Surviving the Reich

by Ivan L. Goldstein

  In 1996, the Cercle d’Histoire de Bastogne (Bastogne Historical Society) decided to solve this mystery. A historian from the organization, Roger Marquet, placed a letter in the Bulge Bugle, the official newsletter of veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. He was seeking information regarding the crew of this now-famous tank. His chances of finding the crew were pretty slim, though his research had already revealed some information. In his letter, he spelled out his theory that, judging from its location, the tank had to belong to the 11th Armored Division. According to a witness, it had been hit and taken out of action at Millomont Pond on December 30, 1944. The crew all got out of the fiery tank, but it was unknown what happened to them after that. Did anyone from this crew survive, and if so, were any of them alive in 1996, fifty-two years later?

  I was seventy-two years old by then. June and I had moved to Jerusalem permanently, and I had no interest in reading the Bugle. But during a visit to Denver in the summer of 1997—a year after Marquet wrote his letter—my cousin Howard Greinetz asked me if I remembered the date that I was captured by the Germans.

  The letter Roger Marquet placed in the Bulge Bugle seeking to find the crew of the unknown tank.

  “December 30, 1944. Why do you ask?”

  “Look at this, Ivan,” he said, leaning forward with a copy of the Bulge Bugle. I read Marquet’s letter half-heartedly.

  “So?”

  “So it sounds like your tank!”

  “Howard, there were thousands of Shermans in Europe. What are the chances?”

  “Ivan, it’s become an international landmark! Don’t you want to call the historian?”

  “Not especially. Who wants to relive all that?”

  But I took the paper with me and said I would call the phone number when I returned to Jerusalem. I took it home and promptly forgot about it.

  A couple of months later, June reminded me about the ad and insisted that I call. I phoned that evening and listened to a recorded voice in French. I didn’t understand it, but I figured I’d leave my message anyway: “My name is Ivan Goldstein. I live in Jerusalem, Israel. I read your letter in the Bulge Bugle. I believe I am a member of the crew that you are looking for.”

  Later that evening, the phone rang, and the excited caller said in English, “I am Roger Marquet.” He asked questions, and I answered for about forty minutes. From my responses, he said that it sounded like the tank in Bastogne indeed was the Barracuda. He said that I would hear from him again shortly.

  Within a week, Roger called and asked me if I would come to Bastogne for a special ceremony and dedication of the tank. My answer was a firm no. I had no intention of returning to Belgium, Germany, or any part of Europe. He asked me to reconsider my decision, adding that it would be a very thrilling and prestigious celebration. What’s more, he said, he believed that I was the only living survivor of the crew.

  I stood fast. But a groundswell of pressure arose from my family. My children and grandchildren, my cousins, even my friends, all told me that it would be the experience of a lifetime. Of that, I was sure, and I wasn’t at all anxious to have it.

  My twelve-year-old grandson made the breakthrough. David’s fourth child, Natan, frequently came to our home. He was sincerely interested in hearing about the war and was fascinated by the discovery of my tank. He kept telling me, “Zaidy, you and Bubbie should really plan to go back for the celebration. You really should.” And he wouldn’t give up. He kept asking me, respectfully, but with his strong Goldstein persistence.

  Natan’s Bar Mitzvah was coming up. I gave in and told him that for his Bar Mitzvah present we would take him to Belgium for the event, but, unfortunately, he would have to miss a week of school. He was elated, and missing school was an added bonus. I called Roger and told him our decision, requesting that they not plan the program until after our Passover in April. Well advertised on television, radio, and in newspapers, the program was planned as a three-day gala celebration, beginning on May 8, 1998, the week of V-E Day celebrations.

  On the morning of May 8, Natan, June, and I arrived by train in Bastogne from Brussels. The lush green countryside was a shocking contrast to my first arrival there fifty-four years earlier. The enduring image in my mind was one of ice and snow, bare trees bending to blasts of arctic winds. Nazi gunfire was our blistering welcome.

  But now it was a beautiful, sunny day. We were greeted warmly and taken to our hotel, bordering McAuliffe Square. The three of us walked to the tank. I have to admit that I approached it with some trepidation, almost hoping that this wasn’t the Barracuda. But I knew the instant I saw it. For the first time, I saw the two gaping holes made by the shells that had finished off my tank. I pictured myself deep in fierce concentration, firing the bow gun for hours as Andy maneuvered us round and round enemy tanks. I could envision us battling through village after village. And I remembered the last time I saw the Barracuda, a fiery mass, as I was being led away into captivity.

  Now the tank sat motionless on her platform in the public square, seemingly frozen in time. She had been repainted, and her guns pointed abstractly into the past. The smoke of battle, the cries of the wounded; the entire bloody scenario etched into my memory was long gone. There were only children playing and tourists sipping Cokes as they looked up at it in admiration. People walked around us, glancing benignly at me, likely wondering why the eyes of the elderly gent were moist.

  As I showed the tank to June and Natan, it was hard to believe that it was really the Barracuda.

  Three historians, Roger Marquet, Jacques Degive, and Robert Fergloute, met us at the tank and took us to the Maison Mathelin War Museum. After the visit, I retold the story of December 30 and how the tank was knocked out of commission by enemy fire, and details of my interrogation in the German headquarters near the tank. After reviewing my testimony, the three historians tried to establish, without doubt, that the tank on the square was the Barracuda, for when the tank was repainted, the name was covered. Jacques Degive was more skeptical than the other two; he seemed rather unconvinced that the tank in the square was mine. In telling my story, I mentioned the wooden box behind my seat that contained candy bars and chewing gum. In the next few days, this bit of information would become quite valuable.

  We were then taken to other World War II sites and monuments. A special luncheon followed, with many journalists, photographers, media people, and city officials. The next day, there was a brief ceremony at the tank. We then moved on to the town hall, where the mayor and his officials presented me with a medal and a gift. We were told to prepare ourselves for the parade the next day, May 10. I wasn’t sure how to prepare myself, for I had no idea what was coming.

  I soon found out. The town of Bastogne had prepared a hero’s welcome beyond my wildest dreams. There was a large procession of restored American army vehicles—jeeps, command cars, and trucks—with the drivers outfitted in World War II American uniforms. June, Natan, and I were in the lead jeep. (I’ve never seen my grandson’s face glow as it did that day.) The convoy retraced the Barracuda’s journey of December 30 over the hills and valleys and through the towns and villages where we had fought. Townspeople, schoolchildren, choirs, and bands gathered to meet our convoy as we rolled through. Businesses closed, and people lined the streets, waving flags and cheering. You would think that I had personally liberated Belgium!

  The Belgian Medal of Valor (front and back).

  The procession started at Jodenville and ended at Renuamont, passing through Morhet, Poisson-Moulin, Lavaselle, Brul, Houmont, and Sainte-Ode, where a special ceremony and program took place. It included most of the citizens, schoolchildren, and a band. In each town, the mayor and town officials greeted us. There were speeches, flowers, and fanfare wherever we went. It took the entire day.

  The most emotionally jarring stop was in Rechimont, at Mr. Oger Lhoas’s farm. This was where the German headquarters was located and I spent my first miserable night as a prisoner, expecting to be executed in the morning. Mr. Lhoas and many r
esidents, including Edouard Reisen, were waiting for us. Mr. Reisen was the only civilian witness to the destruction of the Barracuda. He knew for a fact that December 30 was the date of its destruction, as much of his family’s farm was demolished by shells on that day. A teenager at the time, he crouched behind his barn watching the battle and saw the Barracuda mired in the pond in the valley below. He saw two soldiers jump out of the burning tank (Urda and me). It was amazing to me that I met with Mr. Reisen at all. He had lived on the farm his entire life. Now seventy, he had recently sold it and was to move away that night. What a providential coincidence of timing, I thought. I had arrived just in time to meet and talk with him on his final day there.

  The Belgian Fiftieth Anniversary Medal for the Battle of the Bulge (front and back). The original ribbons were lost.

  As soon as the people heard him tell his version of my story, they crowded around, bombarding me with questions and more questions. Through an interpreter, I answered as many as I could. Then came the question that was to establish, once and for all, the identity of the tank as truly mine. The grandson of the farm’s owner said that as a boy, he used to play in the tank—and he asked me why there were so many gum and candy wrappers pasted inside its walls! I told him that I had stored a lot of candy, and when the tank was on fire the shells inside probably exploded, throwing the candy in all directions with such impact that the wrappers stayed stuck to the walls. That was enough proof for Monsieur Degive. (Later, serial numbers were checked and verified.) The historian was quite sure that no one could make up that detail. He beamed with delight.

  I had decided to stop fighting the memories, at least for today. I asked if I could see the barn where we were held as prisoners. They took me to a barn, and I looked around in puzzlement. This was not the place. I remembered it as very small and cramped. That night before my intended execution, I had studied every board of it, every knothole in the floor. I was then told that the barn had been enlarged, but it still didn’t fit in with my memories. Something was wrong and troubling; this was not the tiny hut I remembered. In fact, the answer to my dilemma would not emerge until two years later.

  The farmhouse, converted to German headquarters, where we were interrogated.

  We went to the farmhouse on the ridge where I had stood as a prisoner facing the German commander. I clearly recalled that you had to go up three or four steps to enter the building, and, in fact, they were right there. Why did I remember the steps? I must have been acutely aware of them at the time because my leg wound was in pain. Yet, everything else about it seemed so changed that I again said it wasn’t the same place. The historians looked dubiously from one to the other, until the owner recalled that they since had added on to the building and changed the windows.

  After leaving the farm, we walked to the pasture between Hubermont and Renuamont, to the spot where the Barracuda had been stopped. The Millomont Pond was now just a swampy green area, nearly dry, with wild grass growing everywhere. And there was no snow, no gunfire, no freezing wind. As I stood there, I closed my eyes, and the hazy screen blocking my memories lifted, revealing a time long gone. Fifty-four years slipped away in an instant; I had to fight back the tears. I saw myself—just a kid—springing out of the tank and running along the top, smelling the acrid fumes of gunpowder and burning oil, hearing the ping of bullets ricocheting off the tank beneath me. I shivered for a second, once again feeling the plunge into the dark, icy water and the pounding of my heart as I hoped, prayed, that the Germans would not find me.

  Then I opened my eyes and gazed up at the farmhouse where Andy and I had carried Wally Alexander. I did not have to recall. The experience was as alive to me as if it had just happened. My eyes and Mr. Reisen’s met for a few seconds, and it was plain to me that we were both reliving that moment.

  We plodded up the other side of the valley to his house, where we were able to visualize the German guns firing the crippling hit on the Barracuda. They certainly had an easy shot at us.

  In our last official event we were taken to the Peace Forest for a tree planting ceremony. A small plaque was installed at the base of each tree bearing the name of some GI who had participated in the liberation of Belgium. The “Star Spangled Banner” played in the background as my plaque was unveiled. To my surprise it did not say “Denver” or “U.S.A.” beneath my name and division, but “Israel.” I was very proud and happy.

  A tree-planting ceremony, with me at the left and Roger Marquet at the right.

  Traveling back to Houmont, the historians were in a festive mood. Their fifty-year-old mystery of the McAuliffe Square tank had been solved. But for me, memories I had long suppressed had risen sharply to the surface. At first, I felt saddened, sorry that all the pain I had so successfully buried throughout my life had been conjured. But on reflection, I felt that it had been good to evoke these memories once again, for only then could I truly appreciate and readdress my thankfulness to God for the many times during my captivity that He delivered me from harm. This occasion, indeed, was a time to remember.

  The plaque at the base of my tree.

  Every morning, in our prayers, Jews recite the Thirtieth Psalm. Written by King David, who was no stranger to mortal danger, the last part of the psalm reads, “To You, God, I would call. . . . What gain is there in my death, when I descend to the pit? . . . Hear [me] God, and favor me. Lord, be my helper! You have changed my lament into dancing. . . . You undid my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. So that my soul might sing to You and not be stilled, my God, forever will I thank You!” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  Over the three-day celebration, we became especially good friends with Roger, the historian who had brought us there. The gracious and overwhelming reception we received was hard to believe. As we were leaving Bastogne, our hosts asked Natan what the most impressive thing that he experienced during the three days was. His immediate response surprised me: “The respect and admiration the people showed my grandfather.” And he looked at me with a new light in his eyes. It was worth the trip.

  CHAPTER 15

  Belgium Revisited

  ODDLY ENOUGH, seeing the Barracuda again and reliving the emotions of that fateful day in 1944 fortified me in ways I could never have predicted. From the safe distance of a fifty-year separation, I was ready to cope with the memories, deal with the pain, and move on. In fact, I became curious about my old army buddies.

  Roger Marquet turned out to be an excellent resource. He had spoken to the families of several of the men I had known, and he surprised me with his revelations. Dage Hebert, whom I couldn’t find at all after I jumped from the tank, suffered leg wounds, was sent to a German army hospital, and had survived. But Ed Mattson—the lone survivor of the other tank, who had a serious wound in his hand—died as a prisoner of war. Most shocking of all was that Cecil Peterman was alive! On the day I was captured, I had seen him lying face down in the snow and watched in horror as they turned over his body and yanked the hunting knife off his belt. It turned out that he had not been dead, just badly wounded and unconscious. I didn’t see the Germans take him to their hospital. Like me, he wound up in Stalag XII A, and he lived to tell the tale.

  When I heard Peterman was alive, I called him on the phone, anxious to see him again. But he lived in Oklahoma, and he wasn’t well enough to travel. He told me that after the war, he had gone back to Bastogne and seen the tank in McAuliffe Square, but he had no idea it was the Barracuda. He told me that he and Wally Alexander had been taken to the same German army hospital. He knew, as I did, that Wally had died of his terrible wounds.

  I wondered about the others. Whatever happened to Ed Kessler, who had bravely spoken up for me when the German commander ordered, “Kill the Jew”? And Ed Lozano, who stuck with Kessler as his partner and had slipped out of Gerolstein on my train ticket? I knew that Lozano had survived, because he visited me at Fitzsimons hospital, but I had lost track of him. Were they still alive now?

  My trip to Belgium and the e
nsuing publicity about my tank proved to be the key to answering these questions. In 1998, the summer after my visit to Bastogne, June and I returned to Denver for our annual family visit. My children there told me that Tom Williams, a World War II historian from Wisconsin, had heard the story of the Barracuda and wanted to talk to me. I called him. We spoke for a while, and he later came to Denver to interview me.

  Tom’s particular expertise was in the 101st Airborne Division, known as the “Screaming Eagles,” the subject of many books and a movie. When I heard this, I asked him if he could find my fellow captives from the 101st—Lozano and Kessler. The next day, he called me back and told me that not only were they alive, but that he had their addresses and phone numbers.

  When I connected with Ed Kessler, he nearly fainted. He had been firmly convinced that Urda and I both perished in Stalag XII A before the liberation. When I told him, “This is your old friend, Ivan Goldstein,” he could barely answer. After he got over the initial shock, we had several long, satisfying talks. I learned that he had lied about his age in order to enlist. He was only seventeen at the time, and he had taken part in the 101st Airborne’s invasion of Normandy. Now that I knew that he was just seventeen years old at the time, his courage in the face of the German commander, endangering himself for my sake, was even more astounding. I remembered that even in “the Hellhole,” he had carried himself like a man and shown exemplary consideration for others.

  Kessler was living in Pittsburgh, and Lozano had moved from California to El Paso, Texas. During the next eight years, I spoke with each of them, but we were never able to meet face to face. When I called Ed Lozano in 2006, his wife told me that Ed was too sick to speak with me; Alzheimer’s disease had robbed him of his memory. In 2007, I tried to arrange a meeting with Ed Kessler, with my son, Dan, videotaping our discussion of our POW experiences. But it was not to be. Ed’s son called me back and said that the meeting would be detrimental to his father’s health: his troubled emotional baggage from the past could trigger a dangerous reaction.