Elderly man sets out to clean each of the 388 Holocaust memorial plaques in his city

Starting a decade ago, over a dozen European nations installed bronze 'stumbling blocks' on city streets. Each block holds a small plaque inscribed with the name, birth year, and other information of victims of the Nazis. In most cases, the blocks were installed in front of the individual's last known residence.

Dirt and grime have built up on the plaques of course. Salzburg, Austria resident Gerhard Geier thought the people memorialized on his city's streets deserved better. The 79-year-old Geier made it his year's goal to personally clean each plaque on Salzburg's 388 stumbling blocks. Why this year? To mark the darkness of the 80th anniversary of Germany's annexation of Austria with a note of humanity.

So Geier sets out armed with a footstool and cleaning supplies. He cleans each five-inch square plaque by hand, rinses it with saline, then polishes and seals the bronze to slow further damage. It may take him a half hour, but he says it feels as if he is "caressing the victims of the Nazis one last time."  He has noticed an increase in nationalism around the world, and feels it is important to remember what happened then to prevent its recurrence in the future.

The power of defiance and solidarity

His moral stance could easily have gotten him killed, and a thousand other US soldiers with him.

Reverend Chris Edmonds knew his late father, US Army Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds, had been captured by Wehrmacht soldiers at the Battle of the Bulge. He'd been taken to a German POW camp and held there for 100 days. Sure, there were a couple diaries his father had kept during his time in the camp, but they held few details. His father, who died in 1985, spoke little of it.

As chance would have it, some years later Rev. Edmonds read an article online which mentioned his father. In it, a prominent New York attorney credited Sgt. Edmonds with saving his life and that of about 200 other Jewish American POWs. Rev. Edmonds dug deeper, and what he learned amazed him.

U.S. soldiers knew that Jewish soldiers among them would be in danger if captured by the Nazis. Many had already destroyed their dog tags so they would not be singled out as Jewish. So when the POW camp commander ordered Jewish American soldiers to identify themselves, Edmonds and everyone else knew what was at stake.

As the ranking officer, Edmonds told the other POWs, "We are not doing that, we are all falling out." The other men complied. So Edmonds and 1000 other American POWs stood in front of their barracks to face the commander.

"They cannot all be Jews," the commander said to Edmonds, to which he replied: "We are all Jews here." The officer held a pistol to Edmonds' head and repeated his demands. Edmonds refused to give anything but his name, rank and serial number. The officer backed down. The camp was liberated several weeks later. 

Yad Vashem has added US Army Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds to its list of Righteous Among the Nations for his role in protecting over 200 Jewish soldiers that day. His fellow POWs who turned out in defiance of the Nazis and solidarity with their comrades remain anonymous.