World

Memories Never Fade

WWII vets recall the road to V-E Day.

Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News

I

t was 65 years ago this Saturday, May
8, that Nazi Germany surrendered
unconditionally to the allies to end the
European part of the Second World War.
The Nazi generals actually had sur-
rendered at a French schoolhouse the day
before, but President Karl Donitz, who
succeeded Adolf Hitler after Hitler corn-
mined suicide, formalised the surrender
in Germany on May 8, 1945 —on what
became known as Victory in Europe Day, or
V-E Day
Millions celebrated and President Harry S.
Truman, who turned 61 that day, dedicated
the victory to the memory of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died April
12. Thus, the European war that started in
1939, when Germany invaded Poland, was
over.
The Japanese would surrender in August,
ending World War II, a horrific conflict that
killed 60 million people worldwide.
America lost 405,000 men and women in
the war and 670,000 more were wounded.
But Bert Gladstone, now of Madison Heights,
and Harold Gross and Larry Paul of West
Bloomfield, were three of the lucky ones.
They escaped unscathed, despite their peril-
ous jobs in the military.
Proudly, but quietly, they recently
described their war exploits, unlike the
many veterans who, after 65 years, are still
reluctant to do so. Most of the WWII vets are
in their late 80s or early 90s and are dying at

Russian Vets Honor
WWII Victory Date

Lazar Selektor of the World War II

Veterans from the Former USSR

26

May 6 • 2010

Larry Paul, Bert Gladstone and Harold Gross with their pictures during their World

War II years.

the rate of about 1,000 a day.
Gladstone was in Germany on V-E Day,
having completed his dangerous task of
defusing unexploded bombs on the allied
path through Germany. Gross was getting
some "R&R — rest and recreation" at an Air
Force base in Santa Ana, Calif, after serving
as the belly turret gunner on a B-17 bomber
for two years. Paul was in Austria, serving as
a flight controller for U.S. combat missions
after finishing 67 of his own missions over
German targets as a dive-bomber pilot.
"Those of us who returned from the war
were pretty lucky,' reflected Gross, 88, a
Detroit Central High School Class of 1940
graduate. "Either you made it out of the war

T

he World War II Russian-
Jewish Veterans Association of
Metro Detroit, together with
the Michigan Association of Russian
Speaking Jewry in America (MARJA
Inc.) and in collaboration with Jewish
American World War II veterans, will
celebrate 65 years since the great victory
over Nazi Germany in World War II.
The official "65th Anniversary of the
Victory in WWII" medal ceremony and
commemoration will be held at 3 p.m.,
Saturday, May 8, on the campus of the
Jewish Community Center in Oak Park.
The once-large local WWII veterans'
community is getting older with its

all right or you didn't make it out at all:'

Russian Connection
Gladstone, also 88, is a transplanted New
Yorker who met Gross when they were
teenagers in the same AZA group. Not too
long after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in
1941, they went together to fight the war. But
Gladstone enlisted in the army and Gross
joined the air force.
Gladstone's first army stint was in the
Persian Gulf area as a member of a heavy
ordnance section, working on the U.S. supply
line to Russia during the battle for Stalingrad
in the early stages of the war.
"Big parts would arrive in crates and

youngest member at 85 and most around
90 or older.
"We feel this anniversary very well
may be the last for most of us," said
Anatoliy Granovsky, president, World War
II Veterans from the Former USSR.
A younger voice comes from Jenny
Feterovich, a local musician and busi-
nesswoman who says she understands
that very few who risked their lives in
World War II are left to testify to the
horrors of that war and the severe price
paid by all Jews throughout Europe,
including Russia, as a result of Nazi
Germany.
She is helping to spearhead the corn-

boxes and we would assemble them into
tanks, trucks and jeeps and ship them off
to Russia;' he said. "I like to think we helped
turn the tide in Russia's battle against the
Nazis.
'And we did it under extreme heat ... It's
easy to see why many in Iran could be crazy
with the heat. And we lived in mud-and-
straw barracks. Our only relief was when
we rigged up a jeep motor to create an air
conditioning system."
But things really heated up for Gladstone
when he joined the First Army's bomb dis-
posal unit — "we had no choice; they just
put us in there,' he laughs — helping to
defuse unexploded bombs and shells that
fell near the U.S. troops.
He adds, "I wish we would have had those
thick outfits [disposal experts have today]
while we dug out unexploded bombs that
were partially buried, then unscrewed the
various parts to make them harmless. I had
some close calls over a year, but I fortunately
was never injured, although some of my
buddies weren't as lucky'
Leading up to V-E Day, Gladstone worked
in the displaced person camps created after
prisoners were freed from German concen-
tration camps; "a very sad sight:' he says.
He returned to civilian life as a cloth-
ing salesman for K & G Suit Warehouse in
Detroit. His wife, Frances, died in 1982 after
37 years of marriage. He has three children,
five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Now A Gunner
Gross, also a 1940 Central High grad, had
officially been drafted into the army in

memoration.
"It is our intent to erect a memorial
monument [locally] commemorating
the 65th anniversary of the victory over
the Nazis, to celebrate those who fought
in that war and in memory of those who
lost their lives on the battlefields and
during the Holocaust:' she said.
To sign the online petition to support
the memorial, go to www.thepetitionsite.
com/l/detroit-association-of-jewish-vet-
erans-of-world-war-ii.
For further details, contact Dmitriy
Selektor, MARJA Inc. president, at (248)
496-4080 or via e-mail:marjainc@gmail.
corn. El

