Berchtesgaden, Germany – Jewish American veteran Shep Waldman knew exactly what he would do when he came face to face with the former enemy at the Eagle’s Nest, Adolf Hitler’s mountain retreat.
Approaching a German veteran equally burdened by age and war memories, the former U.S. Army sergeant let out a friendly greeting: “Comrade,” he said.
“Comrade,” pondered Alois Wuerzer, struggling with the English, a puzzled look on his face. Then his weary eyes lit up.
“Kamerad,” he repeated – which in German also means “friend.” Weathered hands stretched out, and one of the past century’s bitterest divides was bridged with a handshake.
The men were brought together amid the pristine peaks of the Bavarian Alps by the Greatest Generations Foundation of Denver, which seeks to give veterans the opportunity to visit old battlegrounds. Arranging a meeting with German vets was controversial, as was moving deep into Germany – a journey that chilled some of the 23 Americans and Canadians in the group.
Standing at the Eagle’s Nest, another Jewish American veteran could not bring himself to join in the reconciliation.
“I was not going to get involved in that,” said former Pfc. Cy Marmelstein, who had already taken a big emotional step by entering Germany again for the first time since World War II.
The encounter at the Eagle’s Nest took place May 12, and the veterans had already toured England, Normandy, Belgium and Luxembourg before heading to Germany – among thousands of U.S. veterans visiting Europe ahead of the June 6 anniversary of the D-Day invasion of 1944.
Waldman said he knew Jews who were persecuted before the war.
“For two years, the rabbi, it was all he spoke about. It didn’t quite register at that moment. I could not visualize it,” he said, remembering his teenage days in Denver.
He volunteered for the Army in 1943 and was sent to Europe. He found himself in a German village in street-to-street combat. Stepping around a corner, he stood face to face with a German soldier.
“I saw him, I had him, he was meat as far as I was concerned,” Waldman, 83, remembered. “His eyes popped, and that poor kid was shivering and shaking. I said, ‘I can’t kill him. No way I can kill a young man like that.”‘ Waldman told him to drop the gun and run. The German did.
Even though Waldman, then 19, later killed a German in hand-to-hand combat, his compassion never left him. That made it easier to make peace with himself, he said, and enmity toward the Germans slowly left.
“I have gone through that,” Waldman said of coming to terms with the horrors of war and the Holocaust. “It took a long time, probably 20 years. Now, no more nightmares.”
But time has not dulled his awareness of what Jews faced under Hitler.
On his last day in Germany, he went to a commemoration at the Dachau concentration camp and read the Kaddish, the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead.
“I am glad I went,” Waldman said.
The handshake also left its mark in Kisslegg, Bavaria, where Wuerzer, 85, a former senior noncommissioned officer in the Wehrmacht, is enjoying retirement.
“I was so totally surprised” by the handshake, Wuerzer said. “They are good people. It is good for two enemies to talk to one another.”
