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Today is December 16th and 75 years ago the Nazi armies launched Unternehmen: Wacht am Rhein or as we know it, the Battle of the Bulge. The official histories will tell you that the offensive began with an enormous barrage from 1,600artillery pieces, the advance of 1,400 tanks

and approximately 450,000 troops. But my father and his unit was well north of the attack in the German town of Gey. Gey is in the Hürtgen Forest just southeast of Aachen. I’ve learned a few things from Dad about those days and one important fact is that he and his unit were

completely unaware of the Nazi offensive for several days. They had just come off of several days of rest in Belgium. While taking that break he had the picture taken you see here. He remembers ordering exactly 16 copies of the picture to send back home to New Orleans.

As Dad and his unit would not know about the battle until around Christmas 1944, we have a little time to understand how he came to be in Gey on this day 75 years ago. We have to look back several years before 1944 to understand why home was in New Orleans, why he was in the

US Army and even to understand why his last name is Klein.Dad was born in Leipzig Germany in 1924 to Josef and Yentla Broniatowski. He was their first born and they named him Elias after his great grandfather. He would have a younger brother Alexander or Sascha.

Sadly, Jentla died in 1931 of an infection believed to be diphtheria. Josef quickly remarried as was the custom those days and the family moved to the smaller German town of Plauen where his new wife's family lived. Plauen was a hotbed of communist supporters and ironically

was the site of the first Nazi rally outside of Bavaria. As the Nazis gained support Plauen became a dangerous place for Jews and Josef began to look for another place for his children. In the summer of 1934, Josef made contact with an organization that had one thousand visas for

unaccompianied German children to enter the U.S. and arranged for Elias and his new stepbrother Isidore to emigrate.Sascha was felt to be too young to go to the U.S. and remained. The organization with the precious visas was called The German Jewish Children’s Aid (GJCA)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Je… They determined that Elias and Isidore would live with a foster family in Atlanta, Georgia. Their first foster family was very kind, but felt the name Broniatowski was unwieldy and perhaps “too ethnic”. They soon determined that his stepmother’s maiden

@NCJW

@NCJW

name was Klein and so that became our family name.The second foster family was less kind. As a foster family they received a monthly stipend for the boys from the National Council of Jewish Women @NCJW.Dad recalls that the family ate well, but the foster boys did not.

Presumably the monthly stipend was spent elsewhere. This family also suddenly moved to New Orleans without notifying the GJCA social workers finally prompting the placement of the brothers in a better home. By 1942, Dad had completed high school and

enrolled at Louisiana State University to study chemical engineering. But, it was not going well. His NCJW stipend was really not enough to feed him and pay tuition. Also, he was increasingly worried about his immigration status.

Even though he had been born in Germany he held Polish citizenship because that was the passport of his parents. Dad was very concerned that he might be deported or detained because of his Polish citizenship and German birth.

He learned that enlistment in the U.S. Army placed you on the fast track to American citizenship. Knowing that he would be drafted soon helped him make the decision and he enlisted.After basic training he was placed in Company D of the 87th Chemical Mortar Battalion which

was a unit of the VII Army. Plauen, Germany to New Orleans, Louisiana; Broniatowski to Klein; beloved son to foster child who never saw his parents again. The story never ceases to amaze me.