ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: How did a Yom Kippur service in 1944, led by Rabbi Eichhorn, help U.S. military intelligence?
Mark S. Zaid is an American attorney, based in Washington, D.C., with a practice generally focused on human rights issues.* His grandfather, Rabbi David Max Eichhorn, was the first Jewish chaplain in the history of the U.S. Army to go into the XV Corps, where his job was to serve units that had no Jewish chaplains. Eichhorn traveled to Europe aboard the Queen Mary with nine other American rabbis in June 1944 and served in combat units in France and Germany. He was among the troops that liberated Dachau and presided at the first Sabbath service at the liberated camp. During his military service, Rabbi Eichhorn wrote numerous letters home to his family and also to the National Jewish Welfare Board.
In 2004 his grandson Mark Zaid, together with Greg Palmer, edited and published these letters in a book: The GI’s Rabbi: World War II Letters of David Max Eichhorn. The letters show us a devoutly religious man trying to cope with the perils of combat and the needs of his fellow soldiers. They are filled with amazing stories and poignant insights as Eichhorn tells about combat experiences, relations with Christian chaplains, encounters with Jewish refugees, and impressions of the defeated Germans.
In 2019 Zaid donated the Max Eichhorn papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on behalf of the family of Rabbi David Max Eichhorn. You can consult the collection and watch a video of the Dachau service here.
*You can listen to two recent programs in which Mark Zaid tells us about his work here and here.
