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DON P. CASSA
U.S. ARMY
Rank: Private First Class
Tour of Duty: Europe
Years Served: 1944-1946
These Jewish children are on
their way to Palestine allei
baying been zelease,d train the
Buchenwald Concentration
Camp. June 5, 1945
Biography: A Private First Class in the U.S. Army from 1944 to
1946. Don P. Cassa fought in World War II, receiving many
awards along the way including a Combat Infantrymans
Badge and two tattle stars: Rhineland and Central Europe.
Doris outfit, the 261st Regiment. 65th Infantry Division,
held the distinction of being the farthest advanced allied unit
in Europe and the last to cease-fire on May 8th. 1945. when
the soldiers met the Russian troops. His unit was responsible
or liberating Buchenwald and Mulhausen concentration cw fps in Germany
and Austria.
Don lives in Southfield, Michigan, with his wife Bahija and has five children:
Michael, Donna, Darryl, Kenneth and Claudia.
This is Don Cassa's profile page in A Chaldean American U.S. Armed Forces
Tribute, a book that was produced locally by Jonn Shamoun for the
Chaldean American Ladies of Charity.
,id
Don Cassa stands in front of a Nazi Germany prisoner
uniform on exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center
in Farmington Hills.
Germany, April 1945: A survivor shows
Generals Patton, Bradley and Eisenhower
how inmates at Ohrdruf were tortured.
A Liberator Remembers from page 6
He made his first Jewish friend in
the infirmary. Joey Epstein was a
14-year-old boy from Baghdad also
refused entry for the same eye ailment.
"He was my buddy," Cassa recalled."He
was a dear friend of mine'
Going Back
After 14 months on Ellis Island, Cassa's
parents decided he should return to
Iraq and stay with family until he
could try to enter again. Epstein trav-
eled back with him.
"On the way back, we boarded a
ship in Naples, Italy," Cassa said. "Joey
became very friendly with the other
passengers. I asked him who they were
and he said they are Jews running
away from Germany."
Heading east, their next port was
Haifa, which was controlled by the
British, who stopped their ship twice. It
was the spring of 1938.
Cassa says he and Epstein were
allowed to disembark in Haifa to
head to Iraq, but the German Jews
were kept onboard and sent back out
to sea. Later, Cassa would learn what
happened to many of the Jews who
couldn't escape Europe.
In Iraq, the two boys lived near each
other in Baghdad and visited often.
"I knew the Jewish people were not
liked because they were very success-
ful, united and top students at the
school:' he said. "But I knew also that
religion had a lot to do with it:'
He knew Chaldeans were looked
down on by many Muslims for similar
reasons.
"We didn't differentiate at the time
between Jews and Chaldeans," he said.
"There was no prejudice between the
two.
"One day, I went to Joey's house to
see him," Cassa recalled, "but there was
no one there. The neighbors said some
people just came and took them. I was
heartbroken for months. There was no
trace of him. It was one of the biggest
losses in my life."
America Bound
In February of 1940, now 16, Cassa
again left for the United States, this
time alone. Arriving at Ellis Island in
late May, he made his way to Detroit,
where he worked in the family store on
Trumbell Avenue.
When he turned 18, he wanted to
enlist in the U.S. Army, but his father
needed him in the store so he got a
two-year hardship deferment. It ran
out in 1944; 10 days later, he was in the
Army.
Cassa went to Camp Robinson in
Arkansas for basic training; there, he
became a naturalized American citi-
zen and changed his name to Donald.
Sent to Camp Shelby in Mississippi,
he became part of the 65th Infantry
Division, 261st Infantry Regiment, 2nd
Battalion, G Company.
"Soon after the Battle of the Bulge,
they rushed us to Europe,' he said.
"We saw the war in the Atlantic as we
headed over:"
He arrived in LaHarve, France, in
January 1945.
"Out of my whole regiment there
were roughly 25 Jewish boys; and in
my squad of 12, there were two —
Herman Morris and Sol Gold',' he
recalled smiling. "We called Herman
`the comedian because he was so
funny"
1 The Mjeve
The 65th moved east through France
before heading north into Germany
and then south into Austria. There
were some hard-fought battles along
the way; but the German resistance
was crumbling as the war in Europe
was coming to an end.
The Division helped liberate the
Ohrdruf camp, the first Nazi Germany
camp liberated by U.S. troops. A sub-
camp of the Buchenwald concentra-
tion camp, most of the inmates had
been forced out on a death march;
but the camp was strewn with bod-
ies. Some of the scenes Cassa saw at
the Holocaust Memorial Center in
Farmington Hills were of Generals
Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton
and Omar Bradley visiting Ohrdruf on
April 12, 1945, eight days after libera-
tion.
Cassa arrived there days later.
"There were bodies all over the
place,' he said. "It was terrible!'
Less than two weeks later, while
advancing through Bavaria, the
65th overran Hersbruck, a subcamp
of the Flossenburg concentration
camp. In early May, they liberated the
Mauthausen concentration camp in
Austria.
Liberation Recalled
But Cassa best remembers the lib-
eration of two smaller subcamps of
Mauthausen, Passau and Ennes, where
he helped open the gates and found
survivors.
"When we opened the gate to Ennes,
people were just trying to grab us,"
he said. "They yelled, `God bless you,
America!'
"I remember an old gentleman ask-
ing an American soldier 'essen, essen'
[food, food] and the soldier gave him a
chocolate bar. The gentleman put it in
his pocket. The solder said for him to
eat it, but the man replied, 'I'm going to
keep it for a while and reminisce:"
He later found the same man, who
had been a professor, filling a mess kit
with water and mixing in grass.
"I asked what kind of lunch he was
making and he said, `Grass soup: You
don't forget things like that',' Cassa said.
At Passau, Cassa came across a
detention home for women.
"There was a big steel door, at
least 12 feet high:' he said. "When we
opened it, a young woman came out
saying, 'American, American, and I
hugged her and gave chocolate to her
and the others:'
Twenty-two years later, in Detroit, he
thinks he met the girl again.
"I had just bought a store in
Southwest Detroit on Delray:' he said.
"There were Hungarians, Romanians
and Gypsies living in the neighbor-
hood. Another shop owner told me a
Jewish lady often came into their store
and asked for help to find a particular
American soldier:'
Days later, Cassa met her.
"I asked her where she had been
detained, and she said,`Passau: I asked
her if the doors were very big and she
said yes. I asked her if she had hugged
the soldier. She said yes, and that he
was my height and he had given her
chocolate. It was amazing. She said she
had been 12 years old:'
Career Work
After the war, Cassa returned to Detroit
and the grocery business. He ran a
number of stores —Champion Super
Market on Mack Avenue in Detroit, the
Silver Star Market in Warren among
them — before going into wholesale
and becoming a supplier to others.
He and his wife, Bahija, have five
children: Michael, Donna, Darryl,
Kenneth and Claudia. All of them have
become professionals.
"I vowed and kept my word that
none of my children would be involved
in that [grocery] business:' he said
with pride.
Walking through the Holocaust
Memorial Center, he spoke about
his respect for the Jewish people he
has known, from his pal Joey at Ellis
Island, to his fellow soldiers and to
those he knew from his years in busi-
ness.
Looking at the display on the libera-
tion of the camps, he stopped and said,
"That's wrong that God's people are
persecuted. You are a testament to what
happened. Show this to the doubters.
This is proof?" FM:
May 2011
CHALDEAN NEWS I JEWISH NEWS 7