MILWAUKEE COUNTY

Protesters carrying Nazi flags shock Wisconsin World War II vets and Holocaust survivors

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mequon - The red and white flags adorned with a black jagged gash carried by protesters in Virginia last weekend — Nate Taffel has seen them before.

Howard Melton remembers Nazi swastika flags. So does Tom Wilson, Bob Birmingham and Ralph Ticcioni.

If the Charlottesville, Va., protesters carried them to antagonize people, the flags that symbolized Nazi hatred, brutality and extermination of fellow human beings provided that hurtful shock value. For Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans, the Nazi flag has a deeply personal and sinister meaning. And it's not a history lesson for them.

Nate Taffel of Mequon, a Holocaust survivor, shows a photograph of his family when he was a child. In the photo, he is dressed in white and seated on his mother Mindel's lap. His father, Abraham Taffel, is holding Taffel's sister Feiga. When Taffel saw video of protesters in Charlottesville, Va., carrying Nazi flags "it absolutely tore me apart," said Taffel, who was rescued by American GIs.

"The purpose of carrying the (Nazi) flag was to annoy Jews and veterans. There was no other purpose," said Taffel, 89, whose right wrist still bears the tattoo "KL" signifying the German term for concentration camp, konzentrationslager.

Nate Taffel of Mequon, a Holocaust survivor, shows the "KL" that is tattooed on his wrist. It is the German abbreviation for konzentrationslager (concentration camp).

Taffel's life was saved by American GIs, which is partly why he moved to the U.S. in 1957 and became an American citizen, raising three children and working in the livestock industry in Wisconsin.

When he saw video of protesters in Charlottesville carrying Nazi flags, "it absolutely tore me apart," Taffel said Thursday at his Mequon home.

Wilson wonders if perhaps his generation did not do a good enough job educating subsequent generations about the horrors of World War II.

Tom Wilson holds his pilot's log book from WWII and a Stalag Luft III Prisoner of War survivors patch in his Mequon home. Tom Wilson was a B-25 pilot shot down in Africa on his seventh mission in April 1943. He spent more than two years in a German POW camp. Wilson now wonders if perhaps his generation did not do a good enough job educating subsequent generations about the horrors of World War II.

"Most of the people shouting and hollering, raving and ranting and carrying those flags they don't understand what it meant in those days. They didn't live through it. They just can't imagine how the Nazis slaughtered so many people," said Wilson, 97, of Mequon.

Wilson dropped out of college to volunteer for the Army Air Corps. A B-25 co-pilot, Wilson was shot down in Africa and spent two years in a German prisoner of war camp.

"I don't know if (the protesters) read their history or not. It is hard to understand that (the Holocaust) happened, but it did and it was very real in those days," Wilson said.

Melton, 86, grew up in Lithuania and was forced into a ghetto when he was 10. He spent time in a labor camp and was later sent to Dachau, losing his mother and sister in the Auschwitz gas chambers.

"I'm sure their grandfathers or uncles fought in the Second World War against the Nazis and here they go around displaying the (Nazi) flag, how could they do that? It's horrible. Seeing Nazi flags gets me so upset," said Melton of the Milwaukee area.

Though there have been protests in the U.S. in the past featuring Nazi flags, Melton noted that this is the first time an American president has come under fire for not doing more to repudiate hateful words and violence.

"We have the great divider in there so he encourages them," Melton said of President Donald Trump. "He equates the Nazis and the alt-right with the people who fought against them. How can he do that?"

The alt-right is a loosely defined group whose far-right ideology includes racism, populism and white nationalism.

Ticcioni, 93, of New Berlin, was a paratrooper during D-Day and last year visited France for the first time since he jumped from a plane to fight German troops whose uniforms featured swastika symbols.

Invited back to France to take part in commemorations of the invasion, Ticcioni made a poignant visit to one of the large American cemeteries in Normandy, bowing his head before rows of white crosses, some featuring Stars of David for Jewish troops who are among the fallen.

Ralph Ticcioni takes off his cap in respect for the dead at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France. Ticcioni, who was attached to the 82nd Airborne, was moved by seeing more than 9,000 graves of Americans killed in Europe during World War II. Of protesters' use of Nazi flags, Ticcioni of New Berlin says: "It's a slap in the face for all the guys buried over there. I thought we did it once, got rid of (fascism) but it's popping up again."

"It's a slap in the face for all the guys buried over there," Ticcioni said of the protests. "I thought we did it once, got rid of (fascism) but it's popping up again."

Turning on his TV over the last few days, Birmingham was surprised to see people marching in a torch-light parade like the Nazis did and carrying the same flag that hung behind Adolf Hitler as he exhorted his followers.

The Greendale man volunteered for the Army Air Corps after turning 18 during his senior year. He thought the military would allow him to graduate but instead he was called within a month and received his Pius XI High School diploma in the mail. A B-24 nose gunner and bombardier, Birmingham bailed out of his stricken aircraft on his fifth mission.

Bob Birmingham of Greendale was a nose gunner and bombardier in a B-24 that was shot up over Germany and made it as far as Sweden, where the crew successfully bailed out. Birmingham said he was surprised when he tuned in to TV in the last few days to see people marching in a torch-lighted parade like the Nazis did and carrying the same flag that hung behind Adolf Hitler as he exhorted his followers.

Birmingham said he knew about groups of neo-Nazis in Europe "but I didn't know there were a lot of Nazis here. It's really sad. I know so many people who died to try to stop the Nazis."

"Nazis hated the Jews and they killed many of them. That's what the Nazi flag means to me," said Birmingham, 91. "Between missions when I felt I'd rather be home, I would hear about what the Nazis had done and it angered me and kept me going."

Taffel grew up in Poland and was sent to a couple of concentration camps to work repairing damaged German planes.

Pausing in front of a wall in his home filled with plaques, newspaper clippings and the only photo he has of his parents and siblings, Taffel points to just one person when asked which family members survived, a brother who eventually immigrated to the U.S. but died as a young man.

"I have no hate in me whatsoever," said Taffel, adding: "I didn't expect at this age and stage to still see anti-Semitism."