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Photographer: Mike Wintermantel
Taken: May 14, 2014
Caption: Rescuing Jews
Additional Description: "I visited several villages where Jews are not permitted to buy food...they are compelled to walk to another village miles away to buy the food they can afford...During a burial service, the Aryan crowd stoned the Jews so badly that the Rabbi had to stop his prayers before the completion of the burial. A seven-year-old girl was so severely stoned that she required medical attention..."

Beginning in 1936, David Glick, a Jewish businessman from Pittsburgh, traveled throughout Germany helping Jews gain permission to leave the country. The scope of Glick's contribution remained largely unknown until shortly before his death in 1964, but some 90,000 Jews emigrated safely because of his work. In contrast, a twelve-year-old Polish Jew known only as Mike was the sole focus of a 1945 rescue effort by 78th Hospital Train unit soldiers operating in Germany.

"Mike told me he lost his family at Auschwitz. I got permission to bring him aboard the train. He became our orderly and interpreter. In September, our train unit was disbanded and we were assigned to hospital duty outside Paris. Mike worked with me and a civilian helper. When my orders to go home arrived in February 1946, we took Mike into the city and left him with the Jewish Welfare Board. He said he thought he might have relatives in Indiana. I never learned Mike's last name and don't know if he ever made it to the States."

Clarence Gomberg, Corporal T/5
Submitted: May 15, 2014, by Mike Wintermantel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Database Locator Identification Number: p273369
File Size: 1.294 Megabytes

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