and 2. An alphabetical listing of soldiers by their city or town or origin.
The latter can serve as a source for further biographical research.
In addition to my remarks below, I have included a graphic published as a
leaflet in Germany in 1920, which poignantly reflects the loss of identifiable
Jewish servicemen and the legacy of non-recognition of that sacrifice.
In looking over these names, I, myself, experience a sadness, not unlike the
grief that veterans of the Vietnam war feel when viewing the memorial in Washington,
D.C.
Not only for those who died, but for all those who were left behind, their
families and friends who had to suffer the terrible indignities prior to 1932
and the terrible tragedies after that date with the enactment of the Nuremberg
laws and subsequent concentration camp atrocities!
Imagine the impact on pre-Nazi Germany if this 1932 document, which is a powerful
refutation of the claims of those with agendas of hate, had been on the shelf
of every history professor, every political science teacher, every attorney
and medical practitioner, every newspaper editor and journalist, every gymnasium
teacher, to say nothing of its presence in every library of the land.
Would such broad access have made a difference? Would it have changed history?
I don't know. Perhaps! That is why I am so delighted to put this book on the
web, so that the information, the record, becomes indelible and permanently
enshrined for succeeding generations of Jews and Christians and all men of
good will, in the hope that those who search for the “truth about Jews” in
the struggle against “hatred of Jews” will find this document useful.
(Leo Finegold April 12, 2005).
|