Most kids grow up thinking their parents are heroes. For most people that’s just a wishful fantasy, but for Chris Edmonds, it was reality. He just didn’t know it. His father, Roddie W. Edmonds, was a quiet, humble and unassuming man. He worked as a salesman, selling mobile homes and cable television subscriptions, and even did a stint with the Knoxville Journal. He was just a regular Southern American family man. Except for the extraordinary secret he managed to take with him to the grave.
Roddie was a WWII and Korean war veteran. He never really spoke about his experiences in the wars. All he would say was, “we were humiliated; things happened that are too bad to share.” It took a college history assignment to unearth what had really happened.
Chris’s daughter came home one day and told her father she needed to do an oral history report about a family member. So they borrowed Roddie’s wartime diary from Chris’s mom. Most of it was written in short phrases or coded shorthand. Although they were able to glean enough information to complete the project, Chris’s curiosity was piqued. He tried to uncover more information but didn’t understand much from his father’s diary.
Frustrated, but not ready to give up, Chris turned to Google. After entering his father’s name and rank in the search bar, an article from The NY Times came up. A soldier, Lester Tannenbaum (Tanner), had mentioned that he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the bravery of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds. Intrigued, Chris knew he had to find out more. After getting in touch with Lester, he searched for other POWs and started piecing together his father’s amazing story.
Roddie, one of four brothers born in Knoxville, Tenn., joined the army in 1941. Within two years he was promoted to the rank of Master Sergeant. In the fall of 1944, Roddie shipped out to the European theater as part of the 106th Infantry Division. He arrived at the Belgian-German border to reinforce the Siegfried Line, just inside the German border. Six days after their arrival, the Germans began the Battle of the Bulge, bringing the war to them. They were completely outnumbered and outgunned. On December 19th, the commanding officer surrendered. Roddie called it a smart move, as “our rifles were no good against tanks and 88 fire.”
Then began their long march through the frozen German countryside. Anyone who couldn’t keep up was shot on the spot. After being loaded into cattle cars at Gerolstein railway station, they were transported in “standing room only” boxcars to Stalag IX-B, near the resort town of Bad Orb.
On the way, Germans pulled the unmarked POW trains into the Limburg train yard. Later that night, the Germans fled, leaving the American POWs locked in the box cars as the British bombed the railyard. He wrote in his diary that that was his worst experience. They heard every bomb whistling their way and it seemed like each one would hit their boxcar. Several hundred Americans died, including Roddie’s chaplain.
After a month at Bad Orb, Roddie and all the noncommissioned officers were taken to Stalag IX-A near Ziegenhain, Germany. Upon arrival, the Germans ordered all the American POWs, nearly 1300 men, to remain standing outside in the knee-high snow.
They were “welcomed” by German soldiers, with their growling dogs, who spent the rest of the day shouting and intimidating them. At the end of the day, a young Russian soldier was brought to the front of the camp, and they were forced to watch the young prisoner being mauled to death by the dogs. Anyone who tried to look away received a butt in the head from a German rifle. “This will happen to any one of you who does not do exactly what we say,” they were warned.
Master Sergeant Edmonds was now the highest-ranking soldier among the American POWs. The following evening, January 26, 1945, an announcement came over the loudspeaker instructing that the next morning only the Jewish soldiers were to present for roll call. Immediately, Roddie turned to his men and said, “We’re not doing that. Tomorrow morning, we all go out.”
When Major Siegmann came out for roll, he was enraged to see all 1,292 Americans standing in sharp formation. He stormed over to Edmonds and shouted, “These men cannot all be Jews!”
Without hesitation, Roddie calmly replied “We are all Jews here.” Furious, Major Siegmann drew his pistol, put it to Roddie’s forehead, and screamed, “Sergeant, one last chance. You will order the Jews to step forward or I will shoot you right now!” Unfazed, Roddie replied. “You can shoot me, but you will have to kill all of us, because we know who you are, and when we win this war, you will stand trial for war crimes, and you will pay.” Major Siegmann turned white and started to shake. He lowered his gun and stormed off. Roddie’s bravery saved more than 200 Jewish lives that day.
Lester Tannenbaum was standing directly next to Roddie and vividly remembered the entire ordeal. “When the officer put his gun in Roddie’s face, time seemed to freeze,” he said. “I was amazed how calm he was. He had probably never even seen a Jew until he joined the army. He could no more have turned over any of his men to the Nazis than he could have stopped breathing. He just couldn’t do it.”
Towards the end of the war, with the allied forces converging, the Nazis started to evacuate the camp and march the prisoners deeper into Germany.
Once again, Roddie Edmonds’ courage was responsible for saving the lives of his men. He told his men that when the march begins everyone should break rank, eat grass, or otherwise make themselves sick, and run back to the barracks, those who were not ill assisting those who were. Incredibly, it worked!
Though the Germans threatened them and roughed them up, Roddie and his men stayed the course all day. Finally, as the sun was setting, the commandant threw his hands in the air and said to Roddie, “OK, you win. We give up. You can have the camp. We’re leaving.”
The Germans marched out, leaving the Americans alone in the empty camp. Lester said, “It was one of the greatest escapes in WWII and we never left the camp! We kicked the Nazis out.”
The Talmud tells us that one who saves a life is considered to have saved the entire world. What is it considered then, for someone who saved so many?
On the 10th of February, 2015, Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds was posthumously awarded the prestigious ‘Righteous Amongst the Nations’ award from Yad Vashem, becoming the first American serviceman to receive the award.
Heroism is a matter of choice. A hero is really any person intent on making this world a better place for all people. It doesn’t take any special abilities to be the hero we dreamed of as kids. Just making one right choice at a time.
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