NEWS

Holocaust survivor thanks WWII heroes at their final reunion

Jessica Bliss
jbliss@tennessean.com
World War II veteran Jack Kraus places his hat over his heart as “Taps” is played in honor of the 30th Infantry Association members who passed away since their reunion last year.

Most of them are gone now.

The men who overtook the train heaving with Holocaust victims destined for death. The men who saved more than 2,500 Jewish concentration camp survivors from execution.

The men, fathers and sons, who fought in a global war 70 years ago.

So many have passed.

Those who do remain — those hailed as veterans of the 30th Infantry — are here in Nashville this week for their final reunion.

They held their first reunion here, in 1947, to much fanfare.

Two thousand soldiers strong, they packed the Andrew Jackson Hotel, organized a fish fry near the Hermitage grounds, held an old-fashioned Southern barbecue in Centennial Park and partied until the sun rose with a grand ball at Nashville Hippodrome.

This time around, their numbers are fewer and the pace is slower. Only around 70 infantry men, their widows, children or friends, have made the trip to Music City. Many move around with canes and walkers.

Their war-worn bodies are weary, but their memories remain strong.

A poster highlights “One Last Salute” for the WWII 30th Infantry at its last reunion, which took place in Nashville this week.

When they gather, as they have in different cities every year since 1947, they talk about the close calls they had, and they honor the men left behind. They share stories of who they have become.

In the war, these men were friends because they were dedicated to saving each other's lives.

Over the years, they have grown up to become family.

"It's the camaraderie, the friendship, that we really didn't have time to enjoy during the war," says Frank Towers, a tall man with wisps of white hair who at 97 is the oldest surviving member of the 30th Infantry and one of the reunion's organizers.

It was an infantry, he says, originally comprised of national guardsmen from Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Georgia. Activated in 1940, they trained for four years at various military bases, coming to Middle Tennessee on maneuvers because the hilly terrain was similar to what they would face in Europe.

They departed for foreign duty on Feb. 12, 1944 and entered combat on June 10, just days after D-Day. It was the first infantry division to enter Belgium and The Netherlands. It was instrumental in breaching the Siegfried Line in October 1944, and in the capture of Aachen, Germany, the first large German city taken by the Allies in World War II.

Among them, the 30th Infantry boasted six Medal of Honor winners.

A staff sergeant who voluntarily attacked an enemy strong point in Belgium while his company was pinned down by heavy semi-automatic fire. An automatic rifleman who knocked out a German tank with a bazooka and launched grenades at another. A gravely wounded company leader who advanced on his belly alone to distract the enemy.

And there were the men who discovered a train filled with thousands of concentration camp captives en route to execution. The men who freed these victims and gave them a life.

A laminated copy of “30th Division News” shows the itinerary for the WWII 30th Infantry’s first reunion in Nashville in 1947.

Elisabeth Seaman remembers the day in detached snippets. She was 6 at the time of liberation, a survivor from the train uncovered by the 30th Infantry.

She recalls being jammed in a passenger car with people miserable and sick. She remembers the train stopping, a blown-out bridge in its path, and she recalls stepping out into a beautiful spring day surrounded by a field filled with wildflowers.

It was so different from the labor camp barracks where she had lived making toy figures from the tar that dripped off the ceiling and watching as prisoners, including her father, died from overwork and malnutrition.

When the Americans came, she says, there were three soldiers and two tanks — with an entire infantry in support.

Seaman is one of three from the train at this, the final infantry reunion. The 76-year-old — a mother of four and a professional mediator — came from California with one express purpose: To thank them.

"I'm just so grateful," she says. "If it hadn't been for them I probably wouldn't be here."

That thank you reaches fewer ears than it once did. It's sad to read the list and hear the taps for all those who have died — a tradition carried out at every reunion.

It's hard also, to continue to coordinate the group gathering each year.

Nancy Pitts, a life-long Nashvillian whose father and brother fought for the 30th, organized this reunion — here in the very city where as a girl of just 22 she attended the first one.

"The first one was quite special," she says.

As will be the last.

"It makes us feel good to be here together," Towers says, "even though we know this is the last time.

"It's symbolic to have the last one here."

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 and on Twitter @jlbliss.


World War II veteran Dick Lacey, left, the current president of the 30th Infantry Division Association, greets the attendees of their reunion on Friday. Standing with him is World War II veteran Frank Towers, the organization's secretary treasurer.

About the 30th

•The 30th Infantry Division was created from National Guard units in Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

•The division was named "Old Hickory" after President Andrew Jackson.

•The division landed at Normandy in the days after D-Day and fought across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and into Germany.

•It was instrumental in breaching the Siegfried Line in October 1944 and the capture of Aachen, the first large German city taken by the Allies.

•Units of the division freed approximately 2,500 Jewish death camp survivors who were packed onto a train. The train's crew had orders to drive the train off a demolished bridge, ensuring everyone's death.

•The division was involved in the Battle of the Bulge.

•Gen. Eisenhower's chief historian, Col. S.L.A. Marshall, designated the 30th as the No. 1 Infantry Division in the European Theater.

•Its first reunion was in 1947 in Nashville; its last is taking place now in Nashville.

•The "Old Hickorymen" created the Maastricht Old Hickory Fund that supports education of high school students in Maastricht in the Netherlands and supports field trips for students to visit the Netherlands-American Cemetery in Margraten. That cemetery has 8,304 American graves, of which 329 are from the 30th Infantry Division.