Michael Geheran is author of Comrades Betrayed: Jewish World War I Veterans under Hitler. He is Assistant Professor of History and Deputy Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

At the end of 1941, six weeks after the mass deportations of Jews from Nazi Germany had begun, Gestapo offices across the Reich received an urgent telex from Adolf Eichmann, decreeing that all war-wounded and decorated Jewish veterans of World War I be exempted from upcoming "evacuations." Why this was so, and how Jewish veterans at least initially were able to avoid the fate of ordinary Jews under the Nazis, is the subject of Comrades Betrayed.

Michael Geheran deftly illuminates how the same values that compelled Jewish soldiers to demonstrate bravery in the front lines in World War I made it impossible for them to accept passively, let alone comprehend, persecution under Hitler. After all, they upheld the ideal of the German fighting man, embraced the fatherland, and cherished the bonds that had developed in military service. Through their diaries and private letters, as well as interviews with eyewitnesses and surviving family members and records from the police, Gestapo, and military, Michael Geheran presents a major challenge to the prevailing view that Jewish veterans were left isolated, neighborless, and having suffered a social death by 1938.

Tracing the path from the trenches of the Great War to the extermination camps of the Third Reich, Geheran exposes a painful dichotomy: while many Jewish former combatants believed that Germany would never betray them, the Holocaust was nonetheless a horrific reality. In chronicling Jewish veterans' appeal to older, traditional notions of comradeship and national belonging, Comrades Betrayed forces reflection on how this group made use of scant opportunities to defy Nazi persecution and, for some, to evade becoming victims of the Final Solution.

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Host: Robert Jacobs, Jewish War Veterans of the USA, Vietnam Veterans Committee
Moderator: Sheldon Goldberg, Ph.D., USAF (Ret.), National Museum of American Jewish Military History

Panelists:
1. Michael Corbett
USMC
In Nam 1965-1966
3rd Bn 4th Marine Regt HQ Co & 3rd platoon
Infantry machine gunner

2. Joseph Goldstein
USN
Oct 1966-May 1967; Sept 1967-May 1968
USS Coral Sea & USS Ranger in Gulf of Tonkin
F-4 Radar Intercept Officer; flew over North Vietnam on 106 fighter combat air patrol & bombing missions

3. Stan Goldstein
USAF
March 1968-December 1968 Korat AFB Thailand
Flew 100 missions over North Vietnam

4. Dick Kurtz
US Army
1966-1967 1st Infantry Division; Forward Observer in infantry rifle company, Artillery Officer in infantry battalion
1970-1971 Staff Officer 101st Airborne Division, S-3 Operations Officer for Duster Battalions on DMZ fire bases

5. Jacob (Jack) Romo
US Army Medical Officer
1966-1967- 25th Division Social Work Officer in Cu Chi; Mental Hygiene Clinic; 93rd Evac Hospital Psychiatric Augmentation Detachment

What were the experiences of the Vietnam War like for Jewish veterans? Did being Jewish matter or not? Our panel of veterans discuss their experiences, what it was like serving in an unpopular war and how their identity as American Jews impacted (or didn't) their time in the military.

Panelists:
1. Jerry Alperstein
USN
1967 USS Charles R. Ware DD865 (destroyer) Yankee Station part of Task Force 77 20-25 miles off the coast; Operation Sea Dragon operating one-to-five miles off the coast of North Vietnam
Communications

2. David Brog
USAF
1968 flew out of Korat AFB Thailand
Tech intelligence on Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs), flew Wild Weasel missions against SAMs & developed tactics and techniques against SAMs

3. Allen Falk
USMC
1969-1970 1st Marine Corp Division in I Corps
Staff Legal Officer

4. Sheldon Goldberg
USAF
1968-1969 Ubon Thailand
F-4D Weapons Systems Officer; flew 214 combat missions (211 over Laos & 3 over North Vietnam)

5. Robert (Bob) Jacobs
U.S. Army
1969-1970
1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) HQ in Phuoc Vinh III Corps northwest of Saigon ; 3rd Brigade HQ in Quan Loi to help run Taskforce Shoemaker (spring 1970 Cambodia incursion)
Infantry on arrival in RVN; retrained as personnel clerk; became Head Clerk of HHC 1st Cav Div