German and Jewish Friends During WWII

The following are excerpts of an article by Andrew Lightman from the Newton Tab*

Sixty years after his assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, Melvin Bloom remembers the noise and smell most vividly.

The dunes were steep and high, like a wall, said Bloom, an 81-year-old Navy veteran. The Germans had dug in and were blasting the beach with a cannon, machine gunners littering the water and sand with a slew of bullets.

The night before the invasion, as the ship crossed the English Channel towards Normandy, the water was so rough from the wind and the rain that nobody slept.

And as the coast, D-Day and H-Hour drew nearer, Bloom’s boat was at the front of the line and hit the waters at Omaha Beach more than an hour before the invasion was set to begin.

Aboard his ship was Wallace Maske, an enormous man of German descent, with hands twice the size of Bloom’s.

“I was Jewish and we were going to fight the Germans and another kid on the boat was German and were the closest friends, to this day,” he said. “It shows that a German and a Jew could be friends through the war.”

“Wherever I went, he went with me. He wanted to make sure I was taken care of.”

At first, Bloom said Maske was nervous about shooting in combat, afraid he might shoot at a cousin in the German army.

“I said if they shoot at us, you’ll shoot back, and he said OK,” Bloom said.

Then, on June 7, 1944, the day after the invasion began, Bloom said he spotted an infantry group in trouble.

After making another supply run to Omaha Beach, Bloom noticed a landing craft drop its ramp in 14 feet of water, where a young officer ordered his men out. Fully loaded with packs, helmets and guns, the men began to drown.

But Bloom and another sailor put a two-man dinghy in the water, and as the other man rowed, Bloom grabbed five men and helped them to shore as two German fighter planes straifed the beach with gunshots.

“I’m a hero, but I never spoke to anyone about it,” said Bloom. “We just lay there until they left. They could have killed us.”

For his actions, Bloom was awarded two bronze stars and the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. Kept virtually untouched in his dresser drawer for nearly 50 years, the awards are now with one of his three sons in Florida. But his heroics were documented in papers he kept in a crinkled old paper bag.

For the full story of Melvin Bloom, I encourage you to read the original story in its entirety from the Newton Tab.

*reprinted with permission from the author