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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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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.