\n An American POW who protected Jewish inmates in a wartime German camp has been named \"Righteous Among The Nations\", the first US soldier to receive the Israeli honour, a statement said Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial said that Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee, who died in 1985, was the senior American soldier being held at the Stalag IXA camp.\n<\/p>\n
\n The camp's commandant sought to single out Jewish prisoners-of-war from the other internees at a time when many Jewish prisoners were sent to extermination camps or murdered.\n<\/p>\n
\n Edmonds, the statement said, ordered all of his men to fall out alongside the Jews.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We are all Jews,\" witnesses quoted Edmonds as telling the commandant. \"If you shoot me, you will have to shoot all of us, and after the war you will be tried for war crimes.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The commandant turned around and left the scene, Yad Vashem said, quoting the testimony of Paul Stern, one of the Jewish prisoners rescued by Edmonds in January 1945.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"He is the first American soldier, and only one of five Americans, to be recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations,\" Yad Vashem said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The award is given by Israel to gentiles who stood up to Nazi genocide during World War II.\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 26,000 individuals have received the honour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An American POW who protected Jewish inmates in a wartime German camp has been named \"Righteous Among The Nations\", the first US soldier to receive the Israeli honour, a statement said Wednesday. Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial said that Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee, who died in 1985, was the senior American soldier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-25006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n