October 8, 2025 • 19 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, what would you do if armed guards ordered you to give up your men? In a Nazi POW camp, Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds stood before his captors and refused. When they demanded the Jewish soldiers step forward, he told his men to stay in line and answered, “We are all Jews here.” With those words, he saved more than 200 American soldiers from being singled out. Edmonds never spoke of it after the war, and his family only learned the truth years later. Here's Roddie's son with the story of a quiet hero whose courage might have been forgotten had it not been for a class assignment given to his daughters.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
Over twenty thousand people worldwide have been awarded the prestigious
honor of being Righteous among Nations by Yad Vashan, that's
the official Holocaust Museum of Israel. And all of them
risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews, despite
(00:32):
not being Jewish themselves. But only seven Americans have been
honored with this award. One of them is Master Sergeant
Roddy Edmunds. Here to tell the story of his father
is Christopher Edmonds, author of No Surrender. Let's get into
the story.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Take it away, Chris Well, My daughter's Christian and Laurene
were attending Maryville College and they're going to be educators,
which they are.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm very proud of them. They were in a history
class and the professor gave the whole class do a
history project. Pick a family member who's had some connection
with history, and we want you to do a presentation.
You can use a variety of different tools for that.
They chose Dad because he was a pow in World
War Two, and so she came home very excited about it.
(01:27):
She said Dad. The professor gave us permission, said we
were supposed to interview someone who's living. But Dad passed
away the year I was born, and we get to
do that. And I said, well, that's exciting. I'm excited
for you. So let's let's get his journals. He kept
two journals as a pow in World War Two, journals
that he kept tucked away that he never talked about,
never brought them out, never showed them to anybody. When
(01:49):
you'd say, Dad, what happened over there, son, I'd rather
not say, and then you'd press him on it. When
I was in college, I was pressing him on it
because I was reading the diaries and I said, I
want to know, and he goes, it's under some things
just too difficult to talk about. He said, I'll just
tell you this. The Germans humiliated us. And that's all
he would say. And he was a person who liked
(02:11):
to talk. And so she does the project. They put
a video together, just use pictures off the internet, but
the narration are words from his diary. And when I
watched that, it was like God said, you got to
go find out. I felt a sense of calling, just
like I did when I was called to the ministry.
It was a burden. It was a passion, and so
(02:33):
one night I just typed in his rank in his name,
Master Sergeant Roddy Edmonds, And the first link that appeared
was a New York Times article, and Dad's name was
highlighted in that article, Tyler. The article was Richard Nixon's
search for a New York home. It's an article written
by the editor of the New York Times in two
thousand and eight, looking back to nineteen eighty and the
(02:56):
whole desire for the president, who had stepped down from
the presidency at the time, was wanting to move to
New York try to rehabilitate his career, and no one
wanted him as their neighbor. They all blackballed him and said, no,
he's not moving in beside me. Except for a gentleman
by the name of Lester Tanner who was a prominent
New York attorney. He lived on a very prominent section
(03:19):
of New York. His neighbors were Selessenger and Rockefeller, and
he reached out to the president. Long story short is
in that article the editor pressed Lester on his life
before he met the President, and Lester just said, well,
I was in World War Two. I was a staff
sergeant in one hundred and six Infantry and I was
(03:40):
captured during the Battle of Balls. So they talked about that,
and he said Lester said, right in the middle of it,
he said, this has been on my heart for years,
but never really said anything to my family. He said,
I just blurted out said, had it not been for
the bravery of my master Sergeant Roddy Edmonds, who saved
my life, I wouldn't have met the president. I'm stunned.
(04:00):
I've got to meet Lester. Now, what is Lester talking about?
Dad never mentioned this. He never shared it with my mom,
never shared it with us. It's not in his diary
in clear verse. There's cryptic notes in Dad's diary clues
to what I've discovered. For instance, he's got a little
dash in his diary that says dogs. He's also got
(04:21):
a dash that says Jewish friends moved out. That happened
in the first Pow camp he was in where they
segregated the Jewish men, and ultimately many of those men
were sent to their death in a concentration camp where
there were forced labor really really killed them. And then
he's also got a little dashmark that says before the commander.
(04:44):
I now know what that It's a horrible experience, but
I know what that means now. I say Dad didn't
have a lot of things, but he had the right things.
He was born in nineteen nineteen, just there in the
hills of East Tennessee. He grew up in a community
called South Knotsville. You know, he had tragedy from the
(05:07):
very beginning of his life. His father, my grandfather, TC,
was a professional paperhanger and a hard worker. My dad's mom, Jenny,
was a homemaker, but she died when he was three
years old and aged ten, the depression hit. But yet
he endured that like those in our greatest generation, they
(05:27):
learned how to adapt and survive. And he was pretty
simple about his faith. He said, there is a God,
he is good, therefore I must be good as well.
In nineteen forty September of nineteen forty, he heard a
speech by President Roosevelt who came to dedicate the Smoky
Mountain National Park. I think it stirred his heart and
(05:49):
he left his high school sweetheart, and he joined the army.
He started training as a private and within two before
two years had passed, he was a master sergeant. Now
that's incredible. At the time, he was the youngest master
sergeant appointed in the US Army. He was aged twenty two. Obviously,
(06:13):
he had great leadership skills. He cared about people, but
he also demanded. You know, he was tough on him,
but he was tough in a fair way and in
a kind way. He also didn't expect any of his
soldiers to do anything he wouldn't choose to. I mean
he would always march with them. If they had to
sleep out in the mud, he's sleeping with them. He
(06:34):
taught them to love their rifles and to learn how
to survive. But they were the youngest group of soldiers
and the greenest group of soldiers. But yet they were
also very, very bright. So Henry Kissinger was a part
of that group. Bob Dole was a part of that group.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Facing the brief but furious German counter offensive in Belgium.
American engineers dring Bob, why a barricade can bit her
winter weather, snow has no beauty on a wall front
for the men who must do the fighting.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It's the largest and bloodiest battle of World War Two.
I mean, Hitler hit them with everything they had in
Dad's diary, he writes, you know, rifles are no good
against tanks in eighty eight fire. But they fought valiantly.
They held them off, and they actually delayed the success
of the Germans enough to where the Americas ultimately won
that battle about thirty days later. But Dad was captured
(07:34):
along with the rest of his men. They were marched
several days without food and water, and Skip Friedman, one
of my Pow friends, he said, if you didn't march,
you didn't last. He said, we could hear shots in
the back. And so they were marched to train station,
put on trains taking deeper into Germany. Another four or
five days on trains without food and water, standing room
only the same cattle cars that they were using to
(07:55):
take Jewish people to their death. And the ultimate rite
after a terrifying bombing where they were marshaled over onto
a sidecar in Limburg crane yard. And that morning the
weather had cleared, and so the British came over to
bomb that train yard, and the POWs were also mixed
in with armament, German armament and the bridge did a
(08:16):
great job of blowing that place up, and they also
killed quite a few American soldiers, as was al of that,
and so they had to hear all those bombs falling
toward them with no place to run, and that was
probably one of the most frightening experiences that the men
endured during their time. Every one of the po debuties
I've met with, they almost make a b line to
that moment and talk about the terror that they had.
(08:41):
But yet, in that box car, the Dad's box car.
I've met a pow who was there, Hank Friedman. He said,
we all were trying to kill each other get out
of that box car. Said we all wanted to escape
and get away from those bombs because we could hear
everyone else coming right at us. He said. It was pandemonium.
It was crazy, terrifying, he said. But then I hear
the voice with a Southern drawl rise up above the
(09:04):
clamor on the other side of the box car. He said,
it's your father, he said, it's my sergeant. He says, boys,
you've ever prayed to God, you need to pray. Pray, boys,
pray our God will save us. He said. Our box
card got quiet, and we began to pray. He said,
I'd never really prayed that much before, so I grew
up Jewish. As a Jewish kid, he said, you know,
(09:25):
I knew God, but we all prayed, he said, and
then your father voiced a prayer above the silence, and
he said, your father's faith was the first seed of
faith that I ever experienced as a Jewish kid. He said,
which God brought to fruition when I was eighty years
(09:46):
old at Shadow Brooke Baptist Church, he said, I came
to my Messiah. And he said, then that's what won
the day.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
More of this story here on our American story, and
(10:17):
we returned to our American stories and with Chris Edmunds
sharing the story of his father, Master Sergeant Roddy Edmunds,
one of seven Americans to be awarded the prestigious honor
of being considered Righteous among Nations by Israel's official Holocaust Museum.
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
The second camp that Dad was transferred to. Dad is
the highest ranking soldier among them, and so he's their leader.
But that marched them in on January twenty fifth, and
make them stand out in the cold all day long
to intimidate them with the guard dogs. And they rifle,
but several of them just if they're not standing up
(11:00):
straight away. They're just very cruel to them, but they
wanted to intimidate them and let them know who was
in charge. They march a young Russian soldier out in
front of the Americans. They tell the young Russian he's
free to go. They open the gates. The Russian hesitates. Obviously,
now that's this young Russian is god. He's emaciated, he's
been starved to death, worked to death, but yet there's
(11:22):
the sense of freedom, and so he begins to start
walking towards the gate. They gowed him some more and
he starts running towards the gate, and just as he
gets to the gate, the commandot signals with his head
and they close the gates and they release the dogs,
and the Americans are forced to watch that young Russian
soldier being mauled to death. The Americans obviously don't want
to watch it, but the guards are smashing them with
(11:43):
the rifles, forcing them to watch. And then the Commandot
comes to my father and he said, if you or
any of your men disobey us, this will happen to you.
And so that's how their experiences Ziegenhane started. And they
finally taken them to barracks and get them settled in
into the barracks, and every morning they have to fall
out for a head count. They send orders to my
(12:05):
father and then announce over the American loudspeakers that the
following morning they want only the Jewish men to fall out,
just the Jews. Anyone who disobeys this order will be shot.
So they issue those orders, and Lester Tanner, who says,
I'm in your father's barracks and said, as immediately as
he got those orders, he turned to all of us
(12:26):
in our barracks, say, there's probably two hundred and fifty
of us in that barracks. There's five other American barracks.
He turns to us and he says, men, we're not
doing that. Tomorrow morning, we all fall out. Send orders
to the other barracks leaders. That's what we're going to do.
And then he calls a beating with the barracks leaders
and he issues the orders again, and he says, men,
(12:46):
we've got to stand together. We've got to have every
man out there. Even if he said, I know there's
some men who do physically, it's going to be hard
for them to get out there because they've already been
forty days into starvation at this point, and so he
gets commitment from all the barracks leaders and they go
back and they get commitment for all the men, which
(13:06):
is absolutely amazing. You know, any one of those men
could have said, I'm not going out there. Well, the
next day it's bright and early, it's dawn, and all
the Americans are standing out there together as one, and
the commandant comes out. But then it's not the commandant
(13:28):
who comes over to my father. It's a major, a
Major Zigmann. Now Major Ziegmann had been in the first
camp they were in and had taken Jews away from
that camp. He's he's from high command in Berlin. He's
two people away from Hitler. He's the eyes and ears
of Hitler in the bow camps. And he's there for
one reason, one reason only. He's there to get the
(13:50):
Jewish men. And when he steps out of the headquarters
and sees all of the Americans, he is furious have
been disobeyed, and so he storms over to my father.
(14:11):
He gets up into his face and he said, were
my orders not clear? Did you not understand? My dad said, Major,
all that's required by the Geneva Convention is name ranking cyrial,
and the major interrupts him and says, listen, sergeant, you
don't understand. My orders were just for the Jews, only
(14:32):
the Jews. You can't all be Jews. And my father said,
we are all Jews here. The Major turned blood red
and became vicious and furious. He pulled his gun. He
pressed it hard in my dad's forehead and he screamed, sergeant,
one last chance, you will order the Jewish men to
(14:54):
step forward, or I will shoot you right now. Said,
your dad was so brave. He said, I had no
idea what he was going to do or what he
was going to say, but he said, I just I
couldn't believe it. He said, the time froze, we didn't
know what was going to He said, we were all
scared to death. We didn't know what was going to happen,
but we all stayed together. He said, your father was unwavering.
(15:18):
That made us brave, and we all stood together. He said,
and finally your father spoke, and he said, and your
father spoke truth. He said, Major, you can shoot me,
but you'll have to kill all of us because we
know who you are, and you'll stand for war crimes
when we win this war and you will pay. Lester said,
(15:42):
I couldn't believe your father, how strong he wasn't how
I mean, he spoke the truth, and he said the
Major turned white, immediately turned white, and his arm began
to shake. He said, I don't think anyone had ever
stood up to him. He said, I really believe the
truth sunk into that old major's heart and his soul
(16:04):
now almost as immediately as he'd pulled the gun. He
pulled the gun to his side, stuck it in his host,
and he swung around and marched back to his headquarters.
And he said, and we never saw Major Ziegmann again.
I don't know if Dad had ever met a Jewish
(16:25):
person until he'd got into the service. But to Dad,
people were people. People were God's creation, and everyone was
made equally in the side of God, and everybody mattered,
and so it didn't matter what your faith was, or
what your beliefs were, what background you came from. There
were boys from every nook and cranny of this country
who were serving. And Dad was real. He was the
(16:47):
real He was a real, sincere Christian. I kind of
I think of Paul Stern. Paul said, for a person
who had no reason to do what they did to
stand up for us. He said to me, that's a
real Christian, a real Christian that puts their life on
(17:07):
the line for others, and they don't have to. So
I go back from that meeting in New York City
and hearing the story for the first time from Leicester
because Lester's at the end of our conversation said I
think your father's deserving of the Medal of Honor. What
(17:28):
do you think? I said, I think so too. So
I went back to talk to my congressman. I met
with Jimmy Duncan, my congressman, and then we met with
Senatordraten Xander Sinator Quirker, and we all began a conservative
effort to try to pursue the Medal of Honor. We
spent a year and a half putting together all the
information and all the testimonies and everything affidavits that you
(17:48):
have to have to pursue that medal because it's you know,
it's the greatest highest military award. And in the meantime,
a friend of Lester's was taking all that information to
help in that process, but he was also sending it
over to Yavashim asking them to consider that as righteous
and he wanted to surprise me, and he did. They
looked at that information for over a year, confirmed that
(18:11):
it was true. They announced in twenty fifteen when I
was in Israel, and then in twenty sixteen had a
ceremony at the Israeli embassy for the first time ever.
Leaders from around the world were there. It was incredible.
I don't know if there's a higher honor than to
be named righteous and Lester at the end of his
talk there that day said this, He said, Roddy.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Could no more have turned two hundred of his men
over to Nazi persecution, then he could stop breathing.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He just couldn't do it. A righteous man.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery, and especially thanks to Chris Edmonds,
author of No Surrender and what a story you just heard.
We're all Jews here. He said, what a leader, what
a thing to do, and it just was instinctive. The
(19:15):
story of Master Sergeant Roddy Edmunds here an our American
story
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
Over twenty thousand people worldwide have been awarded the prestigious
honor of being Righteous among Nations by Yad Vashan, that's
the official Holocaust Museum of Israel. And all of them
risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews, despite
(00:32):
not being Jewish themselves. But only seven Americans have been
honored with this award. One of them is Master Sergeant
Roddy Edmunds. Here to tell the story of his father
is Christopher Edmonds, author of No Surrender. Let's get into
the story.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Take it away, Chris Well, My daughter's Christian and Laurene
were attending Maryville College and they're going to be educators,
which they are.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm very proud of them. They were in a history
class and the professor gave the whole class do a
history project. Pick a family member who's had some connection
with history, and we want you to do a presentation.
You can use a variety of different tools for that.
They chose Dad because he was a pow in World
War Two, and so she came home very excited about it.
(01:27):
She said Dad. The professor gave us permission, said we
were supposed to interview someone who's living. But Dad passed
away the year I was born, and we get to
do that. And I said, well, that's exciting. I'm excited
for you. So let's let's get his journals. He kept
two journals as a pow in World War Two, journals
that he kept tucked away that he never talked about,
never brought them out, never showed them to anybody. When
(01:49):
you'd say, Dad, what happened over there, son, I'd rather
not say, and then you'd press him on it. When
I was in college, I was pressing him on it
because I was reading the diaries and I said, I
want to know, and he goes, it's under some things
just too difficult to talk about. He said, I'll just
tell you this. The Germans humiliated us. And that's all
he would say. And he was a person who liked
(02:11):
to talk. And so she does the project. They put
a video together, just use pictures off the internet, but
the narration are words from his diary. And when I
watched that, it was like God said, you got to
go find out. I felt a sense of calling, just
like I did when I was called to the ministry.
It was a burden. It was a passion, and so
(02:33):
one night I just typed in his rank in his name,
Master Sergeant Roddy Edmonds, And the first link that appeared
was a New York Times article, and Dad's name was
highlighted in that article, Tyler. The article was Richard Nixon's
search for a New York home. It's an article written
by the editor of the New York Times in two
thousand and eight, looking back to nineteen eighty and the
(02:56):
whole desire for the president, who had stepped down from
the presidency at the time, was wanting to move to
New York try to rehabilitate his career, and no one
wanted him as their neighbor. They all blackballed him and said, no,
he's not moving in beside me. Except for a gentleman
by the name of Lester Tanner who was a prominent
New York attorney. He lived on a very prominent section
(03:19):
of New York. His neighbors were Selessenger and Rockefeller, and
he reached out to the president. Long story short is
in that article the editor pressed Lester on his life
before he met the President, and Lester just said, well,
I was in World War Two. I was a staff
sergeant in one hundred and six Infantry and I was
(03:40):
captured during the Battle of Balls. So they talked about that,
and he said Lester said, right in the middle of it,
he said, this has been on my heart for years,
but never really said anything to my family. He said,
I just blurted out said, had it not been for
the bravery of my master Sergeant Roddy Edmonds, who saved
my life, I wouldn't have met the president. I'm stunned.
(04:00):
I've got to meet Lester. Now, what is Lester talking about?
Dad never mentioned this. He never shared it with my mom,
never shared it with us. It's not in his diary
in clear verse. There's cryptic notes in Dad's diary clues
to what I've discovered. For instance, he's got a little
dash in his diary that says dogs. He's also got
(04:21):
a dash that says Jewish friends moved out. That happened
in the first Pow camp he was in where they
segregated the Jewish men, and ultimately many of those men
were sent to their death in a concentration camp where
there were forced labor really really killed them. And then
he's also got a little dashmark that says before the commander.
(04:44):
I now know what that It's a horrible experience, but
I know what that means now. I say Dad didn't
have a lot of things, but he had the right things.
He was born in nineteen nineteen, just there in the
hills of East Tennessee. He grew up in a community
called South Knotsville. You know, he had tragedy from the
(05:07):
very beginning of his life. His father, my grandfather, TC,
was a professional paperhanger and a hard worker. My dad's mom, Jenny,
was a homemaker, but she died when he was three
years old and aged ten, the depression hit. But yet
he endured that like those in our greatest generation, they
(05:27):
learned how to adapt and survive. And he was pretty
simple about his faith. He said, there is a God,
he is good, therefore I must be good as well.
In nineteen forty September of nineteen forty, he heard a
speech by President Roosevelt who came to dedicate the Smoky
Mountain National Park. I think it stirred his heart and
(05:49):
he left his high school sweetheart, and he joined the army.
He started training as a private and within two before
two years had passed, he was a master sergeant. Now
that's incredible. At the time, he was the youngest master
sergeant appointed in the US Army. He was aged twenty two. Obviously,
(06:13):
he had great leadership skills. He cared about people, but
he also demanded. You know, he was tough on him,
but he was tough in a fair way and in
a kind way. He also didn't expect any of his
soldiers to do anything he wouldn't choose to. I mean
he would always march with them. If they had to
sleep out in the mud, he's sleeping with them. He
(06:34):
taught them to love their rifles and to learn how
to survive. But they were the youngest group of soldiers
and the greenest group of soldiers. But yet they were
also very, very bright. So Henry Kissinger was a part
of that group. Bob Dole was a part of that group.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Facing the brief but furious German counter offensive in Belgium.
American engineers dring Bob, why a barricade can bit her
winter weather, snow has no beauty on a wall front
for the men who must do the fighting.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It's the largest and bloodiest battle of World War Two.
I mean, Hitler hit them with everything they had in
Dad's diary, he writes, you know, rifles are no good
against tanks in eighty eight fire. But they fought valiantly.
They held them off, and they actually delayed the success
of the Germans enough to where the Americas ultimately won
that battle about thirty days later. But Dad was captured
(07:34):
along with the rest of his men. They were marched
several days without food and water, and Skip Friedman, one
of my Pow friends, he said, if you didn't march,
you didn't last. He said, we could hear shots in
the back. And so they were marched to train station,
put on trains taking deeper into Germany. Another four or
five days on trains without food and water, standing room
only the same cattle cars that they were using to
(07:55):
take Jewish people to their death. And the ultimate rite
after a terrifying bombing where they were marshaled over onto
a sidecar in Limburg crane yard. And that morning the
weather had cleared, and so the British came over to
bomb that train yard, and the POWs were also mixed
in with armament, German armament and the bridge did a
(08:16):
great job of blowing that place up, and they also
killed quite a few American soldiers, as was al of that,
and so they had to hear all those bombs falling
toward them with no place to run, and that was
probably one of the most frightening experiences that the men
endured during their time. Every one of the po debuties
I've met with, they almost make a b line to
that moment and talk about the terror that they had.
(08:41):
But yet, in that box car, the Dad's box car.
I've met a pow who was there, Hank Friedman. He said,
we all were trying to kill each other get out
of that box car. Said we all wanted to escape
and get away from those bombs because we could hear
everyone else coming right at us. He said. It was pandemonium.
It was crazy, terrifying, he said. But then I hear
the voice with a Southern drawl rise up above the
(09:04):
clamor on the other side of the box car. He said,
it's your father, he said, it's my sergeant. He says, boys,
you've ever prayed to God, you need to pray. Pray, boys,
pray our God will save us. He said. Our box
card got quiet, and we began to pray. He said,
I'd never really prayed that much before, so I grew
up Jewish. As a Jewish kid, he said, you know,
(09:25):
I knew God, but we all prayed, he said, and
then your father voiced a prayer above the silence, and
he said, your father's faith was the first seed of
faith that I ever experienced as a Jewish kid. He said,
which God brought to fruition when I was eighty years
(09:46):
old at Shadow Brooke Baptist Church, he said, I came
to my Messiah. And he said, then that's what won
the day.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
More of this story here on our American story, and
(10:17):
we returned to our American stories and with Chris Edmunds
sharing the story of his father, Master Sergeant Roddy Edmunds,
one of seven Americans to be awarded the prestigious honor
of being considered Righteous among Nations by Israel's official Holocaust Museum.
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
The second camp that Dad was transferred to. Dad is
the highest ranking soldier among them, and so he's their leader.
But that marched them in on January twenty fifth, and
make them stand out in the cold all day long
to intimidate them with the guard dogs. And they rifle,
but several of them just if they're not standing up
(11:00):
straight away. They're just very cruel to them, but they
wanted to intimidate them and let them know who was
in charge. They march a young Russian soldier out in
front of the Americans. They tell the young Russian he's
free to go. They open the gates. The Russian hesitates. Obviously,
now that's this young Russian is god. He's emaciated, he's
been starved to death, worked to death, but yet there's
(11:22):
the sense of freedom, and so he begins to start
walking towards the gate. They gowed him some more and
he starts running towards the gate, and just as he
gets to the gate, the commandot signals with his head
and they close the gates and they release the dogs,
and the Americans are forced to watch that young Russian
soldier being mauled to death. The Americans obviously don't want
to watch it, but the guards are smashing them with
(11:43):
the rifles, forcing them to watch. And then the Commandot
comes to my father and he said, if you or
any of your men disobey us, this will happen to you.
And so that's how their experiences Ziegenhane started. And they
finally taken them to barracks and get them settled in
into the barracks, and every morning they have to fall
out for a head count. They send orders to my
(12:05):
father and then announce over the American loudspeakers that the
following morning they want only the Jewish men to fall out,
just the Jews. Anyone who disobeys this order will be shot.
So they issue those orders, and Lester Tanner, who says,
I'm in your father's barracks and said, as immediately as
he got those orders, he turned to all of us
(12:26):
in our barracks, say, there's probably two hundred and fifty
of us in that barracks. There's five other American barracks.
He turns to us and he says, men, we're not
doing that. Tomorrow morning, we all fall out. Send orders
to the other barracks leaders. That's what we're going to do.
And then he calls a beating with the barracks leaders
and he issues the orders again, and he says, men,
(12:46):
we've got to stand together. We've got to have every
man out there. Even if he said, I know there's
some men who do physically, it's going to be hard
for them to get out there because they've already been
forty days into starvation at this point, and so he
gets commitment from all the barracks leaders and they go
back and they get commitment for all the men, which
(13:06):
is absolutely amazing. You know, any one of those men
could have said, I'm not going out there. Well, the
next day it's bright and early, it's dawn, and all
the Americans are standing out there together as one, and
the commandant comes out. But then it's not the commandant
(13:28):
who comes over to my father. It's a major, a
Major Zigmann. Now Major Ziegmann had been in the first
camp they were in and had taken Jews away from
that camp. He's he's from high command in Berlin. He's
two people away from Hitler. He's the eyes and ears
of Hitler in the bow camps. And he's there for
one reason, one reason only. He's there to get the
(13:50):
Jewish men. And when he steps out of the headquarters
and sees all of the Americans, he is furious have
been disobeyed, and so he storms over to my father.
(14:11):
He gets up into his face and he said, were
my orders not clear? Did you not understand? My dad said, Major,
all that's required by the Geneva Convention is name ranking cyrial,
and the major interrupts him and says, listen, sergeant, you
don't understand. My orders were just for the Jews, only
(14:32):
the Jews. You can't all be Jews. And my father said,
we are all Jews here. The Major turned blood red
and became vicious and furious. He pulled his gun. He
pressed it hard in my dad's forehead and he screamed, sergeant,
one last chance, you will order the Jewish men to
(14:54):
step forward, or I will shoot you right now. Said,
your dad was so brave. He said, I had no
idea what he was going to do or what he
was going to say, but he said, I just I
couldn't believe it. He said, the time froze, we didn't
know what was going to He said, we were all
scared to death. We didn't know what was going to happen,
but we all stayed together. He said, your father was unwavering.
(15:18):
That made us brave, and we all stood together. He said,
and finally your father spoke, and he said, and your
father spoke truth. He said, Major, you can shoot me,
but you'll have to kill all of us because we
know who you are, and you'll stand for war crimes
when we win this war and you will pay. Lester said,
(15:42):
I couldn't believe your father, how strong he wasn't how
I mean, he spoke the truth, and he said the
Major turned white, immediately turned white, and his arm began
to shake. He said, I don't think anyone had ever
stood up to him. He said, I really believe the
truth sunk into that old major's heart and his soul
(16:04):
now almost as immediately as he'd pulled the gun. He
pulled the gun to his side, stuck it in his host,
and he swung around and marched back to his headquarters.
And he said, and we never saw Major Ziegmann again.
I don't know if Dad had ever met a Jewish
(16:25):
person until he'd got into the service. But to Dad,
people were people. People were God's creation, and everyone was
made equally in the side of God, and everybody mattered,
and so it didn't matter what your faith was, or
what your beliefs were, what background you came from. There
were boys from every nook and cranny of this country
who were serving. And Dad was real. He was the
(16:47):
real He was a real, sincere Christian. I kind of
I think of Paul Stern. Paul said, for a person
who had no reason to do what they did to
stand up for us. He said to me, that's a
real Christian, a real Christian that puts their life on
(17:07):
the line for others, and they don't have to. So
I go back from that meeting in New York City
and hearing the story for the first time from Leicester
because Lester's at the end of our conversation said I
think your father's deserving of the Medal of Honor. What
(17:28):
do you think? I said, I think so too. So
I went back to talk to my congressman. I met
with Jimmy Duncan, my congressman, and then we met with
Senatordraten Xander Sinator Quirker, and we all began a conservative
effort to try to pursue the Medal of Honor. We
spent a year and a half putting together all the
information and all the testimonies and everything affidavits that you
(17:48):
have to have to pursue that medal because it's you know,
it's the greatest highest military award. And in the meantime,
a friend of Lester's was taking all that information to
help in that process, but he was also sending it
over to Yavashim asking them to consider that as righteous
and he wanted to surprise me, and he did. They
looked at that information for over a year, confirmed that
(18:11):
it was true. They announced in twenty fifteen when I
was in Israel, and then in twenty sixteen had a
ceremony at the Israeli embassy for the first time ever.
Leaders from around the world were there. It was incredible.
I don't know if there's a higher honor than to
be named righteous and Lester at the end of his
talk there that day said this, He said, Roddy.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Could no more have turned two hundred of his men
over to Nazi persecution, then he could stop breathing.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He just couldn't do it. A righteous man.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery, and especially thanks to Chris Edmonds,
author of No Surrender and what a story you just heard.
We're all Jews here. He said, what a leader, what
a thing to do, and it just was instinctive. The
(19:15):
story of Master Sergeant Roddy Edmunds here an our American
story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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