reflect upon the fact that they felt a real solidarity
with their fellow Americans because their fellow Americans
were really disgusted and furious and
about what they saw and that was a feeling
of inclusion. They didn't feel separated out. Others don't understand. How does you know -- how do you live in a world
where man does this to man? Where is God, they asked. So I think there's really
a very diverse range. One of the people I write
about comes to Mathausen, which was a slave labor camp,
and he writes about it. He's brought there because
he's going to write about it for Stars and Stripes, and he's actually
in the Pacific theater. but Eisenhower
wants everybody to know, even if you're in the
Pacific theater, about what's going on in Europe. And he writes a letter
home to his parents, and he was from a very
assimilated Jewish household. And he says, I want every
year at Yom Kippur, which is on the High holidays,
the Day of Atonement, to read this letter that
I'm writing to, you know, you should
take it out and read it because we can't forget
what I saw there. So that's an extraordinary
kind of reaction from someone who had come from a very assimilated background. >> Joshua Jacobs: Yeah,
thank you. You mentioned the Dorchester and your book talks about
the role of Jewish chaplains and providing
interfaith counseling and spiritual support. I'm curious if you can talk
about how that was received across their fellow chaplains across the broader kind of
military and then and really, how the presence of
Jewish chaplains and then the specific
example of the Dorchester and the four chaplains who
famously sacrificed their lives, changed perception among
some about Judaism and Jews in general,
and just the importance or the kind of relevance of
interfaith collaboration. >> Deborah Dash Moore:
Yeah. So again, that's a really good question. The military in their
training for chaplains, they had a month
long or so training, tried hard to build
connections across divisions. So even how the chaplains
roomed, they put them, you know, Jewish with a
Protestant with a Catholic. They're rooming together
while they're getting this training so that they're
learning to respect each other and to come to
understand each other, because they're going
to have to minister to men of all faiths and
no faiths, as they say. You know, how are they received? It varies. It really does. I mean, one of the very
famous accounts is that of, Roland Gittelsohn, who's
a marine Corps chaplain, and he said Iwojima
and he's asked by the chief of chaplains
there to give the eulogy when they dedicate
the marine cemetery. And I'm sure you're all aware
this was a really hard battle. There were many
lives that were lost. And Gittelsohn
ready to write this. And then the Catholic
chaplains, the padres object. No, they don't want
a Jew praying over the graves of what are
mostly non-Jewish men. And so they have three
separate ceremonies, right? Catholic one and a Protestant
one and a Jewish one. And, Gittelsohn uses
the same speech for the Jewish one as
he had prepared. And one of the Protestant
chaplains comes and they preserve that speech. And actually now if you
go online, the marine -- I don't remember exactly,
but you can look it up. The Marine Corps has
the whole speech and the account, and
it's a very moving one. And he talks about,
you know, these men. Among them,
there's no difference between rich and poor,
between black and white, between Protestant
and Catholic and Jew. Right there they lie in
the purest democracy. And if we don't, we
the living, don't make for fulfill what they died for, if we don't make that
living democracy right, then we will have betrayed
our brothers who are lying here. It's very powerful,
very powerful. >> Joshua Jacobs:
Thank you very much. I appreciate it,
a great way to end. [applause] >> Shanita R. Jones: Let's keep
the applause coming. Come on, we can do this. [applause] Thank you, Undersecretary Jacobs
and Professor Dash Moore for the engaging and
informative discussion. Now, please join me in welcoming
Colonel Barry Lischinsky. Barry Lischinsky is
a retired colonel whose military service spans
over a total of 34 years. He continues to be committed
to our military veterans. He currently serves as
the National Commander of the Jewish War
Veterans of America. He joins us today
to introduce the Medal of Honor
recipient, Jack Jacobs. Welcome, Colonel Lischinsky. [applause] >> Barry Lischinsky: Thank you,
Ms. Secretary McDonough, Deputy secretary Ms. Bradsher, Undersecretary Josh Jacobs,
Undersecretary Quinn. The Library of
Congress staff, Veterans, families, caregivers
and survivors. Thank you very much
for having GWV participate in this incredible evening, but I'd like to recognize
one other individual. And he's our national executive
director, Ken Greenberg. Ken was able to pull
this together and to get GWV involved. So Ken, I want to say thank you. [applause] What you may not know is
Jewish war veterans have been around
since 1896. We just celebrated
128th anniversary. In Lexington Avenue, where
the first muster began for Jewish war veterans. And we went back to the site
on the 15th of March, and we held a muster of our
own members there. And after that meeting, we went down to
Central Synagogue, which happened to
be two blocks away from where the Jewish
war veterans met that first night on
March 15th, 1896. Central synagogue
was there at 1872. So the first time we went
back was this past March, and we're trying to see
if there's a lineage that maybe some
of our members were part of that synagogue. And what we
have here today is we're talking about lineage. We're talking about stories that our service members brought
and we need to remember them. We need to document them. And we need to continue to tell, just like General Eisenhower
did during World War II. We need to document
what happened. We need to talk
about the facts, and we must never,
never forget. [applause] And when I talk about
never forget, if you have a chance, go down
to our national headquarters and better than that, it's in
the same building of the National Museum of American Jewish
Military History. Take a tour through there
because that's our legacy. And what talks about our legacy
is what's our credentials? Our credentials are the men
and women and families that served in all wars since
the revolutionary time. So if you're around
DuPont Circle, I'll give you Ken Greenberg's
phone number, because Ken will be glad
and be honored to set up a tour for
everybody to go through. So with that said,
what I'd like to do is talk about the individual
that I'm going to bring forward. Is another colonel from
the United States Army, Mr. Jack Jacobs. He was born in
Brooklyn, New York, holds a bachelor's
and master's degree from Rutgers University, and entered the
United States Army in 1966 as a second lieutenant
through an ROTC program. He served as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division
and executive officer of the Infantry Battalion in
the seventh Infantry Division, commanding the fourth Battalion,
10th Infantry in Panama. A member of the faculty of the
United States Military Academy. Mr. Jacobs has taught
international relations and comparative politics,
and is a member of the faculty of the National
War College in Washington, DC. He was in Vietnam twice,
not once, twice, and both times as an advisor to the Vietnamese
Infantry Battalion earned three Bronze Stars,
two Silver Stars, and the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest
combat decoration. Mr. Jacobs retired as a colonel. He's also a senior fellow in the Department of Social Science
in the US Military Academy, and a distinguished visiting
professor in Rutgers, and serves on several
of charitable organizations. Now what Mr. Jacobs
does not know what I'm about to do
is I wanted to know a little bit more about
Mr. Jacobs, because if I was going
to introduce him, it was important to me
to have an understanding. So I happen to read his book. If you get a chance,
you need to read the book. And not only do you
need to read the book, but you have to
recycle the book. And when I say
recycle the book, you need to pass it
on to somebody that you can teach,
coach, and mentor along and you'll understand
what he did to receive the Medal
of Honor. And, Mr. Jacobs, I'd like
to leave you with one thought that I can say personally. For the individuals,
such as Mr. Jacobs, that Colonel Jacobs
that served in Vietnam who happened to be
here today, and those that
served in Korea and those that served
in World War II. Thank you for making
my life in the military a little easier, because
you came back with the lessons
learned from combat and you were able to
train my generation. So at this point in time,
what I'd like to do is welcome Medal of
Honor recipient, Mr. Jacobs. [applause] >> Jack H. Jacobs: Thank you. I'm very chagrined to realize
that when you all stand up, you're taller than I am. [laughter] I'm very disconcerting. I'm looking at this picture. This photograph was
taken last Thursday. [laughter] Well, I'm delighted to be here. Although at my age, I'm delighted
to be just about any place. I am a New York guy, even
though I live in new Jersey now. I joined the military
for a couple of reasons. The first was I was
at Rutgers University and I got married
when I was 18 years old. Do not do that. And I needed the money. And they paid you in
ROTC the second two years. They paid you $27 a month, which wasn't even a lot of
money back in those days. But that's the first reason. the second was, I thought
then and I still think today, that everybody who's
lucky enough to live in a free country
owes it something in the form of service. And the third reason
was my father who served in the
Second World War, he had been studying
electrical engineering at the University
of Minnesota, and about eight weeks
from graduation was dragooned unceremoniously
into the Army and fought in New Guinea
and the Philippines in the South Pacific. I hated getting dragged
out of school. I hated the Army.
I hated getting shot at. Nobody likes that very
much and got out of the army the instant that he could
when the war was over. And yet, when he got
to be my age, all he would talk about
was how proud he was at having
saved the world. And his generation
had done that and motivated me
to go do my bit. His family were Greek Jews who were brought from
Judea 1600 years ago as Roman slaves to Greece, where they spent the
next millennium and a half. And when the world
started to fall apart before the First World War,
I realized that as bad as things were
for everybody, they're going to be much
worse for the Jews, and they left. They left, and they came to
one of the very few places in the world that
would take them. It's the United States. So they got here about
100, 120 years ago. My father spoke nothing but
Greek until he went to school And then wound up
in the army. On this, motivated to do what
I thought I should do and that is to put on
the uniform myself. My objective was to stay in
the army for three years. That was my obligation
and then get out. And do something useless, like become a lawyer
or something. I apologize to all
of you lawyers The room is probably
filled with them. Well, I've got a son
who's a lawyer. He's a very nice boy. He better take care of me
too, as well, I got to say. But I stayed; I stayed
beyond the three years because I really
loved the people, and I didn't want
to leave them. And today, when people
ask me, what do I miss most about the army, I tell them
it's the people. I always feel better when
I'm around people who are either in uniform
or have been in uniform, and I still don't want to
leave them, which is why I hang around military
people all the time. I went through ROTC, and
then in between your junior and senior year, you wind
up doing going to ROTC summer camp, which is basic training
for college students. And I remember our drill
sergeant was a drill instructor, was a guy who reminded
and even today reminds me of nobody so much
as the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket, that guy. So the first Sunday
we're there, he says, okay, all the Catholics
line up here and all the Protestants
line up here. And they marched off
to go to church. That left the Jews in
the in the platoon. Each of us received
a toothbrush and then had to go to the
latrine to clean the toilets. Well, we figured out we try to
determine who came back first. It was the Catholics, actually,
who evidently more efficient at delivering the
Word of God. And so the
following Sunday, all the Protestants
lined up there and all the Catholics
line up there. And until he died,
I'm sure that drill sergeant had no idea what happened
to all the Jews. True story. Those of you who've spent
some time in the crucible of combat know that there's
no way that you can convey what it's like to anybody who
has not been in combat. And the whole idea of
identifying people who've done extraordinarily
well in difficult circumstances is a subjective
evaluation at best. I remember somebody
once asked Bob Kerrey. Medal of Honor recipient
from Vietnam lost his leg, was a Navy Seal, became
Governor of Nebraska, and then was a senator
from Nebraska for a while. Somebody once asked
him in an interview, what does it take to receive
the Medal of Honor? He says, well, you have to --
you have to do something. People have to see it. They have to be able to write
and they can't hate you. Those are the four requirements. So you think about all the
people who served in combat and perform valiantly
and nobody saw it. Or people saw it and
they were killed and there was nobody
left to witness it or what happened
from time to time. And with annoying frequency. Actually, people did see it. They did write it up and
they either accidentally or on purpose, the
witness statements were conveniently lost. And that all reminds me,
or should remind all of us, what Medal of Honor
recipients will say when asked to recount
what they did and all. They won't talk.
We won't talk about it. Not because it's difficult,
but because there are other people who were
brave that day. Because there were people
who did not come back. And as one recipient recently
said when he was interviewed, he said, I don't wear
this medal for me. I wear it for all those
who can't. And another recipient,
Woody Williams, who until he died a
couple of years ago, was the oldest on Iwo Jima. He was a young kid
received a medal of honor I think it was 19 years
old or so at the time. He said, this medal
is not mine. I just hold it in trust. We should all feel that way. All of us who've said this, that uniform that
we wore, that we wear is an item of trust, and
we should never forget it. I'm reminded of a very
good friend of mine, gone for some years now
named Tibor Rubin, Ted Rubin. Ted Rubin's was the
only ceremony other than my own
I attended. When he heard that he
was going to get decorated, he called me up and
asked him if I would ask me if I would come,
and I said I would. Ted was 15 years old in
Mauthausen concentration camp, and he was liberated by the
11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, part of the Patton's Third Army. And just because
you were liberated didn't guarantee anything,
as you heard, that the army would just
would liberate it and they'd keep going because
they had a lot of work to do. And whether or not you
survived was largely a function of whether or not
you had any energy left. Ted did survive, and he made
a commitment to himself that if he did survive,
he would find some way to come to the
United States to become, as he called it, a G.I. Joe. And in 1948,
he did exactly that. Well, he came to
the United States. He was trying to
get into the Army, but he only spoke
Yiddish and Hungarian, and he couldn't pass the test. I'm recounting to you
what Ted told me himself. And there's little doubt
that it's not true because I heard it from other
people too, from his family. so he hooked up with
a couple of kids who had been drafted to
go fight in the Korean War. And they said, look,
you're an idiot if you want to go
into the army. This is very bad news indeed. He said, no, I got it,
I have it, I have to do it. I made a commitment
to myself that I would pay the
United States back for saving my life.
I said, well, you're not going to pass
the qualification test. He says, well, I'll cheat
and I'll cheat off of you guys. They said, you don't
cheat off a right. You sit in the middle, you can,
we'll sit around you, but don't cheat off of one of us
because they'll figure it out. So cheat off some of us. And get the wrong answers
from everybody. So he did that and when the
test was over and so on, they wouldn't let him go
until they figured out whether or not they had passed. Non-commissioned officer in
charge came over to Ted and laid his hand on his
shoulder and said, son, the captain who
was running the reception station
wants to see you. I'm in big trouble now,
he says to himself and Yiddish and or Hungarian. And he gets dragged off
to the captain's office, and the captain who's
running the place says, congratulations, you got
the highest score ever. [laughter]
And I'm not making this up. Ted Rubin went to fight in
Korea and was recommended for the Medal of Honor
four separate times for four different actions
and all the paperwork got lost. And the reason it got lost
was because his first sergeant told him, after he gave him
some impossible mission, to be a detachment left in
contact or whatever, and managed to come back like
a cat that you bring somewhere. And he came back when the first
sergeant thought he would die. He said, no expletive Jew will
ever get any award in my unit. And all the recommendations
that were made by his fellow soldiers
for Ted's valour in all these missions
were thrown away. Ted eventually was wounded,
captured by the Chinese, spent the remainder of the war
in a Chinese POW camp, and managed to survive
that too. Among the things he did
was to sneak out of the I mean, he was
a pretty wily guy. He managed to break
out of the camp. This is repeatedly break
out of the camp but didn't run away. He went to the barracks
of the Chinese soldiers, stealing their food
and their medicine and working his way
back into the camp to share it with his
fellow soldiers. Time and time again,
these guys were probably like my old drill sergeant
trying to figure out what happened to all the
food and the medicines. I went to the ceremony and
it was in the East Room of the white House. And among the people
there were soldiers who were still surviving
and who recommended him for the Medal of Honor,
which he received. And there was one guy
in particular who was in a wheelchair,
and I was talking to him. He pointed across the
room at Ted, and he said, you see that man?
And he's crying his eyes out. You see that man?
That man saved my life. We have to keep in mind
the indomitable courage of our fellow combatants,
of people who put their country far
before themselves and their comrades
before themselves, and the mission
before themselves. We can get a lot
accomplished if we think of something other
than ourselves. And Ted exemplified
that he was a distillation of the notion that Benjamin
Franklin wrote about just before the revolution
actually broke out. We either hang together or
we will surely hang separately. We have to remember that. We have to remember
all of this. I'm reminded of an
observation by Mark Twain, who was a terrific writer,
but a lousy businessman. He lost all the money
he ever made, but he was a very smart guy. He once wrote that -- he said, when I was young,
I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not. And now that I'm old, I can only remember the
stuff that didn't happen. I mean, I feel his pain now. But it's something to keep
in mind because the things it becomes very, very easy
to remember the stuff that didn't happen
and easier yet to forget the things that did happen. Today is the day that we
should commit ourselves to remembering the things
that did happen, and furthermore, that we
shall never forget them. Thank you.
[applause] And I'm pretty sure every
Army vet just said, oh. Thank you so much,
Colonel Jacobs, for sharing your story today of resilience and courage. One more round of applause. [applause] This concludes our
program for today. Once again, we would
like to thank you, the Library of Congress
Veterans History Project and the Jewish War
Veterans for their partnership
on our event today. And to all of you who
are here, please, we invite you to stay for
refreshments and fellowship. To those of you who
are online, please come see this
stunning building. And we also thank you
for joining us today. Please carry today's lessons
with you as you speak out against injustice and promote
the values of compassion, tolerance and respect
for human dignity. Thank you all. [applause]
