West Roxbury, Massachusetts

b. 1922

Juden

Suddenly they were overrun and a German stood over Sam Palter with a rifle.  Right then, he says, “I thought of my mother.”

It was August 7, 1944, Mortain, France.  Sam was 22 years old and two weeks on the line, a replacement GI for the men broken and swept away in the months after D-Day.  While he had fired at German positions, he'd never seen the enemy until now.  That was the worst day of his life, he says, the day he finally saw the enemy.

Sam and seven other captured Americans were trucked east.  They stopped in a wooded area and one of the soldiers guarding them asked if anyone spoke German. Sam stepped forward.  The soldier pointed at a short guy named Joe, slumped down exhausted against a tree. 

“Jude?  Jude?” asked the soldier.  For a second, Sam wondered who he meant.  Again the soldier pointed at Joe, who had dark hair and a prominent nose.

Sam shook his head, “Nein, nein,” and he explained that Joe was a Catholic, not a Jew.  At least he thought he was Catholic, but certainly not Jewish.  Or was he? Sam didn't know his last name, actually.  Something Italian.  The soldier raised his weapon and leveled it at Joe.  “Er ist ein Jude,” the German yelled, as if personally insulted. 

Sam strained for German words, plucking them out of the chalky air of his high-school classroom in Dorchester, Massachusetts.  Not a Jew, he explained, absolutely not.  Trust me, this man believes in Jesus who died for our sins.  Nein, Jude, nein.  Joe sat there, absolutely frozen.  Moments passed . . . and the soldier lowered his rifle and turned away.

Sam, now 83 years old, a retired postal worker and father of four, tells this next part with razor-sharp precision.  He spied a tree with a knothole.  He moved over there slowly, casually, and leaned against the trunk.  He made sure no one was watching.  Then he grabbed the chain around his neck and pulled free his dog tags—two metal rectangles stamped with his name, rank, serial number, and a capital H for his religious designation, H for Hebrew—and stashed them in the knothole.  Sam moved away from the tree, two ounces lighter.