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We saw 39 boxcars loaded with Jewish dead in the Dachau railway yard, 39
carloads of little, shriveled mummies that had literally been starved to death;
we saw the gas chambers and crematoria, still filled with charred bones and
ashes. And we cried not merely tears of sorrow. We cried tears of hate. He was
the soldier in the jeep with the big Star of David, driving from foxhole to
foxhole, sometimes under fire, bringing faith and friendship to fighting men.
David Max Eichhorn, a Jewish chaplain in the U.S. Army's XV Corps, saw action
across France and into Germany until VE-Day and beyond. He was there at the
Battle of the Bulge, participated in the liberation of Dachau, and became
embroiled in the behind-the-scenes controversy that led to the execution of
Private Eddie Slovik. Eichhorn's letters show us a devoutly religious man trying to cope with the
perils of combat and the needs of his fellow soldiers. They are filled with
amazing stories and poignant insights as Eichhorn tells about combat
experiences, relations with Christian chaplains, encounters with Jewish
refugees, and impressions of the defeated Germans. Once he was ordered to hold
a Yom Kippur service in a beleaguered French town that was still under attack.
It was a tough assignment, but after 350 battle-grimed Jewish soldiers showed
up he wrote, "I tell you unashamedly that, for the first time since I have been
in France, I broke down and cried." Yet that experience paled before the
liberation of Dachau, where he organized the first Shabbat service for the
survivors, or the fall of Nuremberg, where he and a handful of Jews held a
ceremony of thanksgiving at the site of Hitler's infamous rallies. Eichhorn
also writes of French villagers hiding Jews, of the dangers faced by chaplains,
and of the place of Jews in U.S. Army ranks. Throughout he vividly conveys the
experience of war and how it altered forever a small-town rabbi - a man of
faith and courage who never fired a gun in combat. David Max Eichhorn, a Jewish chaplain in the U.S. Army's XV Corps, saw
action across France and into Germany until VE-Day and beyond. His letters show
us a devoutly religious man trying to cope with the perils of combat and the
needs of his fellow soldiers.
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The Gi's Rabbi: World War II Letters Of David Max Eichhorn
Book reviews » The Gi's Rabbi: World War II Letters Of David Max Eichhorn (Modern War Studies)
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