Some things just seem off about this story from the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — In a German prison camp 71 years ago, Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds stared down the barrel of his Nazi captor’s pistol and refused to say which of his fellow prisoners of war were Jewish.
“We are all Jews here,” said Sergeant Edmonds, the highest-ranking American noncommissioned officer at Ziegenhein stalag that day, instead ordering more than 1,000 of his fellow prisoners to stand together in front of their barracks. The Geneva Convention required soldiers to provide only their names, ranks and serial numbers, not their religions, Sergeant Edmonds said, warning the German that if he shot them all, he would be tried for war crimes.
That act of defiance in January 1945 spared the lives of as many as 200 Jews, and, on Wednesday, Sergeant Edmonds will receive posthumous recognition by President Obama as the first American service member to be named Righteous Among the Nations, an honor bestowed on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Mr. Obama will make an unusual appearance at the Israeli Embassy, which is all the more notable because only months ago he clashed openly with Israel over the Iran nuclear deal. He will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 71st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, holding up Sergeant Edmonds and others who showed heroism during World War II as symbols of the values Israel and the United States share.
Mr. Obama will be hosted by Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States who, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent much of last year working to defeat the president’s highest foreign policy priority. It is the clearest sign to date that both governments are working to heal their relations.
Mr. Obama will be introduced by Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director whose 1993 film “Schindler’s List” recounted the tale of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist named as Righteous Among the Nations decades ago for saving more than 1,000 Jews who worked in his factories.
The stories of those Mr. Obama will recognize are no less cinematic, although until recently they have been virtually unknown, including to their families.
The award is granted by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust remembrance and educational organization, which has bestowed it on more than 25,000 people, only five of them American.
First of all, the Nazis treated western prisoners who were Jews the same as non-Jews, generally speaking. The Nazis observed the Geneva Conventions about prisoners of wars with western nations who had also signed up to live by the rules. Russia didn’t sign up to live by the Geneva Conventions, so the Nazis and Russians were brutal with each other’s prisoners.
The Nazis were not likely to single out the Jewish POWs for death and torture. That rarely happened.
Only about 1% of American POWs died in Nazi camps, and most of them died from the wounds they suffered prior to capture.
