About My Book
Love Abe: A Jewish GI’s World War II Letters Home
Love, Abe
A Jewish GI’s World War II Letters Home
A story of wartime life, love, and service
While contending with the vicious anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime, Abe was no stranger to prejudice on the home front. An articulate observer, he shares his experiences during training stateside and his service overseas, including:
- Celebrating Passover in Hitler’s Germany
- Joining the front line for Europe’s biggest antiaircraft battle at the Remagen Bridge
- Using his background in Yiddish to act as an interpreter with German civilians and POWs
- The elation of V-E Day and V-J Day
- Daily life in postwar occupied Germany
- Guarding the Ministerial Collecting Center as part of “Operation Goldcup” to recover documents scattered across Germany during the Allied bombing
In his letters, Abe poured out his love, hopes, and dreams for his wife and young daughter and the future he was fighting for.
This is a story unique to Abe and Lillian, but much of their experience was also shared by many of the Americans who served in World War II and their loved ones at home.
One of Dad’s fellow soldiers at Fort Eustis drew this sketch of him in 1943.
Cover of booklet for the 581st AAA Battalion with names and hometowns listed by Battery that Dad received when he arrived at Camp Stewart, Georgia.
The military handed out these booklets explaining British culture to American GIs.
Taken in Niederweidbach, a small town in central Germany, after V-E Day. Dad with a buddy from West Virginia.
Dad received this booklet from the Army on entering Germany.
Dad’s group of GIs on pass visiting Paris, November 1945. Dad is in the front row, second from left.
Cover of booklet explaining the purpose of the Ministerial Collecting Center (MCC) in Fürstenhagen, Germany to the 581st, Dad’s unit that was assigned to guard it. (U.S. Army Information and Education)
Page of MCC booklet showing its exact location, which had been where Germany’s largest underground munitions factory had been located.
Dad and buddy at the guardhouse of the MCC, where they were stationed.
Mom and Dad, February 1946, just after Dad’s return home, still on his emergency furlough, before his official discharge on March 5, 1946.
A small piece of a remnant of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen retrieved from the Rhine River, which we purchased at the museum there in July 2004, shortly before Dad passed away. (Author photo)