Remembering Those Who Gave All

Great Memorial Day post, @Bing !

I’ve been totally immersed in my family genealogy research since the beginning of the year and I’m learning about my ancestral American veterans dating back four centuries. WWII, WWI, American Civil War (both sides), American Revolution (both sides—Patriots and Loyalists), French and Indian War, Queen Anne’s War (1702–13) and King Philip’s War (1675–78).

And, a solemn remembrance for the police and fire first responders who died on 9/11.

 

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Hello D Ray! good to C ya again friend!

 

Amazing photos, @GinoLR !

You may be right about your grandfather’s artillery uniform but I think he looks more like a grenadier.

I’ve always been fascinated with French military history ever since I toured the battlefields of France and Belgium many years ago.

I have a rather extensive collection of French military medals.
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/as...any-other-hobbies.290248/page-75#post-4299110

 

Nice to hear from you….

 

You are right, family history is a real treasure.
My mom wrote her memories about WW2 she lived through as a child and a teenager: the terrible year 1940 when her father was wounded and her mother killed right before her eyes, the following years under enemy occupation. I helped her improve the style, a little like a reviewer... These memories were a revelation for me, mostly about my great-aunt, a person my mom did not like much. I knew her very well as an old maid in her sixties to nineties, very old fashioned, a bit ridiculous sometimes. BUT, reading my mom's memories, I discovered who she was in 1940-44. She was a town clerk and had access to official registers and the town hall safe. She was in touch with people acting for the resistance. They gave her a special chemical product that could dissolve the secure ink used on civil status registers, and on several occasions she would falsify them and erase all traces of the existence of young men who were joining De Gaulle in England: their absence had to remain unnoticed by the Germans, to avoid reprisals on their families. She also organized meetings of "clandestins" at her home, stole ration tickets from the town hall safe and delivered them to people living in hiding. On these occasions she asked my mom to "secure" the meeting place some time in advance: my mom on her bicycle passed a few times in the street watching for any unknown suspect people nearby. My great-aunt was never caught: nobody would suspect an old maid like her living with her elderly mother.
There are tragic stories. A young Jewish woman wanted to flee France via Spain. My great-aunt organized a meeting at her home with a man who knew the road and the fixers. My mom was there. When the woman had left, the man said : "She will not make it, she is too much scared..." It was the last time they saw her, no further news. In the 1980s a Jewish documentation center about the Holocaust was created in Paris not far from our home. My mom went there and asked if there was anything about this girl. They finally found her photo with the record of her arrest in Poitiers, her deportation to Auschwitz by convoy nr so and so... They gave the photo to my mom saying: "You are the only person who ever asked about her".
There are also funny stories. An allied bomber had been downed and a young American airman fell with his parachute near the property on one of our family's friends. The man rushed immediately, helped him hide the parachute, gave him old filthy peasant clothes and a rake. When a few minutes after the Germans arrived looking for him, nobody had seen anything and they did not suspect the gardener raking the lawn in plain sight. The young man later had dinner with the family and shared the two little boys' room for the night. He was exfiltrated by the local resistance the day after. The boys told their father : "We spoke English to him, but he did not understand anything".

 

Great stories @GinoLR . I wouldn't want anyone to experience the horrors and difficulties during that period in history, but stories like these where people stepped up to do their duty are inspiring

 

This is a picture of my great great grand father. Here is wearing the uniform of the 10. Husar-Regiment 3.rd Eskadron (the green Husars). He wrote an attack at the battle of Mars-La-Tour in 1870, which is said to be the last cavalry battle in history. The battle is more famous for the charge of the 1. Cuirassier regiment (v. Bredow's death ride), which broke the French lines, but incurred horrendous losses.

 

In many European countries, Jews either weren't allowed to serve in the military at the time of the Napoleonic Wars or could not become officers. One of my great-great-great-grandfather's brothers, Gerson Marcus Abel (1792-1886), from Stargard in Pomerania (now in Poland), is the only person I know of in my family who was in the military prior to World War I. The information I have found for him is as follows:

Prussian (Pomeranian) cavalry & light infantry, Napoleonic Wars: 1813/14, 1 yr. 4 months in Pommerschen National-Kavalleriereg Jäger - Det. (See: Martin Philippson, Liste der jüdischen Kriegsfreiwilligen in den Jahren 1813/14, in MGWJ SO 1906, citing Archiv des Kriegsnächsten nach dem Befreiungskriege veröffentlichten); see also Jacob Jacobson, Die Judenbürgerbücher der Stadt Berlin, 1809-1851, entry for 17 Apr. 1826, p. 207, no. 984 (entry for Gerson Marcus Abel states "im Militär - nach Phillippson beim Pommerschen National-Kavalleriereg - 1 J. 4 Monate - 1813/1814).

When he died on 14 Dec 1886, an obituary appeared for him in a Jewish newspaper in the Netherlands (a place he certainly never lived, so I imagine it was "human interest"-type filler):




A transcription and translation:

http://resources3.kb.nl/010870000/pdf/DDD_010872150.pdf

Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad Friday 31 Dec. 1886, Vol. 22 No. 26, p. 3 (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Dezer dagen overleed te Stargard
in Pommeren een der weinige nog levende
krijgers uit de vrijheidsoorlogen, de
rentenier Gerson Abel, in den ouderdom
van 96 jaren, na een ongesteldheid van
eenige dagen. Hij heeft de veldtochten als
vrijwilliger in het nationale regiment meegemaakt
en was tot nu toe, in weerwil
van zijn hoogen leeftijd, nog zeer kras.

"These days, died in Stargard
in Pomerania one of the few surviving
warriors from the wars of liberation, the
rentier Gerson Abel, aged
of 96 years, after an illness of
some days. He experienced the campaigns as
a volunteer in the national regiment
and until now, in spite
of his great age, was still very alert."

It's actually rather amazing what one can find if one knows how and where to look. The research skills necessary aren't really so different from those useful in researching and collecting ancient coins.

It's quite difficult, though, to research people like my maternal grandfather who served in the German military during World War I, since the service records were destroyed in the bombing of Potsdam in 1945 (except for those who served in the Bavarian army, which was administered separately). Therefore, I've had to piece together the following information I have for him from quite a few sources, including photos and postcards:

Stationed in France, 1915-1916, Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 24. (Stationed at Cambrai, Rosh Hashanah [Sep 8-9], 1915.) In Serbia, 23 Sep 1915-Dec 1915. Served at Battle of Verdun as Unteroffizier (6. Infanterie Division, 12. Infanterie Brigade, Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 24 [Brandenburg],* 11. Kompagnie), wounded late Feb.- early March 1916. See Deutsche Verlustlisten Nr. 917, 27 Mar. 1916, p. 11760, col. 2: Utffz. Ernst Mosevius - Berlin - leicht verwundet. [bullet penetrated wrist and entered stomach.] (Soldiers in the 11th Kompagnie who were killed and are on same list were killed 22 Feb. - 4. Mar., 1916.) Fought in 3rd Battle of Champagne, April-May 1917. In 1917: Unteroffizier [non-commissioned officer, equivalent to corporal/sergeant], Army Battalion 178, Second Company. Headed squad of 20 men (a Korporalschaft, = 2 gruppen). Probably in Serbia/Slovenia and/or Ukraine (Tarnopol) in summer of 1917. In Sofia, Bulgaria, October 1917 for Kaiser Wilhelm's negotiations with Bulgarian govt.

* Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 24 = Infanterie-Regiment Großherzog Friedrich Franz II von Mecklenburg-Schwerin (4. Brandenburgisches) Nr. 24.

References:

For 6th Infantry Divison, 12th Brigade, 24th Infantry Regiment, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Division_(German_Empire)

http://www.dffv.de/Projekte/IR24/Regiment/Regiment.htm

And see: Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army Which Participated in the War (1914-1918) (Compiled from Records of Intelligence Section of the General Staff, American Expeditionary Forces, at General Headquarters: Chaumont, France: 1919), War Dept. Doc. 905 (Washington, D.C., Govt. Printing Office, 1920), at pp. 127-130

Retrieved at: https://books.google.com/books?id=VfoLAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, at pp. 127-130.

I've posted these photos of my grandfather before, including the ones from the field hospital after he was wounded, but here they are again for anyone interested who hasn't seen them before.

Sep 8-9, 1915, Cambrai, age 20:



March 1916 at Field Hospital after wounding at Verdun, sitting up in bed at front center with nurse holding left wrist:



Still in hospital, on far right:



24 April, 1917 before Third Battle of Champagne, back row center, with his Korporalschaft.



A couple of photos of my grandmother's older brother Sepp (Josef) in his uniform. He was in a camp from October 1940, deported from Drancy (near Paris) with his wife Toni on Convoy 25 on 28 August 1942, and gassed at Auschwitz upon his arrival. (My grandmother's parents, and three other siblings, also perished):

 

Very impressive, Donna!

I'm afraid the only relative that I have a photo of "in uniform" is this one, courtesy of the Canadian prison system. I must say that Uncle Louie (Ludwig) earned his stripes, poor guy!

 

My father was born in Prague, 1918 the son of a Jewish mother and an Austria-Hungarian father. In Oct 1918 the Allied armies would be making their final push towards the collapsing German border leading the Armistice Agreement signed on Nov 11, 1918 ending WW1. On Oct 28 Czechoslovakia was born with the end of the Austrian- Hungarian monarchy. Thomas Masaryk was elected first President. Seeds of the dark future were already being planted: Bohemia and Moravia, the early core of the state, had a large German speaking population in the Sudetenland. Joining the union was Slovakia which had a significant Hungarian speaking minority as too would Transcarpathian Ruthenia with its many Ukrainians and finally, the Poles of Zaolzie.
Before the outbreak of war, my father wanted to study mathematics, but war crushed his plans. After the outbreak of hostilities he was called up on 23/11/1939 into the German Army (able to avoid disclosing his Jewish ancestry) where he was in charge of a radio communications unit on the Russian Front. There he was wounded, including a shrapnel inside the head that was never removed. He was released by the Army in Jan 1943 and sent in 1944 to the Bystřice u Benešova concentration camp, which was for men, especially for descendants from mixed marriages and for those who refused to divorce with wives of Jewish origin. Although there were no gas chambers, the prisoners were subject to physical punishments: blows with sticks, mass punishments, for example, night boardings or marches. Prisoners were used to experiment artificial food: artificial fat.
The prisoners were released on May 4, 1945.

This is a picture of my uncle (at left), my father (at right) and my grandmother, who committed suicide the day before being deported to Auschwitz. It is a picture of happy times.

​

 

This is really special. Here is a list of the members of the Pommersche National-Kavallerieregiment. It lists two Abels from Stargard. Strangely boths are named Jeremias, both were 21 years old and both were "Handlungsdiener" (trade servants) by profession (but they did have different ranks). Maybe this is a mistake and one of them was your ancestor Gerson Marcus Abel.

regiment.pdf

Here you can see their uniform:

Pommersches National-Kavallerieregiment uniform - Bing images

 

I did not know Jews were not allowed, or could not become officers, in the Prussian army in the 1810s. Probably your ancestor Gerson Abel served as a cavalryman but in the rank and file. I now understand better what a Lithuanian rabbi meant c. 1900 when he said about the Dreyfus Affair in France: "A country that is torn over the fate of a little Jewish captain is a country where we should settle down right away."

One day, when I retire, I will do some research about a group of Palestinian officers in Napoleon's army. This is not my speciality or my personal family history but I am interested in the Middle-East and these people lived and are buried in Fontainebleau and Melun, next to where I live. There were a number of them: Jean Renno (from Acre), Abdalla d'Asbonne (Hazbun, a well-known family of Bethlehem) and Soliman Salamé (both from Bethlehem), Jacob and Daoud Habaybi (from Shefa 'Amr, an Arab-Israeli town near Haifa), many others, who enlisted in 1798 in the French army, followed its repatriation in 1801 and served in the Mamelukes squadron of the Guard from 1801 to 1814 or 1815. Some re-enlisted in 1830 as interpreters for the Algiers expedition. Like for your ancestor (well, the brother of your ancestor), there are still a lot of available documents about them that have been insufficiently exploited by Ian Coller, Arab France. Islam and the Making of Modern Europe, 1798-1831 (2010) (for example, Islam had little to do with these people, at least those serving in the military, because nearly all of them were Christian).

 

May their souls rest in peace. PEACE.

 

Awesome photos and post, @DonnaML !

 

Thanks; great picture of the uniform! Your first link doesn't work. But I have no doubt whatsoever, since there was only one Abel family in Stargard, that there was only one person from there whose name was recorded in military records as "Jeremias" Abel, and that the name Jeremias (fairly common among Gentiles even though of course it derives from the prophet Jeremiah) was some kind of Germanization of the Yiddish German name Gerson/Gershon -- which was also sometimes spelled Jerson -- and would have been identifiable as Jewish. (Unlike the surname Abel, which was used both by Jews and by Gentiles in Prussia.) So this was clearly my relative.

 

A German-language obituary of Gerson Abel published a couple of weeks earlier, in the 19 Dec. 1886 Berliner Tageblatt:

 

My Father, Myself, My Son, all aged 19 years.



My father was born in England and emigrated to New Zealand in 1938. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was sent to Canada for training. With the rank of Flight Lieutenant, he served in 'Coastal Command' in bomber aircraft as a navigator, flying over all parts of Europe, as needed. He was then deployed to the far east as Earl Mountbatten's navigator. He attained the rank of 'Pilot Officer' and flew replacement aircraft from England to the various 'theatres' where they were needed.
After 1945 the call went out for volunteers to go to New Zealand to establish their Air Force and my father put his hand up for that. While he was 'seconded' he met my mother, and they were married in early 1947.



At the end of his 'secondment', in 1948, they returned to England, where I was born.
We were stationed at various bases, with the Americans, until 1953 when he resigned his commission and we went to New Zealand, as civilians.
In his 99th year, (2019), he passed away but not before receiving an 'early' letter from Queen Elizabeth II.
Thanks, Dad.

 

That stuff hurts don’t it. I lost my husband 1972. He was an F-4 Weasel. Thanks for reminding

 

My grandfather died while my grandmother was expecting, so my father never even met him. It's strange, none of the family really knew him, but I "remember" him on Memorial Day.

 

I lost my father's grandfather during WW I. He was killed and buried in France. After a long wait, I got a copy of my father's DD 214, but they didn't include all of his military service. I contacted them again, to get his U.S. Navy DD 214 and any other information they can produce. I know that my father was in the Navy during WW II, mainly because I was born in the U.S. Navy Hospital in Aiea Heights, Hawaii. After WW II, he left the Navy, and returned to civilian life, because my younger sister was born in Indianapolis. He got tired of civilian life and tried to return to the Navy, but was not offered his rank, which happened a lot after WW II. He enlisted in the Army with the same rank he had in the Navy, mainly, because my younger brother was born in the Army Hospital at Fort Knox, Kentucky in 1950. He later was assigned to the Landstuhl Germany Hospital. I know this because I have my school records from the Landstuhl Elementary School. I can trace where my father was stationed because we transferred almost every year and I have those school records, too, although, I am embarassed to see the grades I got due to changing schools, sometimes in the middle of the school year.
I mentioned my father's service several months ago, and I was questioned the validity. I am proud of my father's service, my brother's service in the Navy during Viet Nam, as well as mine in the 82nd Airborne unit. I have a picture of my father, brother, and me in uniform, shortly after my brother finished training and my father just got orders for Vietnam.
My family served in the United States Military during different wars.
I am proud of my family and grateful to my father for leaving his "coin collection" to my brother and I. It's mostly made up of pocket change, but they were his.