The greatest generation as they’re called, has given us many heroes. But not every heroic story of World War II has been told. One though, is now finally being heard to its fullest: that of Roddie Edmonds. He served as a master sergeant in the U.S. Army and fought with the 422 regiment of the 106th infantry division. He was a prisoner of war, captured sometime during the Battle of the Bulge. A man of faith, a Christian, whose defining moment came when as the senior officer of the American POW’s in the German camp, he refused to give up the Jewish soldiers among his regiment. Even when the Nazi commandant threatened to shoot him point blank. He told him, “We’re all Jews”. Even his son Chris, a minister, didn’t know the story until after his father died. Searching for clues he Googled his name and it popped up in a New York Times article about real estate. A very grateful New York lawyer named Lester Tanner said a man named Roddie Edmonds was the reason he was even alive today. Tanner was one of the Jewish soldiers saved that day. On this episode of Lighthouse Faith podcast, Chris Edmonds tells his father’s story as it is now in a new book called, “No Surrender.” He became close friends with Tanner, who’s 96 and lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Roddie Edmonds was declared one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
