January-February 2012 - The Jewish Georgian

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Page 44 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN January-February 2012 Operation Lifeshield helps protect Israeli citizens from missile attacks “Trauma cement.” It’s the name given to the steel-reinforced concrete used to construct bomb shelters in Israel, and it evokes a sobering image of life in a nation still threatened by near daily missile attacks. Building those shelters is the work of Operation Lifeshield, a unique organization dedicated to providing air raid shelters for Israeli citizens. The group’s executive director, Rabbi Shmuel Bowman, was in Atlanta recently to talk about the threat facing Israelis and to issue an urgent appeal for donations as Operation Lifeshield continues its mission. Rabbi Shmuel Bowman (from left), Reverend Tony Crisp, and Susan OʼDwyer, Habif Arigeti & Wynneʼs Director of Business Development A European Sojourn, 1943-1945: An Autobiography By Pvt. Frederick O. Scheer, Serial No. 14118781 As recounted to Rear Admiral William O. Miller JAGC September 2011 Trafford Publishing (www.trafford.com) $37.95 Reading this book is like sitting down with a veteran and having him tell you, in comfortable conversation, his real war stories. But Fred Scheer’s stories are not so much about combat. They are about being a POW of the Germans during World War II. Fred, who has vision problems, gives this credit on the book’s cover: “As Recounted to Rear Admiral William O. Miller.” Miller, known as “Dusty,” suggested that Fred write down his POW experiences and subsequently helped him put the book together. The story begins when Fred, who That mission: to save lives by providing Israel’s threatened communities with accessible, easy-to-reach protection in the event of an attack. Operation Lifeshield is the only nonprofit group working on building bomb shelters for every city in Israel. The need is clear enough. From the time a Code Red alarm signals an imminent missile attack in any Israeli community, local residents have 15-90 seconds to find shelter. “The shelters, which are placed at hot spots like bus stations, have saved many lives since the nonprofit was founded in 2007,” Rabbi Bowman said. “However, the shelters are expensive. A fifteen-person shelter is $20,000, and a fifty-person shelter costs $40,000.” To date, Operation Lifeshield has placed at least 90 shelters in transit stops, synagogues, parks, and other areas where people gather. The group works with the Israel Defense Force Home Front Command to determine priority locations for the shelters. Determining those priorities is a difficult decision-making process for Operation Lifeshield, according to its executive director. “The organization is constantly overwhelmed by requests from municipalities asking for shelter,” he said. At a packed community forum in mid- calls himself “a young farm boy from Eatonton, Georgia,” reported to Fort McPherson on April 6, 1943. After one year at the University of Georgia, where he volunteered for the enlisted reserves, he was called up, herded through Army induction, and sent by troop train to Fort Riley, Kansas. Basic training was followed by living in tarpaper huts, where Kansas dust blew through the walls. Fred recounts, with equal parts realism and humor, the memories of getting his M-1 rifle, doing KP duty, practicing drills, doing calisthenics, and getting through obstacle courses. In October 1943, Fred was put on a ship to Europe, landing in Northern Ireland to join the 5th Infantry Division. Combat training followed for the next eight months. September hosted by Habif, Arogeti &Wynne (HA&W), Georgia’s largest independent accounting firm, Rabbi Bowman and other participants painted a stark picture of life in Israel’s most vulnerable cities and towns. “I don’t know how many executive directors of non-governmental organizations like myself get phone calls during the night from mayors of Israeli towns, who can’t sleep for fear that if they authorize children to go to school the next day, they may be sending them to their deaths,” Rabbi Bowman told the forum. “They call me…at two or three o’clock in the morning screaming, ‘Shmuel, where are more shelters? Where are more shelters?’” Wherever the shelters are placed, Israeli citizens gain a sense of security and can feel safe going about their daily lives, Bowman and another panelist asserted. “I was near one of those bus stop shelters during my last visit,” said Alondra Larenas, a tax specialist with HA&W, who lived in Israel for 10 years. “It’s a very nice feeling that you have somewhere you can go and protect yourself in case something happens.” The shelters’ proximity to schools and playgrounds can also help relieve the anxiety suffered by thousands of Israeli children, he said, along with the medical prob- The D-Day invasion of Normandy commenced on June 6, 1944, and Fred’s unit landed July 10. He describes the landing, the fighting, and life in a foxhole. Fred was captured when his unit was surrounded by Germans soldiers coming around a hedgerow. Thus began his period as an American POW, in Stalag IV-F, lasting until the end of the war in Europe. The camp housed prisoners who worked on the railroad yard and along the railroad tracks. Fred describes the clothing issued to prisoners: one shirt, one pair of pants, one set of underwear, a pair of socks, and an overcoat. (Most overcoats had a bullet hole.) The shoe soles were so thin “we started to put pieces of newspaper in them to keep out the cold.” lems associated with childhood stress, such as mature bed-wetting and hair loss. Operation Lifeshield’s most recent shelter delivery was to a kibbutz founded by Holocaust survivors near the Lebanon border, in a region terrorized by Hezbollah rocket attacks and escalating threats. Rabbi Bowman’s involvement with Operation Lifeshield began in 2007, but his exposure to the threats facing his adopted nation came much earlier. He joined the Israel Defense Force on the brink of the Gulf War, moving to Israel and serving with the Emergency Readiness Team of the Israeli National Police. After spending years surrounded by the continuous fear of Hezbollah missile attacks on his fellow citizens, Rabbi Bowman was moved to join the newly founded Operation Lifeshield four years ago. As executive director, he participates in fundraising tours around the world. “We get donations for shelters from all over the world,” he told the forum. Community groups, foundations, corporations, and individual donors all contribute, he said. For more information on Operation Lifeshield, including how to help, visit www.operationlifeshield.org. Fred Scheer recounts his POW experiences in A European Sojourn, 1943-1945 BY Carolyn Gold Double-decker bunks had a “straw mattress, accompanied by an ample supply of bed bugs.” Daily rations consisted of a cup of coffee (made from barley or other grain) and a quarter kilo of dark German bread in the morning and a bowl of small boiled potatoes and another cup of ersatz coffee in the evening. Once a week, they received a patty of mystery protein called bloodwurst. Some Red Cross packages arrived once a month. Fred describes how the prisoners stole bits of coal along the railroad track and any food they could find in the countryside. Prisoners worked in the bitter cold during the winter of 1945, and the potatoes became potato soup, which grew thinner and thinner. As the war was drawing to an end, Fred managed to escape. He describes how that happened and how his folks back in Eatonton got news first of his capture and then of his escape. The book contains pictures, documents, and newspaper clippings of these many events. Fred’s story luckily had a happy ending, after the many hardships he endured. He tells it all in a kindly voice that does not dwell on the horrors, but emphasizes the everyday efforts of a young “20 something” managing to survive and of some of the everyday people, French and German, who helped him.
January-February 2012 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN Page 45 Martin Luther King, Jr. - A Leader By David Geffen Reverend “Daddy” King, MLK’s father, was the chapel speaker at Emory University’s Glenn Memorial Church in the mid-fifties when I was a student there. At that point in time, segregation was rampant in Atlanta, in spite of the Supreme Court Decision. My fellow students and I wondered how Emory could break the color line so easily, since the school had no black students. Maybe Coca-Cola, the school’s biggest donor, was behind the invitation. Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapel in those days was always on Wednesday mornings when classes were cancelled. You could not “cut” chapel because attendance was taken. We marched into the big chapel that day not knowing what to expect. Present was this all-white audience and a black minister. For all of us it was quite a sight and became a morning to remember. The university chaplain introduced King, and we all sat on the edge of our chairs waiting for him to begin. “Young men,” he began since the school had not gone co-ed, “you are most fortunate to be here. When I was your age, I was still performing miniscule tasks with my father. Somehow I got the message, part of it from the girl I courted who became my wife, that God had more in store for me. I became a minister of the gospel and, in time, became head of the Ebenezer Baptist church on Auburn Avenue here in the city.” Auburn Avenue was the locale of most black businesses in Atlanta. Some were quite successful - one insurance company was known nationwide. I was familiar with the area a bit because my father, Louis Geffen, an attorney, had black clients. In the thirties, the early years of his law practice, he became known to the black community because he was someone to be trusted. After his six years as a judge advocate in the US Army in World War 2, he returned to Atlanta and continued to have individuals from this community who came to him for their legal work. I accompanied him often when he met them on Auburn Avenue to find out what needed to be done. I must admit that it was only many years later that I came to know some of my black contemporaries. Segregation truly kept us apart. King continued that day in the past by citing the Bible. “When Moses was chosen to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, he was hesitant because his speech was not perfect, ‘tongue-tied.’ So he called on his brother Aaron to help him out,” King said. What we Negros know is that we must lead our people out of Egypt and go forward into the Promised Land. Some of us realize that our speech is not too good, so we need some of you whites to help us. When you listen to me, like you are doing today, you are helping us get on the path to a new life. I want you to know that by the time you are earning a living, we blacks will be on the freedom trail in schools, in business, in the arts and in sports. I am proud that Emory brought me here today, and I thank you for being so respectful. Hallelujah!” I told my parents about this experience, since I lived at home. “They are good people” was their response. Some of my AEPi fraternity brothers were in favor of black rights, so they thought King’s message was great. The person who truly analyzed this moment for me was my Professor of poetry, Floyd C. Watkins. “David, I grew up in Ball Ground, Georgia, where few people finished the eighth grade. I knew the local Negro minister, and he kept saying, ‘Floyd, Floyd you got a mind - use it.’ So I feel that the Negros too have the ability to study and be successful. David, just you wait and see.” Get The Jewish Georgian At Home! Receive the next 6 issues for only $20.00 Name:________________________________________________________ Address:______________________________________________________ City:___________________________ State:__________ Zip: ___________ Please mail this form together with your check to: The Jewish Georgian 8495 Dunwoody Place • Suite 100 • Atlanta, GA 30350 Martin Luther King, Jr., Mickey Shure and Peter Geffen There was a big gap in my life between that Emory chapel address of the father and my actually hearing the son, Martin Luther King, Jr. Truth to tell, I did not do much to help overthrow segregation in the U.S. I was not a part of sit-ins, teach-ins, or marches, but my cousin Peter Geffen was. In the spring of 1968 he gave me a ride up to the Rabbinical Assembly convention. Held at Kutshers Hotel, the great attraction was Martin Luther King, Jr. He was introduced by his comrade in arms in the struggle, Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel gave a moving introduction before King’s presentation, including these words. “Martin Luther King, Jr., is a voice, a vision and a way. Martin Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America. I call upon every Jew to hearken to his voice, to share his vision, to follow in his way. The whole future of America will depend on the impact and influence of Dr. King.” When King spoke, he praised Israel as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel an “oasis in the desert.” He lauded the Jewish people for assisting the blacks in the early years of the century and now. The atmosphere was electric and I recalled “Daddy” King at Emory telling us what the future held for his people. In the summer of 1963, my wife, Rita, and I had come to Israel to study. We missed the March on Washington, since we were in Jerusalem. In an unexpected way we were able to feel that great moment in US history. Here in Israel, in those days 49 years ago, movies were accompanied by newsreels. Without TV in Israel then, news came by radio or by newspaper. We went to the Paladin Theater on Agrippas a week after the march for a movie, but we really wanted to see the newsreel. There on the screen, we witnessed portions of the march, and we heard MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Even more uplifting were the words of a young man sitting behind us. “Zeh manhig,” he said and we echoed, “that’s a leader.”
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January-February 2012 - The Jewish Georgian

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