The Soldier Who Refused to Hand Jews to the Nazis
He faced a Nazi gun and said, "We are all Jews." Today, his warning is ours.
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This is a guest essay by Andrew Fox, a former British Army paratrooper and lecturer in war studies and behavioural science at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
This month, the United States is set to posthumously award America’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, to U.S. Army Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a man who displayed one of the most difficult kinds of heroism: not with a rifle, but with moral clarity.
According to his family and reports confirmed by a White House official, President Donald Trump told Edmonds’ son that the Medal of Honor has been approved and will be presented on a date still to be announced.
If you only remember one line from Master Sergeant Edmonds’ story, remember this: “We are all Jews here.”
In late 1944, Edmonds was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and taken to Stalag IX-A, a German prisoner-of-war camp. There, he became the senior American non-commissioned officer responsible for approximately 1,200 to 1,300 American prisoners of war.
In January 1945, the camp commandant ordered Edmonds to identify the Jewish-American prisoners for separate assembly. Edmonds understood what “separate” meant in Nazi Europe. Instead of handing Jews over one by one, he ordered all the American prisoners of war to stand on parade together, Jews and non-Jews, then told the German officer: “We are all Jews here.”
The German officer raised a pistol and threatened to kill Edmonds on the spot. Edmonds refused to comply, invoking their rights as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions and warning the officer about war crimes accountability. The officer backed down. The camp did not attempt segregation again. Edmonds’ refusal is credited with saving around 200 to 300 Jewish-American soldiers.
That is what “above and beyond” looks like when courage is guided by conscience. Like many others of his generation, Edmonds returned home and did not turn his story into a personal brand. He scarcely spoke of it at all. Only decades later did his son, Christopher, piece together what had happened, helped by testimonies from men who survived because Edmonds stood firm.
In 2015, Yad Vashem (Israel’s official memorial institution to the victims of the Holocaust) recognised Edmonds as ‘Righteous Among the Nations,’ a rare honour awarded to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, making him the first U.S. soldier (and one of only a few Americans) to receive it. Now, more than 80 years after the act itself, America will finally award its highest military honour to his name.
Edmonds’ story goes beyond inspiration to expose how evil manifests in the real world. It is more relevant today than at any time since his courageous act. The Auschwitz gas chambers were simply the culmination of the antisemitic journey. The Holocaust started with segregation and the demand that Jews be singled out, and that everyone else stand aside and let it happen. That is why Edmonds’ act remains so powerful: He refused to take the first step.
Today, that first step is making a comeback. Across the United States, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, the highest total in the organisation’s tracking history, marking a fourth consecutive year of increases. In 2025, more than half of Jewish Americans (55 per cent) report experiencing some form of antisemitism in the past year. Nearly one in five reported assault, threat, or verbal abuse based on their identity.
In the UK, the Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 instances of anti-Jewish hate crimes across the country in 2025. This is the second-highest annual total ever reported. It represents a 4-per cent increase from the 3,556 antisemitic incidents in 2024 and is second only to the 4,298 incidents logged in 2023.
In France, government data counted 1,320 antisemitic acts in 2025, accounting for 53 per cent of all anti-religious incidents, remaining at historically high levels for a third straight year.
Jewish people are being threatened, targeted, excluded, blamed, harassed, assaulted, and made to feel that their public existence is a provocation. We should be precise and unwavering about where eliminationist antisemitism is being promoted and put into practice today.
Hamas’ original 1988 charter explicitly contains antisemitic incitement and conspiracy theories about Jewish control, language that reflects the same worldview which fuelled Europe’s exterminationist movements. Hamas later released a 2017 document attempting to alter some of its framing (stating its struggle is against the “Zionist project” rather than Jews), yet it continued to reject Israel’s legitimacy and endorsed “liberation” claims “from the river to the sea.” Hamas’ words are now repeated on our streets, in our legislatures, and throughout our university campuses, daily and weekly.
Meanwhile, Iran’s regime has aided Hamas for decades, including materially and financially. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has documented a long history of Holocaust denial and distortion from the Iranian government and official media sources, one of the classic ways through which antisemitism is disguised as “politics” and “respectable debate.”
We are witnessing a revival of Nazi-style antisemitism in modern guise: sometimes religious, sometimes revolutionary, sometimes “anti-Zionist” in label, all while still peddling the oldest anti-Jewish myths.
Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds did one thing: He made it impossible to single Jews out. That is the heart of this call-to-action. When someone Jewish is targeted for their identity, it does not matter whether it occurs online, on campus, in a workplace, on a street, or in a synagogue. Our response must not be silence, ambiguity, or “both sides” of the issue.
It must be: We stand together.
Speak out loud. If you hear “Hitler was right,” “the Jews control…,” “Zionists are Nazis,” or any other recycled poison, do not let it go unanswered. The social cost of antisemitism decreases when decent people remain silent.
Report what you see, document what you can. Use credible reporting channels (community security groups, campus reporting tools, the police when appropriate). Patterns become undeniable when they are recorded.
Show up for Jewish spaces. Attend a public Holocaust remembrance event. Visit a Jewish museum. Accept an invitation to Shabbat dinner. If a synagogue or Jewish event is threatened, ask how to support them, not as saviours, but as neighbours.
Push institutions to enforce their own rules. Schools and workplaces often have policies against harassment and hate. Demand they apply those rules consistently when the target is Jewish: no euphemisms, no excuses, and no special carve-outs for the “right kind” of hate.
Respect moral courage and demand it from leaders. In the United States, there was a bipartisan legislative effort to recognise Edmonds’ heroism, including a bill introduced in 2025 to award him a Congressional Gold Medal. Wherever you live, let your elected officials know you expect this kind of moral clarity, not just symbolic statements when convenient.
The Nazis demanded a list. Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds refused. Our era and our societies today face a similar choice, only with different uniforms and slogans. Will we continue to allow Jews to be singled out? Or will we stand united and declare, in practice and not just in sentiment?
We are all Jews here.
Thank you Andrew Fox for sharing this story of moral clarity and for setting the same example yourself 🙏
I am especially encouraged by the fact that Fox, the writer, is British. If ever a country needed moral leadership like his, it is Great Britain of today.