Posted by Nina Willner grew up here in the United States, hearing her father Eddie’s stories about the horrors he endured as a German-Jewish boy in several Nazi concentration camps. But Eddie also told her about the members of America’s 3rd Armored Division, Company D, who saved him, gave him his life back, and modeled for him the best of American ideals.
Though that part of the story might have ended in 1945, its major figures managed to reconnect 60 years later for a heartwarming reunion that Nina was thrilled to take part in. She has now shared the full story of Eddie and the men of Company D in the new book “The Boys in the Light: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood,” and we discussed it recently on “Christopher Closeup” (podcast below).
Until Hitler rose to power, Eddie Willner’s childhood was idyllic. Raised in the city of Mönchengladbach, Eddie’s father, Siegfried, was a decorated World War I veteran who had fought for Germany, while his mother, Auguste, was a pianist. Eddie attended public school, where he was well-liked, partially because he was “the class clown.”
“Christians and Jews lived together in the community,” explained Nina, “…and by and large, there were no major problems within the community, as Jews attested to during that time…[The Willners] lived on the second floor of an apartment building. Their best friends were on the floor below, a Catholic family, Fritz and his family, and they enjoyed a very assimilated life.”
Fritz and the Willners were so close that Siegried would dress up as St. Nicholas for Fritz’s children every December, while Fritz would dress up as the Hanukkah Man for Eddie.
As Hitler’s propaganda machine kept grinding out more and more hateful messages about the Jewish people, blaming them for all of Germany’s ills, Mönchengladbach’s residents found their minds warped. They turned against their Jewish friends and neighbors, wanting nothing to do with them as they were banned from stores, evicted from their homes, and eventually shipped off to concentration camps.
Thankfully, the Willners had one reliable friend. Nina noted, “The one thing that my father, who was 12 at the time, and his Jewish family counted on and hoped when everyone was turning their back, was [that] Fritz and his family…would never betray them…When [the Willners] went on the run to France to try to stay one step ahead of the Nazis…they ran some of their most precious belongings over to Fritz. That was already breaking the law, and Fritz could have been rounded up with Jews for doing this. But he allowed them to come into his apartment, and my father and grandfather and mother handed over their most precious belongings, which included the family silver menorah, my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s prayer books, and a few family photos. [They] basically dropped them in Fritz’s lap and said, ‘Hold onto these things. We’ll come back to get these things when this is over.’…I don’t want to give too much away, but what I will say is when the one person in the story who came back alive came back…Fritz had kept those things through the war and was able to give them back.”
In the United States following the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, many young men signed up to enlist in the military. Two of them – Elmer Hovland from Kenneth, Minnesota, and Sammy DeCola (nicknamed “Pepsi” because of his last name) from Waltham, Massachusetts – came to be major figures in Eddie’s story.”
Lieutenant Elmer Hovland was a young first generation American from a Norwegian family who came to the US in the 1890s from Auckland, Norway, settled on the remote plains of Minnesota and [became] farmers,” Nina said. “A very devout young man from a Christian family, he became a platoon tank leader. [He] did not have a college degree, but he was surprisingly picked up as an officer. [He] didn’t want to be an officer…so they made him an armor officer, tank officer, and a leader of men…Sammy DeCola, from outside of Boston, his family – immigrants from Civitaquana, Italy – owned one of those American barrel roof diners. His father was a diner owner and a cook…Sammy’s family was very vivacious and emotional…and he became a cook in the military.”
Nina describes Sammy as a “character” and “the heartbeat of the company” because his outgoing personality could lighten the mood, especially after his fellow soldiers may have “seen their buddies die on the battlefield.”
Elmer, meanwhile, was a man of few words, but his wisdom and strength of character inspired an unparalleled level of trust and devotion from his men. Nina reflected, “[Elmer] was brought up in a family where they were taught to consider the group as more important than the individual alone, and he took that to heart…So when he was given this job that he didn’t want, he rose to the occasion, being that guy who had humanity in the core of who he was. I think people responded to that, no matter where they came from. And you have to remember, these are guys from all parts of America, from all faiths, from all backgrounds, immigrants and boys who had been in the United States for generations. [Elmer] was able to, with that humility and that leadership that he had unifying people, he was able to pull a group together. But I think…humility was at the core of everything he did.”
Elmer’s humility stemmed in part from his Christian faith, which “permeated everything that he did, every decision that he made. It was like this steel cable that bound the unit together and united soldiers from all religions.” He read his Army-issued catechism so much that it became dog-eared.
Not only was Elmer’s faith an inspiration to his men, it served as a counterpoint to the distorted view of Christianity that Hitler promoted. At one point, the Nazis even rewrote the lyrics to the Christmas hymn “Silent Night,” removing the reference to Jesus as Savior to pay homage to Hitler instead.
“You have this moment,” Nina recalled, “in Hitler’s rise to power, and he’s appropriating the Christian religion to be something where he…came out and said, ‘It’s your Christian duty to follow me and do what I tell you to do.’ And then on the flip side, you have Elmer, who really epitomizes the teachings of what a good Christian should be doing.”
As the Americans made their way towards Germany following D-Day, life for the Willners had already taken a tragic turn when Eddie’s mother was murdered in a gas chamber. Siegfried and Eddie managed to survive in several concentration camps for years and even welcomed a Dutch-Jewish boy named Mike Swaab into their small circle. Eddie and Mike became like brothers, which helped them both get through the tragedy of Siegfried’s eventual death.
Eddie’s survival was almost miraculous considering that he was starved, physically beaten, and even shot in the head once. When the Allies started bombing the camp Eddie and Mike were working in, they were thrilled, even though it meant they might get killed as collateral damage. They lived, however, and even managed to get away from the Nazis during a chaotic evacuation from approaching American forces.
That’s when Company D came across Eddie and Mike standing on a road pleading for help. Elmer, Sammy, and the others were shocked at the teens’ emaciated condition and realized they were in danger of dying. Elmer decided that the boys would stay with Company D for the remainder of the war so they could nurse them back to health, both physically and mentally. Sammy learned how much food they could tolerate without throwing it up and slowly built up their strength again.
Though the Americans had saved Eddie and Mike, the men of Company D also benefited from the rescue. After hearing the boys reveal what they had endured, it put the Americans’ own struggles and losses into perspective.
When the war ended months later and Company D was sent home, they would have loved to take Eddie and Mike with them, but that was not allowed. The two boys returned to their respective homes, but had no family left to live with (though Fritz had thankfully held onto all the Willner’s possessions). They soon decided that the United States was the place they wanted to live, so they filed the paperwork to immigrate there.
Nina explained, “[Eddie] had spent five years in internment in concentration camps…You can imagine people coming out of that thinking the world is not a good place. And then when they ran into Company D and the kindness that they showed them…my father and Mike…hoped that one day they could get to America and…pay back the goodness and the kindness and the humanity that was given to them.”
Both Eddie and Mike wound up moving to the U.S. and serving in the military. Though they would have loved to reconnect with Company D, they only had their imperfect memories to rely on and couldn’t confirm the full names of their rescuers. Meanwhile, Elmer, Sammy, and the rest had started having annual reunions, where they always wondered what happened to the two boys whose lives they saved.
“Finally, after 60 years, they found each other,” recalled Nina, who took part in the reunion. “I’ll leave you to find out how they found each other, which is kind of a cool story. But also, once they came together, it was epic because they never thought they’d find each other again. My father was, I think, 73. These men were in their 80s, and many of them had stopped coming to these reunions. But they got into their cars and made it cross-country, and this was the last reunion for many of them, and it was incredibly emotional. They were all happy to see each other again.”
Nina treasures the relationships that she herself was able to build with Elmer and Sammy, especially now that they have both passed away, as have Eddie and Mike. Her life is richer for having known them, and readers’ lives will also be enriched by their story. “The Boys in the Light” is about the Holocaust, so obviously there is tragedy and death and darkness. But as you read the final few chapters, you should find your spirit uplifted because this book is really about the best of America, about the better angels of our nature, and about patriotism, faith, and common decency.
(To listen to the full interview with Nina Willner, click on the podcast link):
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