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Guy Stern, WWII ‘Ritchie Boy’ who became renowned Holocaust scholar, dies at 101
(JTA) — Guy Stern, a German Jewish refugee who was one of the last known surviving members of the celebrated World War II military intelligence unit known as the “Ritchie Boys” and who became an accomplished Holocaust scholar after the war, died Dec. 7, a little over a month shy of his 102nd birthday.
Sent to live in St. Louis by his family as a teenager, Stern became a U.S. citizen and was drafted into the Army in 1943, joining a select group of Jewish refugee soldiers-turned-intelligence operatives who trained at Fort Ritchie in Maryland. As a native German speaker, his skillset was especially valuable for interrogating Nazi prisoners of war.
The so-called Ritchie Boys, who included around 2,000 Jewish refugees, would come to be responsible for what was later estimated as around 60% of the U.S.’ usable intelligence during the war. Their work was classified as top-secret and largely remained under wraps for decades; many veterans, unlike Stern, died without fully telling their stories.
Stern most recently was a central figure in the 2022 PBS documentary “The U.S. And The Holocaust,” directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and Lynn Novick, and he also appeared in a “60 Minutes” special earlier that year. In 2021, the U.S. Senate honored the Ritchie Boys’ service with a bipartisan resolution.
After the war, Stern further explored his bilingual identity and became a comparative literature scholar and university administrator. He served several top roles at Detroit’s Wayne State University, including provost, and at the University of Cincinnati, along the way receiving various honors for his service, including the French Knight of the Legion of Honor in 2017. His widow, the Polish-born German writer Susanna Piontek, is also a frequent explorer of Holocaust memory and translated her husband’s memoir into German.
Stern was memorialized by many Jewish institutions both in and out of his adopted home of Detroit, including the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, where Stern was the director of its International Institute of the Righteous.
“Guy was such an important part of not just The HC but of the entire understanding we have of the war, what was done to win, its significance, and the importance of education to prevent recurrence,” said Alan Zekelman, executive member of the museum’s board, in a statement. “There is no question that his work in this world was important, will be remembered, and that we are all blessed because of him. He will be incredibly missed.”
Stern was born Günther Stern in 1922, in Hildesheim, Germany. Throughout his life he would retain vivid memories of seeing former friends sign up for the Hitler Youth. At 15, he became the only member of his family to escape death at the hands of the Nazis when his parents pooled their resources and sent him to stay with a relative in St. Louis.
In a story Stern would later tell many times, including in his 2020 memoir “Invisible Ink,” he tried in vain to secure a stateside sponsorship for his parents and siblings. Owing to what he said was largely the fault of a duplicitous lawyer, he was unable to find a sponsor who would grant them secure passage, and the rest of his family was later murdered in the Holocaust.
Staying with his aunt and uncle in St. Louis, Stern would often tune into the broadcasts of the fascist American priest Father Coughlin on the radio, who had embraced the same poisonous ideology as the Nazis Stern had fled.
“I was taken aback when I heard Father Coughlin and I thought, ‘Well, I parted with all that when I left Germany,’” Stern told this author in 2019. “I did not project that America would be misled in the same way by demagogic slogans and propaganda the way it had happened in Germany.”
After the war, Stern studied Romance languages at Hofstra University on Long Island, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1948. He received a master’s degree and later a Ph.D in German at Columbia University.
Stern spoke frequently about his experiences as a refugee, sitting for various survivor testimonies and being interviewed in a number of documentaries and TV programs.
Stern remained spry and gregarious into his years as a centenarian, with near-total recall of his life experiences, and would gamely sit down with most anyone who asked for his story. Throughout his life, he maintained a sharp wit.
“If you live long enough,” he told “60 Minutes,” “honors are being showered upon you.”
Stern is survived by Susanna Piontek of West Bloomfield. His first marriage, to Margith Langweiler, ended in divorce. His second wife, Judith Edelstein Owens, died in 2003. A son, Mark Stern, died in 2006.
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The post Guy Stern, WWII ‘Ritchie Boy’ who became renowned Holocaust scholar, dies at 101 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Jim Bourg
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been slapped with an ethics complaint by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, for holding an event with former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Last weekend, Khaire took the stage with Omar in support of her reelection campaign. AAF argued Khaire’s presence at Omar’s campaign rally constituted a violation of the US Federal Election Campaign Act and demanded the congresswoman step down from office.
“We are deeply concerned by Ilhan Omar’s illegal campaign rally with the former prime minister of Somalia. Omar already has a long history of statements indicating her disdain for America and allegiance to Somalia, but this goes beyond statements,” the AAF wrote.
“Now her campaign has taken action to involve a foreign leader in an American election. She must resign immediately and return every dollar raised for her at this disgraceful rally,” the watchdog continued.
The organization argued Omar potentially committed two infractions against the Federal Election Campaign Act.
First, AAF alleged that the congresswoman “knowingly accepted former Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s services at her campaign events.” They asserted this action exceeded the “limited volunteer services permitted by a foreign national and involves impermissible decision-making.”
Second, the watchdog claimed that Khaire was possibly “compensated by a prohibited source.” The organization suggested that Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that focuses on “empowering Somali American youth,” organized and funded Khaire’s trip to America. AAF argued that Omar likely “knowingly accepted a corporate contribution associated with Mr. Khaire’s travel and lodging costs” with the goal of boosting voter turnout among Minnesota’s Somali-American community.
During Omar’s campaign rally in Minnesota last weekend, Khaire gave an impassioned speech, urging the audience to vote for the congresswoman.
“Support her with your votes, tell your neighbors and friends, and anyone you know to come out and support Ilhan Omar,” Khaire said. “And knock on every door you can so that she can be re-elected.”
Khaire then added, “Ilhan’s interests aren’t those of Minnesota or the American people but those of Somalia.”
“No one is above the law — even members of the Squad” of far-left lawmakers in the US House, AAF president Thomas Jones wrote in a statement. “Not only were Khaire’s comments about Omar deeply disturbing, but the rally was also a blatant violation of US election laws. Omar must resign immediately and return every dollar raised by Khaire for her campaign.”
Omar’s campaign counsel David Mitrani denied that the congresswoman violated any elections laws.
“This ethics complaint is another attempt by the far-right to smear the congresswoman,” Mitrani told the New York Post.
“Congresswoman Omar’s campaign had absolutely no involvement in requesting, coordinating, or facilitating Mr Khaire’s appearance or his comments, and accordingly there was no violation of law,” he continued.
Khaire’s claim that Omar’s “interests” are with Somalia rather than the American people raised eyebrows, with critics pointing out that she has previously criticized the American Jewish community for supposedly maintaining “allegiance” to the government of Israel.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said during a 2019 speech in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization aimed at fostering a closer US-Israel relationship.
“Accusing Jews of harboring dual loyalty has a long, violent, sordid history,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, in response to Omar’s comments.
During her five-year stretch as a US representative, Omar has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. She has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, an initiative which seeks to economically punish and isolate the Jewish state as the first step toward its elimination.
The congresswoman came under fire after waiting a whole two days to comment on Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 people across southern Israel. Despite slow-walking a condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, she was one of the first congresspeople to call for Israel to implement a “ceasefire” in the Gaza strip.
Omar enraged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after she referred to Jewish college students as being either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide” while visiting Columbia University in April.
The post Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager
Samuel Woodward, recently convicted of the hate crime murder of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish teenager from California. Photo: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
A jury in Orange County, California on Wednesday convicted a neo-Nazi of the hate-crime murder of a gay Jewish teenager he lured to the woods under the false pretense of a furtive hook-up.
According to court documents, Samuel Woodward — a member of the Neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division — stabbed 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein over two dozen times in 2018 after pretending in a series of Tinder messages to be interested in a first-time homosexual encounter.
Bernstein was unaware of Woodward’s paranoiac and hateful far-right ideology, however. The now 26-year-old Woodward had withdrawn from college to join the Atomwaffen Division — whose members have been linked to several other murders, including a young man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents — idolized Adolf Hitler, and would spend hours on Grindr searching for gay men to humiliate and “ghost,” ceasing all contact with them after posing as a coquettish “bicurious” Catholic.
“I tell sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me,” Woodward said in his diary quoted by The Los Angeles Times. “Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe then send them a pic or two, beat around the bus and pretend to tell them that I like them and then kabam, I either un-friend them or tell them they have been pranked, ha ha.”
In another entry, Woodward wrote, “They think they are going to get hate crimed [sic] and it scares the s— out of them.”
On the day of the killing, Woodward agreed to drive Bernstein to Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, where he stabbed him as many as 30 times and buried him in a “shallow grave,” according to various reports. He never denied his guilt, but in court his attorneys resorted to blaming the crime on his being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and feeling conflicted about his sexuality, LA Times reported. As the trial progressed, his attorneys also made multiple attempts to decouple Woodward’s Nazism from the murder, arguing that it was not a hate crime and that no mention of his trove of fascist paraphernalia and antisemitic and homophobic views should be uttered in court.
“No verdict can bring back Blaze. He was an amazing human and humanitarian and a person we were greatly looking forward to having in our lives, seeing wondrous things from him as his young life unfolded” the family of the victim, who has been described by all who knew him as amiable and talented, said in a statement shared by ABC News. “From this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, and brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone quite like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”
With Wednesday’s guilty verdict, Woodward may never be free again. He faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Oct. 25.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C.
Did the protesters even realize who would be on the field when they showed up?
The post Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C. appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.