A Jewish Soldier’s Unbelievable Survival at the Battle of the Bulge

On this episode of Our American Stories, Milton Nadler grew up fast. The day after Pearl Harbor, his paper route turned into a rush of headlines about war. Within a few short years, he was living those headlines himself. During the Battle of the Bulge, Milton found himself surrounded, outnumbered, and facing death in the frozen forests of Europe. What happened next defied every expectation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Milton Nadler probably
accumulated more stories by the time he was thirty years
old than most of us do in our lifetimes. Born
in nineteen twenty three in Trenton, New Jersey, Milt served
in the US Army from nineteen forty two to nineteen
forty five during World War Two. He died at the

(00:33):
age of ninety eight in twenty twenty two. But what
makes Private first Class Nadler's story particularly impactful is that
he was Jewish, an enemy of the Nazis in an
American uniform. Let's get into the story. Here's Milt.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I was on the street with my bicycle doing something
I don't know, and then Pearl Harbor happened. So I
was a paper boy for the Treton time, so they
were passing out extras, so I immediately grabbed all I could,
went out an extra extra, you know, and bomb me
Bara Harbor and I got nicholas and dimes. It was

(01:11):
only two cents for a paper, but whatever they gave me,
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I sold a ton
of papers. I went back and got more until I
realized what really happened. So I made not a lot,
maybe maybe five hours that day, but at five hours
at that time, that was a lot of money. Because
we were very, very poor. I had no father. I

(01:33):
was supporting my mother and my sister. So I had
two or three little jobs in the morning before school,
and I did some of my little jobs that I
really couldn't study in school. So I hate to admit this,
but I finished the seventh grade and that's all. I
went to work because I figured it's gonna be drafted anyhow,
so I might as well work. And I worked until

(01:56):
I got into service. Of course, you know, I listed
the Navy, and they kicked me out because they found
out I was colorblind and I had my uniform and everything.
I told my mother, and all of a sudden they
gave me the bad news and they said, well, we'll
get you in the army right away, out the worry.
So they did. So my dog takes a regular army

(02:19):
and I went to the Camp McCain, Mississippi, a brand
new camp, and it had rained the day before. There
was mud and bugs, and oh, I'm a city kid.
I don't like snakes, bugs, you know. And this is
a funny story. So I was sitting on the rock,
just figuring out what am I going to do? Now?

(02:39):
What's happening here? I am in the army and this
sergeant walks up to me and he says, who are you?
I says, Private Milton. Ever sir, he said, you don't
call me sir. I'm a non com Okay, he says,
you know what. You look strong enough. I'm gonna put
you on guard duty tonight. You go and go from
that tree to that tree from ten to twelve. He says,

(03:03):
follow me, we'll get your gun. So it comes at
ten o'clock and I hear Russell and the bushes, and
I howered, halt, and I started a little bit, look
who's here? And there was silence, rushing bushes again, and
I hear, look who's here? And up comes the sergeant

(03:24):
in the guard. He said, what you just saying? I said,
look who's here? You dummy? Oh you excuse me? You
said you're supposed to say who goes there? I know
the following morning, at breakfast, about one hundred guys stand
up and Howard Hall, look who's here? So that stuck
with me the whole time my service. I couldn't get

(03:44):
rid of it. So when I came home in nineteen
forty five, I wrote it into Rear's digests. They sent
me three hundred hours. So so we go to England.
I was so sorry for the Hwish people. They were
taking such a meeting where the guy would go to
work in the morning to come back at that his
house is going because at that time the buzz balls

(04:06):
were going over and we were standing there like a
bunch Oh there's another one, like a bunch of dummies.
I mean, as long as you can hear them, no problem.
The minute you can't straight down. A funny thing though.
Our dentist was a drunk. Before he pulled any tooth,
he'd drink a glass of whiskey of some kind. So
they sent him back to the States. So they said,

(04:28):
now we need somebody for a couple of weeks to
become a dentist. I raised my head, What do I
got to lose? I'll learn something, maybe I'll come back
and be a dentist. And I filled a couple of teeth.
There's nothing to it. Nothing to fill the tooth. You
make a whole little bigger, you clean it out, pull
thettle medicinery. He packed the stuff in the railroad he's
moose smoothing out goodbye. You know. Anyhow, I filled a

(04:50):
couple of teeth and when the dentists came, he said
he checked the teeth a right, He said, you did
a good job. You know. The nice thing about it
is we were winning, and when you're winning, you're happy
and just. But we I know, we when we were
into the farmland of France, well, the Germans had poison

(05:12):
the wells, so you know, our water was terrible. So
we filled our canteen cups cowvalos. So half the time
we had a buzz on, but we never got drunk. Well,
I wouldn't say that this is the bad part. Now,
we were in an encampment and a lieutenant came up
in a jeep and he says, about a mile down

(05:34):
in the road, he said, there's a fence in area
and a lot of people there. It's probably a work camp.
Would anybody be interested in going up and seeing what
it is? I think they're all Jewish people, So I
said sure, So I went up. We got his jeep,
We went up, and they were there. The people were

(05:57):
so they were What happened is it was burnt out
and they were making shells for the you know, for
the Germans, and as long as they were there, they
were twelve hours a day. They fed them. The minute
the plant burned out, the Germans left and took all
the food whenever they had and so on. They're darving here.
Their teeth were black, their eyes were in sunken and

(06:20):
you know, there was a pile maybe of six bodies.
And the smell. You have no idea what the smell
of the place was. And I said, I don't know
what to do. Now, I'll go back. I'll get whatever
I can, gum, food, candy. Underneath our helmets. We had
a little cap give them some caps. Let's get whatever

(06:40):
we can. We got where we can and laid everything
out and they come out like animals, like just worse
than animals. I remember, I don't talk about it too
much because there was a bad, bad time in mind. Now,
just after that was the bulch and we were captured.
We didn't realize, I said, they were all around us,

(07:02):
but they figured if they go and take us, what
arey going to do with this? They have to feed us.
So I'm on the radio and my captain was Captain
Tim and he came on the radio. He says, I
want you to get a hold of battalions and tell
them to blow their breeches, you know, the one on fives,
because the Germans had a shell. If they captured the

(07:24):
one on fives, they turn them around and shoot us.
So I said, well, how do I know you are
Captain Tim? You may be some German telling us to
do that. He said, well, he said, well you're right
to eatie. That was my girlfriend tell her. I said hello,
and only he would know. So, okay, I get on
the radio and I call all five battalions and one guy,

(07:47):
some wise guy, comes back to me. He says, how
do I know this is legitimate? I said, well, it's
from Captain Tim. He said, how do we know? I said, well,
ask me a question. He said, who played left field
for New York Yankees. I said, Joe Demaggio. Okay. Also,
I hear boom, boom, boom, they're blowing the breeches of

(08:08):
the you know. So up comes Captain Tim and the jeep.
He spins around me. Okay, here's here's a couple of grenades.
Blow up the radio shack. I said, how kind of
all that equipment in there? My mother's picture, all my clothes,
my girlfriend's picture. He's give me the damn grenades and
he blows up the radio shack. I don't know I

(08:31):
was crying or not, but it was a sad time
because that was my home since you know. I said,
what do you do now? He said, you see the woods?
He says, yeah, go to the woods because the tanks
can't come there. The tanks are on the way. Well,
me and a lieutenant and another guy we take off
to the woods and it's drizzling and we're cold. None

(08:53):
of us have heavy stuff on it. And we go
all night and we ended up in a building and
we get out of base. But you know, those old
buildings had a wooden floor. All of a sudden, I
hear a boom, boom, German boots. We weren't crying, but
we were close to it. We were scared as this.
And if I were, well, I'm twenty years old, I

(09:14):
lived as long. You hear a door open, it's creaking
like you like in a movie, you know, and I
see three rifle butts coming down. It was a free French.
How lucky can we be? But the free French had
a habit. They shoot first, then they ask questions. One

(09:34):
was a woman. I remember she had hair, well black hair,
And I don't know why I did this, but I
got down on my knees and I hit myself in
the chest. And Howard Jewish Jewish Jewish, and I hear
him talking. She says, drop your trousers. If I wasn't circumcised,

(09:57):
I wouldn't be here today, because none of the Germans
soldiers were circumcised. So they gave us bread and water,
and we had to stay in there all day because
the Germans were all over. But that falling night they
brought us to an army hospital and they got us
back to the outfit. The whole world knows I'm circumcised now.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
Russ Jones and Manty Montgomery. And a special thanks to
the Library of Congress for sharing Milt's story with us.
Milton Nadler and my goodness, what a sense of humor.
By the way, what a storyteller just after he was born. Well,
his circumcision saved his life. And yes, it's true. Everyone

(10:36):
in the world knows Milt Nadler was circumcised. The story
of Milton Nadler here on our American stories.