The war coincided with the beginnings of my college days. It affected everyone’s lives in different ways.
My parents were always glued to the radio listening to FDR’s fireside chats (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President #32). We tried to follow the battles. Two of my brothers had enlisted. My brother Joe was never deployed overseas but Abe was sent to North Africa as part of the Army Air Corps where Hitler and Mussolini were trying to win control.
We were lucky not to have any family in Europe in danger from the Nazis. All our families had immigrated from Russia in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. At the beginning of the war, we weren’t aware of the extent of the genocide of the Jews. We were horrified and terrified when we found out. We had already felt the sting of anti-Semitism in our young lives in our own community and of course our parents and grandparents had left Russia because of violence against the Jewish people.