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The Story of a Christian American GI Who Saved 200 Jewish Soldiers from Certain Death in WW2 – and Never Told Anyone about It.

During the Holocaust, one American GI's quiet courage and unwavering faith led him to defy Nazi orders and save 200 Jewish-American soldiers from certain death. Discover the remarkable story of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a man whose...

Lee Habeeb

Updated Jan 26, 2026

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The Story of a Christian American GI Who Saved 200 Jewish Soldiers from ... The Story of a Christian American GI Who Saved 200 Jewish Soldiers from Certain Death in WW2 – and Never Told An...

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a date chosen to align with the fateful day back in 1945 when Allied troops liberated the worst of the Nazi deathcamps: Aushwitz-Birkenau. Approximately 960,000 Jews were murdered there, and nearly 1.1 million lives were cut short in all. But amidst the tragedy and horror associated with the Nazi genocide, there were stories of hope and courage, too. One involved an American GI who helped save 200 Jewish-American GI’s from near certain death.  His name was Master Sergeant Roderick "Roddie" Edmonds, and the most remarkable part of his story wasn't his courage or the lives he saved. It was his humility. And the source of his humility and his courage: his faith in God.

How Do I Have Faith in God? When tragic things happen, having faith in God means we believe, no matter how bad things look, that God will wo...

Edmonds never told anyone about what he did, not even his son Chris, a pastor in Tennessee  and co-author of a book about his father’s exploits, No Surrender. "I asked him several times about his WW2 experience and he would say, 'Son, there are some things that are just too difficult to share,'" Chris Edmonds told “Our American Stories.”

His father died and took his secrets to his grave. It would take 20-plus years for his son to unearth his father's WW2 story. Poking around on Google, he stumbled upon his dad's name in a New York Times story about a home President Richard Nixon purchased in the 1970s from a man named Lester Tanner. In the piece, Tanner briefly noted he'd been saved from certain death at a POW camp during World War II by a soldier named Roddie Edmonds. 

Chris was startled. Could that be his dad Tanner was talking about? So Edmunds did what any son would do—he tracked Tanner down like a detective,  and pieced together the rest of his father’s remarkable  story."My dad was a part of the Battle of the Bulge," Edmunds explained. "They were sent to replace the men on the front lines and on December 17, 1944, the German forces overwhelmed his unit. Edmonds and the 1,200-plus soldiers eventually ended up in a camp called Stalag IX-A in western Germany.

When they got to the camp, Edmunds became the senior commander of the American GI’s. And  that's when the story got interesting.  “One day, they got an announcement over the loudspeaker that asked for the Jewish POWs to fall out for the morning roll call,” Edmunds said. “Lester Tanner told me my dad immediately said, ‘We are not going to do that’ and sent orders throughout the barracks to have all the men fall out the next morning.”

What would they do? Would they risk their lives to protect their Jewish brothers in arms? Edmunds continued with one of the most harrowing accounts of mass bravery on or off the battlefield in WW2.

So the next morning,  all the soldiers and POWs fell out. There were approximately 1,275 men, and they were all standing there before the barracks and Lester says the commandant came over to my dad and was furious and said, ‘All of you can't be Jews.’ Then Paul Stern, who was standing close by, said that my dad responded, ‘We are all Jews here.’ 

Needless to say, the commanding German officer of the camp was not pleased. Edmunds’ son continued.

The commandant was angry that this American had the audacity to disobey an order. He said, ‘I am asking you to command your Jewish men to step forward.’ My dad's response was simply this, ‘According to the Geneva Convention all that is required is name, rank and serial number.’ That again infuriated the commandant, who was a Major. He pulled his gun out of his holster and pressed it to my dad's forehead and said, ‘You will have your Jewish men step forward immediately or I will shoot you on the spot.’ Lester Tanner said that my dad said, ‘Major, if you shoot me, you will have to shoot us all.’ And then my dad added some more, ‘We know who you are and when we win this war you will have to stand for war crimes.’ Tanner said that the major blanched and turned blood red and for what seemed like a very long time (but wasn't)and stuck his gun in his holster and turned and walked away. They all went back into the barracks and cheered my father.’