Mel Brooks, then Melvin Kaminsky, enlisted in the Army and served as a forward artillery observer and a combat engineer in Europe, where he deactivated land mines. His three older brothers, Irving, Lenny and Bernie, also served in the war….
Henry Kissinger, a refugee from Nazi Germany, was drafted in 1943 and served in the Army infantry. After several months, he was recruited into counterintelligence, as the U.S armed forces realized that German Jewish émigrés, with their knowledge of the…
Carl Reiner, the son of Jewish immigrants, was drafted in 1943. He trained in the Signal Corps as a radio and teleprinter operator. But the night before he was to ship out for “parts unknown,” a friend arranged for him…
Harold Baumgarten served in the Army infantry. His unit was among the first to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day, and he was wounded five times.
Morton Brooks fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and became one of 350 American POWs to be imprisoned at Berga, a Nazi slave labor camp.
Bea Cohen served as a WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps) in England, working in communications.
Paul Cohen served as an infantryman in the Pacific, where he was a forward observer on Leyte Island.
Harry Corre served in the Philippines, survived the Bataan Death March and spent four years in a Japanese POW camp.