The late Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds has been honoured with the "Righteous Among the Nations" 70 years after he risked his life to save more than 200 Jewish soldiers. He is the first of the five Americans who have received the highest Israeli honour.
As reported by NPR, this is the first time a U.S. solider has been named "Righteous Among the Nations", an honour given by Israel's Holocaust Remembrance and Research Center to non-Jews who undertook heroic acts during WWII.
According to Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev, Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee, was a non-commissioned officer who joined the U.S. forces in Europe and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge.
He was the highest-ranking American soldier that was held at a Nazi POW camp near Ziegenhain, Germany in late 1944. On January 27, 1945, the Nazis ordered all Jewish Americans POWS to step forward. Edmonds then ordered all 1,000 U.S. soldiers to step forward regardless of their religion.
The German camp commander was astonished when he saw the number of soldiers who stepped forward.
"They cannot all be Jews!", the German commander said according to Yad Vashem. To which Edmond replied, "We are all Jews here." He cited the Geneva Conventions which protects them from revealing their real religion.
Rev. Chris Edmonds, his son, tells NPR that the German commander got so mad that he pulled out his Luger and pressed it into his father's forehead saying "I'll give you one more chance. Have the Jewish men step forward or I will shoot you on the spot."
After a second's pause, his father then said to the German commander, "If you shoot, you'll have to shoot us all." With that, the German commander backed down.
Lester Tanner who was among the Jewish soldiers in the camp knew the risk if they were identified as Jewish and what Roddie Edmonds did made him a man of great courage for risking his life to protect them.
Edmond died in 1985. According to Newser, sometime after his father's death, Rev. Chris Edmonds read an article about Lester Tanner selling a tony Manhattan townhouse to Richard Nixon. Tanner mentioned that Edmonds saved his life and so Rev. Chris decided to embark on a journey to find Tanner. It was after his father died that Rev. Chris learned what happened from the survivors.
Roddie Edmonds was recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" last Wednesday and is now being considered for a Congressional Medal of Honour.