In 1943, Eastern Air Lines ran an ad entitled “Going Home.” The ad featured a smiling soldier traveling on an airplane, and urged airline passengers to give up their seats on flights to make room for servicemen traveling home on furlough.
As the ad explained in part:
Going home, on a furlough for just 30 hours…
Going home, to a piece of mother’s apple pie… a heart-to-heart talk with Dad…
Going home, to sleep in his own bed… to take a long look at everything he cares about…
In 1940, a peacetime draft was instated for the first time in United States history. With the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the draft was amended, extending one’s service to the duration of the war plus six months. As call-up notices, first for physical exams and then for location assignments, were received, millions of young men found their plans in life upended.
Serving in the army meant being away from home even at times when family support was most needed. The KFHEC Archive has files of soldiers who desperately – and often unsuccessfully – tried to receive a furlough to visit a dying or ill parent. And despite the fact that they were preparing for active combat, their concern was frequently focused on those left at home.
In a letter to Mike Tress, president of the Agudath Israel Youth Council, Moses Meyer in Camp Lee, Virginia, cautioned, “I am writing this letter from the hospital… Please don’t tell anyone about it.”
And in a letter from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Private Morris Kaufman asked Mr. Tress, “Do you ever see my father? How does he look? Is he in good health and spirits? … I wish there was some way that I could assure [my mother] of my well-being. The only thing that worries me, and almost all soldiers, is their parents and sisters or wives welfare. If we could be sure of them, we would be more sure of ourselves.”
At no time was that sentiment felt stronger than during the holidays when one’s thoughts naturally turned to family and home.
Private Simon Klein in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, noted, “It is the first time that I am away from my folks’ [Pesach] Seder. I know it will be a little hard on me.” Aviation Cadet Wilfred Mandelbaum in Amarillo, Texas, for Rosh Hashanah, stated, “This is the first Yom Tov that didn’t feel like yom tov.”
Every soldier desperately wanted to receive a furlough home or at least a pass off grounds for the holidays. Moe Schultz in Fort Benning, Georgia, wrote that the Jewish GIs were “by hook and crook trying to get leave for Passover.” He elaborated, “Everybody uses different methods and tries to see different officials. It appears that very little, if any, will get leave.”
Moses Meyer did receive a furlough home and conveyed his sentiments by writing of his experience, “It was wonderful. Never was Williamsburg so beautiful as in this short few days.”
For those soldiers ineligible to receive an official furlough, but fortunate enough to receive a pass to travel off base, the Jewish families living nearby played a pivotal role in providing succor to the enlisted men and a home away from home.
Private Kaufman described a family named Silverton in Sioux Falls whose home “is truly reminiscent to the house of Abraham.” He added, “Mrs. Silverton loves very much to have Jewish boys in her home… She is one [of] the finest and sincerest characters I’ve ever met.”
Private Ernst Lichter in Atlantic City, New Jersey, described the impact that a prominent visitor provided. “Last Friday night and Saturday night, we had a really Jewish simcha. The Chortkover Rebbe from New York is here. We were there until 11:45pm. I can hardly describe [to] you how I felt to be present by an emes [genuine] Jewish atmosphere.”
After being transferred to Camp Adair, Oregon, Lichter described finding “a second home” when he spent Purim in the city of Portland with Rabbi and Rebbetzin Joseph Fain. The Rebbetzin referred to him as a “landsman from Brooklyn” and assured him that “any time the door is open for me.” Lichter concluded, “It is really good to find here in the wilderness a Jewish home.”
Often, however, the enlistees weren’t even allowed that. In 1942, Private Irving Pachtman in Miami Beach, Florida, related how Major General Walter Reed Weaver, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command, ordered that all Jewish members be placed off duty on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. However, a high-ranking official on the Miami Beach base interpreted it as applicable only for those stationed in the camp on a permanent basis. All others would have to remain on duty.
Pachtman ran to his chaplain – a Catholic – who said that since it was an official order, there was nothing he could do. Pachtman then contacted Rabbi Joseph Rackovsky, rabbi of the local Orthodox synagogue, who “spent almost a half-day Erev Rosh Hashanah trying to do something.”
Pachtman continued the narrative, writing, “After much trouble and agony, the order was finally reinterpreted to allow those boys who have completed their basic training to be free.” He noted, however, “There were many, many Jewish boys here who were compelled to go drilling and to do other kinds of manual labor” on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Seemingly, in fear of disciplinary action or retribution, Pachtman concluded his letter by switching to Yiddish to caution Mr. Tress not to transmit the details of the letter.
For those who couldn’t go off base, a personal parcel was priceless in its ability to convey a feeling of home. Sergeant Simon Maryles in Avon Park, Florida, thanked Mr. Tress for the Pesach package Agudath Israel had sent. He wrote, “I enjoyed these matzos more than any others I have ever eaten because when I was eating them I thought of my chaverim [friends] who were kind enough to remember me… Words can hardly express my gratitude to you and the chaverim for making this Pesach a happy one.”
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To clinch its argument, the aforementioned Eastern Air Lines advertisement concluded with the line:
Going home, maybe for the last time in a long while…
Maybe for the last time.
Eleven thousand American Jewish soldiers were killed in World War Two. Though they never made it home, their stories and legacies did. Indeed, in our hearts and minds, they are home.
