Pastor Chris Edmonds, son of the late WWII hero Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds—the only United States soldier recognized as Righteous Among the Gentiles by Israel’s Yad Vashem—will deliver the 10th Annual Sacks-Wilner Memorial Lecture at Adath Israel Congregation, Lawrenceville, on Sunday, March 5.
Righteous Among the Nations, the highest civilian award given by the State of Israel upon Gentiles, is given to those who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Edmonds’ award was announced in 2015 and presented at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., posthumously, in January 2016. The medal was presented to his son, Pastor Edmonds, at a ceremony attended by President Barack Obama and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer.
Edmonds was taken prisoner by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. Together with other American soldiers, he was marched to a Nazi POW camp—Stalag IXA—near Ziegenhain, Germany. The Wehrmacht, in line with their anti-Jewish policy, singled out Jewish POWs from the rest of the POW population. On the Eastern Front, many Jewish POWs were sent to extermination camps or simply murdered on the spot. This policy was also applied in some cases in the West.
In January 1945, the Germans announced that all Jewish POWs in Stalag IXA were to report the following morning. Edmonds, who was the highest ranking soldier in the American Section of the camp ordered all the men to fall out the following morning—Jews and non-Jews alike.
When the German officer in charge saw that all the inmates—more than 1,000—were standing in front of their barracks, he screamed at Edmonds that they could not possibly all be Jews to which Edmonds replied, “We are all Jews.”
The officer removed his pistol from its holster and pointed at Edmond’s head, but the sergeant did not waiver citing the protection of POWs in the Geneva Convention.
“If you shoot me,” he reportedly said the Nazi, “you’ll have to shoot us all and after the war you will be tried as a war criminal.”
The story was told and retold by many eye-witness survivors of the incident who credited Edmonds “chutzpah” with saving their lives. Eventually the story reached Yad Vashem in Israel and was verified by its researchers.
Edmonds survived the war and served in uniform again in Korea. He passed away in 1985. He is the only American soldier recognized as Righteous Among the Nations and only one of five Americans to be so honored. To date, more than 26,000 individuals have received the distinction.
M/Sergeant Edmonds’ son will deliver a lecture about his father and the testimonies of men who nominated him for the award.
A dairy dinner reception with Pastor Edmonds will be held at 5:30 p.m. at a cost of $36 per person. The evening’s program is being presented by Adath Israel in partnership with Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Mercer County.
The lecture is open and free to the public at 7 p.m. To register for the meet-and-greet dinner or obtain further information about the lecture visit their website or call (609) 896-4977.
Pastor Chris Edmonds,
