World

VETERANS DAY

Remembering A Hellish War

WWII veteran feels duty-bound to tell of his experiences.

Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News

C

ivil War Gen. William Tecumseh
Sherman was the first to say
"War is hell." Sam Klein of
Farmington Hills agrees with him.
Klein witnessed firsthand the stark
realization of the hell in war when a fellow
soldier on a stretcher was set down next
to him on a World War II battlefield in
France. The soldier asked Klein if he could
borrow his shoes. It sounded like a reason-
able request on a bitter cold winter day
— until Klein saw that both of the man's
legs had just been blown off.
When Klein later helped liberate
thousands of Jewish prisoners from an
Austrian concentration camp, he watched
one emaciated man quickly swallow a
bunch of bread — and then drop dead in
front of him.
With Veteran& Day drawing near on
Nov. 11 and the United States now dealing
with two more hellish wars, in Afghanistan
and Iraq, Klein, now 85, felt it was sort of a
sense of duty for him to tell about his expe-
riences in WWII. After all, veterans of that
conflict, in which about 400,000 Americans
were killed, now are dying at a rate of about
1,000-1,200 a day throughout the U.S.
In fact, Klein has given up hopes of
holding any more annual reunions of his
beloved U.S. Army Third Cavalry Regiment.
He has been instrumental in arranging
the reunions for the last 60 years in vari-
ous cities, but only 24 of his Third Cavalry
comrades attended the most recent one
in Detroit. "We had hundreds of vets there
in the late 1940s and '50s, but now we've
dwindled down to 24',' he said.

Seeing Combat
A graduate of Detroit Central High School's
Class of 1942, Klein was drafted into the
army at age 18 in 1943 and took his basic
training at Camp Gordon in Georgia.
"Between the Southerners who were
there, and the others from around the
country who never saw a Jew before, I expe-
rienced some anti-Semitism," he recalled,
"but nothing I couldn't overcome. I went to
radio school because my sergeant [alluding
to his Jewishness] said, A person like him
isn't good for anything else'."
Klein hit the beaches of Normandy,
France, a few months after D-Day (June
6, 1944), and got right into action. He

18

November 5 - 2009

Florian Round

CONCENTRATIO N
CAMP EBENSEE

Sulnamp ot Mauthausen

Klein's medals atop a book and photos of liberation at Ebensee, Austria

was wounded by a bullet in the leg, had
surgery and spent three weeks recuperat-
ing at a Paris hospital and in England. He
received a Purple Heart.
"The Battle of the Bulge began at the end
of the year" he said, "and everyone had to
get back into action so we were rushed to
that area to try to beat back the Germane
The Battle of the Bulge was the last big
offensive of the war by the Nazis, when
they made a desperate attempt to surge
through Luxembourg and the forested
regions of the Ardennes in Belgium and
make an incursion into the Allied lines,
thus creating the famous "bulge." The
terrible winter months of December and
January found American troops short on
ammunition, fuel and food. It was the
biggest, bloodiest battle of the war, killing
almost 20,000 Americans and wounding
47,000 more, including Klein.
"But Gen. George Patton's Third Army
rushed in to help us, the weather broke, we
got air support, and we drove the Germans
back:' Klein beamed. "I was part of a
reconnaissance squad and we sometimes
got the brunt of any enemy attack, but the
Third Cavalry never gave up in any fight.
I was hit in the hand by shrapnel and
returned to the field hospital area. One of
the medics shouted out, `Get the kosher
iodine; Klein is back!'"
After that battle, the Allies rolled along
with relative ease, entering Germany and
Austria. Klein's next adventure was at a
little-known concentration camp near the
village of Ebensee in upper Austria, one of
40 sub-camps of Mauthausen, where pris-

oners worked for the German
war industry.
More than 20,000 prison-
ers, mostly Jews, but including
local criminals, were stuffed
into Ebensee, which had been
built to hold 700-800. "As our
army advanced, the Germans
fled the camp, leaving the
inmates to walk out and just
wander around:' Klein said.
"They couldn't believe they
were free and didn't know
Sam Klein of Farmington Hills, who helped liberate
what to do. The stench was
a sub-camp of Mauthausen in Austria, speaks of his
terrible and disease was
service in World War II.
rampant. We took care of the
prisoners the best we could,
and three grandchildren. Cookie died five
but they died at a rate of 200-300 a day
years ago.
even after they were liberated on May 6
He worked about 40 years at Benz Glass
(V-E Day). I guess their systems couldn't
Co. in Detroit, a company founded by his
tolerate suddenly eating a lot of food.
wife's father, Joe Benz, in 1930. He was a
"Our commanders forced the local
company vice president and served on
mayor, council and townspeople to go to
the union negotiating committee for the
the camp and dig graves for the deceased.
Michigan Glazing Contractors Association.
They wanted the locals to see firsthand
He left Benz in 1991 to resume his CPA
what the Nazis did to the Jews;' he said.
work. He's a past member of the Jewish
Klein, by then a sergeant, returned to
War Veterans of the U.S.A. and served a
the U.S. to start training to be shipped to
stint as junior vice-commander of the
the Pacific for an invasion of Japan. "But,
Maurice Rose Post.
thank God, the war ended in August and I
With the nation preoccupied by the
was discharged:' he said.
current wars, Klein wants to make sure
younger generations know what he and
On The Homefront
his fellow soldiers went through during
Klein attended Wayne (State) University
World War II.
in Detroit and the Detroit Institute of
"As we all used to reminisce at the
Technology and became a certified public
reunions, we were the lucky ones;' he
accountant. Married in 1947 to Harriett
pointed out. "We came home. The real
"Cookie" Klein, they had two children
heroes are still over there." L I