Babe’s Fondness for (Most of) the Fellows in His Platoon
December 29, 2011 Leave a Comment
I have a letter without an envelope and an envelope without a letter; I’m guessing they’re supposed to be together. The letter is dated “May 1943, Sunday,” and the envelope is postmarked May 4, 1943, from Camp Wheeler. The postmark is two years to the day before Babe was killed.
Dear Ma and Pa,
Need I say more? I’ll tell you how this mixup about the money came about. I gave the money to the chaplain because he handled everything like that. I didn’t know, though, that I would have to go back there for the money order. I thought he would mail it himself. Last night, the chaplain called me into his office and gave me the money order. So, here it is.
By the by, it is too late to get my pictures taken at this camp anyhow, so I’ll get them at my next camp. It takes too long to get the pictures and I’m not going to be here more than two weeks. Read more of this post
Letters from an Everyman in WWII
A Shameful Passage of Antisemitism in One of Babe’s Letters
December 29, 2011 Leave a Comment
Star of David Picture from WWII American Cemetery in Normandy is courtesy of "tmmiller' from Flickr.
The letter I just transcribed made me gasp aloud as I was typing.
I haven’t read these letters in years. As I transcribe them, I’m coming to most of it cold. And I had obviously forgotten about this passage in one of Babe’s May 1943 letters: “I hope that when I leave here, I stay with all of these fellows, with the exception of one or two stinking Jews.”
I had not anticipated confronting such an ugly remark when I started this project. It didn’t occur to me to censor it or edit it out; it’s an ugly display of antisemitism and it’s the reality of Babe’s life, as disappointing and disturbing as that is.
It’s doubly disturbing because it is an attitude that must have been tolerated by his parents; why else would he have felt free to say such a thing in a letter to them? Further, my grandparents were Italian, first-generation immigrants to the United States. They had experienced bigotry and discrimination for their own heritage.
For heaven’s sake, Babe was an Italian-American, and a tyrant in the land of his ancestors was one of the reasons Americans were at war. If that wasn’t cause for anti-Italian sentiment, what was!
And yet, the family was willing to perpetuate such an attitude again the Jews.
It makes me wonder whether Babe’s attitudes changed as he served next to others of different faiths and backgrounds.
It makes me wonder if Babe ever became aware of the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany? Or, beyond that, the atrocities the Nazis committed in the death camps, gas chambers and incinerators? Did he ever know about the Holocaust before he was killed? It is unlikely that he did; but if he had, would it have changed his attitudes in any way?
Filed under Commentary Tagged with Antisemitism