American story of Blinken's stepdad

[soothsayer]

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Andrei Cherny
@AndreiCherny
·
Nov 22, 2020
The following is a true story. It's an American story. Maybe the most American story.

Stick around to the end.

In the spring of 1945, in a Nazi slave labor camp 50 miles from Dachau, convict No. B-1713 heard powerful explosions pierce the night air.

The guards said the "enemy" was advancing and herded the prisoners together to be marched back to Dachau.

They marched for most of three days. At dawn, on the third day, a squadron of Allied fighter planes, coming upon what they thought was a column of Nazi troops, swooped low to strafe them.

As the SS-troops hit the dirt and began firing their machine guns, one of the prisoners shouted "run for it!" A group of them ran towards the forest for the trees. The explosions caught most of them, but six, including convict No. B-1713, made made it into the forest alive.

He hid in the hayloft of an abandoned Bavarian barn. Days passed. And then one afternoon he peaked through a crack in the wooded slats and saw a huge tank leading an armored convoy heading toward him.

He looked for the swastika on its side. Instead, he saw a five-pointed white star. He ran from the barn, charging toward the tank, screaming and waving his arms.

From the tank's hatch emerged CPL Bill Ellington, of the all-Black 761st, son of a slave.

B-1713, who had lost his family and survived four years in the camps, fell to his knees before Ellington and repeated the few English words he knew: God Bless America! God Bless America!

Ellington lifted him into the hatch--and into freedom.

Convict No. B-173 was named Samuel Pisar. He became an American citizen, a successful lawyer.

His stepson, Tony Blinken (@ABlinken), will become America's next Secretary of State.

God Bless America! God Bless America!

[TigressDem]

1. Cool. nt

[monmouth4]

2. Thank you so much for posting this most wonderful story. n/t

[gademocrat7]

3. Thank you for this amazing story.

Blinken will restore integrity and decency to the State Department.

[pazzyanne]

4. Thank you for sharing this story.

This makes Tony Blinken real and someone we can be proud of as he represents us on the world stage - finally after 4 years!

[grantcart]

5. Stick around for an American administration

[Cha]

6. That's what America was about

and will be again.

Poignantly emotional history of Samuel Pisar's journey to America.. our new SOS's step father.

TY for this, Soothsayer

[Biophilic]

7. Yes, this is what I want to think of first when I think about my country

I want to think about these types of people and these types of behavior. The best of us, not the worst. Thank you for passing this story on to us.

[wendyb-NC]

8. What awesome history he brings.

Very inspirational, thank you for posting. "God Bless America".

[AmericanCanuck]

9. A very moving story ... thanks for posting

[marble falls]

10. A great reminder of who we were and who we should be.

[reACTIONary]

11. K&R

[democrank]

12. Highly recommended

[dalton99a]

13. From Bill Clinton's speech on the 50th anniversary of V-E Day

During the war's final weeks, America's fighting forces thundered across Europe, liberating small villages and great cities from a long nightmare. Many witnessed an outpouring of love and gratitude they would remember for the rest of their lives.

Deep in the Bavarian countryside, Corporal Bill Ellington piloted his armored vehicle into a battle against retreating enemy troops. As a firefight raged, a rail-thin teenage boy ran, shouting toward the tank. He was a young Polish Jew, Samuel Pisar, who had survived 4 years at Auschwitz and other concentration camps, but along the way had lost his entire family. Samuel Pisar had seen the tank and its glorious 5-point white star from his hideaway in a barn.

As Ellington looked down at him, the boy dropped to his knees and repeated over and over the few words of English his mother had taught him: "God bless America. God bless America.'' And Ellington, the son of a slave, lifted the boy through the hatch and into the warm embrace of freedom.

Bill Ellington died a few years ago. But Samuel Pisar, now an American citizen, is here with us today. And I'd like to ask him to stand as a reminder of what that war was all about.

(May 8, 1995, Arlington VA)

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https://www.jta.org/1984/08/20/archive/holocaust-survivor-and-sister-of-man-who-saved-him-meet-for-first-time

Holocaust Survivor and Sister of Man Who Saved Him Meet for First Time
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
August 20, 1984

Dr. Samuel Pisar, world renowned international lawyer, best-selling author, and a Holocaust survivor, and Valerie Crowley, sister of the late William Ellington — a Black G.I. who saved Pisar’s life during World War II — came together for the first time during an emotional ceremony at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

It was only through an incredible series of events, which special guest Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley termed ” a miracle,” that Crowley learned the identity of the young man her brother had disobeyed orders and risked court martial to save.

Pisar, a Paris resident, who as chief counsel for the International Olympic Committee, was in Los Angeles for the 23rd Olympiad, has written in his widely-acclaimed autobiographical work, “Of Blood and Hope,” how as a teenager in the final days of World War II, he escaped from the Dachau concentration camp and was rescued by a Black American soldier as he fled his Nazi pursuers.

Crowley, who saw Pisar and heard the rescue story during a television interview in 1983, recognized the story as that told to her by her brother prior to his death, and set about looking for Pisar. Through subsequent contact with the Wiesenthal Center, Crowley ultimately was able to contact Pisar.

[niyad]

14. . . .

[AwakeAtLast]

15. Those damn onions...

Joyful tears!

[NNadir]

16. A remarkable American story indeed. He will go a long ...

...way to restoring America's lost dignity and make America decent again.

[crickets]

17. What a wonderful story. K&R