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My Op-Ed, "What would you do if you got a Nazi relic in the mail?" is published. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-06-04

The Forward just published my op-ed, What would you do if you got a Nazi relic in the mail? Unlike Clarence Thomas’ billionaire pal Harlan Crow, I couldn’t wait to get that thing out of my house. It begins:

When a package from France arrived at my Manhattan apartment, I imagined it had something to do with Israel Schaechter, my great-uncle. I’d been researching his life story. He was a highly decorated Jewish World War I veteran and doctor who survived World War II hidden by farmers in occupied France. People who knew him were sending me memorabilia in response to my inquiries. But the package was not what I expected. Inside was a red box with a swastika on it containing two Hitler Youth medals.

The story is a bit complicated. For the full details, please read the article at the link above. (You may need to submit your email. If there’a paywall, please let me know.) Suffice it to say that the same elderly Frenchman who in 1997 sent me my great-uncle’s World War I medals, including the French Legion of Honor, later sent me the Hitler Youth medals. The elderly man’s aunt was my great-uncle’s wife Elly, pictured above with my great uncle in occupied France.

She and her German first husband* had a son, Hans, who moved to Germany with his father after the divorce. Hans won the Hitler youth medal, then joined the Wehrmacht and was killed on the Eastern Front.

Elly’s nephew wrote they might be of interest to me as part of my great-uncle’s story.

He was wrong.

I donated the noxious medals within days to New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, where one remains on display in its main exhibition, The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do.

Dr. Schaechter, c. 1930

My great uncle

Dr. Schaechter was born in Constantinople to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin. While his seven sisters ultimately emigrated to the United States, he moved to France where he attended medical school at the University of Nancy. France later granted him citizenship for service and heroism in World War I.

The Heroic French Farmers

But when WW II came, he and Elly had to flee to Western France and ultimately were hidden by a French farm couple, François and Leontine Naffrechoux, who also hid others. In 1997,

at the farmhouse where Israel and Elly hid, we met the rescuers’ son Andre Naffrechoux. Andre was about 75 by then; he’d been 22 in 1944. He told us about his parents’ bravery as we sat around the same table where Israel had sat with them. “They arrived,” he said, “and there was never any doubt that we would take them in.”

Of course I didn’t need my great uncle’s story to be repelled by the Hitler Youth medals. But my experience 26 years ago came to mind when I read about right-wing mega-donor and Clarence Thomas pal, Harlan Crow’s collection of Nazi memorabilia. Crow proudly displays them, including a signed copy of Mein Kampf, needless to say lacking the context of the Museum Exhibit.

You may be interested in the full account of my journey to discover the life of my great uncle in my article, Gifts from a Spiritual Ancestor. It was a journey that changed my life.

I also nominated Francois and Leontine Naffrechoux posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations, an honor that Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, bestows upon non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis. The nomination was approved, and I returned in 1998 for the ceremony. A friend later sent me a rubbing of the place on the wall at Yad Vashem where their names are inscribed.

Unlike the Hitler Youth medals, the rubbing is an artifact worth keeping.

***

*They had lived in Alsace Lorraine, populated by many Germans and French.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/4/2173249/-My-Op-Ed-What-would-you-do-if-you-got-a-Nazi-relic-in-the-mail-is-published

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