US soldier who saved Jews in POW camp during WWII to be awarded Medal of Honor

JTA — An American soldier who is credited with saving the lives of 200 Jewish comrades in a prisoner of war camp in Germany during World War II will receive the US military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor.

The award to Roddie Edmonds, who died in 1985, was announced last week. It comes more than a decade after Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, recognized him as a “Righteous Among the Nations” for his bravery and six years after President Donald Trump recounted his heroism during a Veterans Day parade.

Edmonds, a sergeant from Knoxville, Tennessee, was the highest-ranking soldier among a group taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945 when the Nazis asked him to identify the Jews in the group. Understanding that anyone he identified would likely be killed, Edmonds made the decision to have all of the soldiers present themselves as Jews.

When a Nazi challenged him, he famously proclaimed: “We are all Jews here!”

The show of solidarity came to light only after Edmonds’ death, when a Jewish man who had been among the soldiers at the camp shared his recollection with the New York Times as part of an unrelated 2008 story about his decision to sell a New York City townhouse to Richard Nixon when Nixon was having trouble buying an apartment following his resignation as president.

When they found the article several years later, it was the first that Edmonds’ family, including his pastor son Chris Edmonds and his granddaughters, had heard about the incident. Soon they were traveling to Washington, DC, and Israel for ceremonies honoring Edmonds, one of only five Americans to be credited as Righteous Among the Nations, an honor bestowed by Israel on non-Jews who aided Jews during the Holocaust.

As the family campaigned for a Medal of Honor, Edmonds was also the recipient of bipartisan praise from two American presidents.

“I cannot imagine a greater expression of Christianity than to say, I, too, am a Jew,” then-US president Barack Obama said during remarks at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2016.

Three years later, US President Donald Trump recounted the story at the New York City Veterans Day Parade. “That’s something,” he said. “Master Sergeant Edmonds saved 200 Jewish-Americans — soldiers that day.”

Last week, Trump called Chris Edmonds to invite him to the White House to receive the Medal of Honor on his father’s behalf, Chris Edmonds told local news outlets. The Medal of Honor ceremony is scheduled for March 2.