Breathtaking New Photographs of WWII's Battle of the Bulge

Another great photo-spread from London's Daily Mail, "Vivid new Battle of the Bulge photos offer never-before-seen look at the war-weary soldiers braving the frigid weather as they fight off Nazi Germany's last major offensive of World War II." (Via Memeorandum.)

Retired Master Chief Yeoman Jim Taylor Honors Pearl Harbor Survivors

Well, with the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association announcing it will disband after December 31st, this year's anniversary seemed to have some final sense to it, like a part of our history receding a tiny bit from our reach.

PREVIOUSLY: "Fewer Veterans to Remember Pearl Harbor Day," and "70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7th, 1941."

Fewer Veterans to Remember Pearl Harbor Day

I never believed in all that "greatest generation" crap, but the WWII generation is our link to that history --- when the United States emerged as undisputed leader of the free world. As time goes by the war is relegated further to the past, and fewer folks will have direct memories to hand down to their loved ones. We'll have new traditions and new heroes, but some events are unique in their implications for American life and our political culture. Pearl Harbor is one of those events.

At New York Times, "Pearl Harbor Still a Day for the Ages, but a Memory Almost Gone":

HONOLULU — For more than half a century, members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association gathered here every Dec. 7 to commemorate the attack by the Japanese that drew the United States into World War II. Others stayed closer to home for more intimate regional chapter ceremonies, sharing memories of a day they still remember in searing detail.

But no more. The 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack will be the last one marked by the survivors’ association. With a concession to the reality of time — of age, of deteriorating health and death — the association will disband on Dec. 31.

“We had no choice,” said William H. Eckel, 89, who was once the director of the Fourth Division of the survivors’ association, interviewed by telephone from Texas. “Wives and family members have been trying to keep it operating, but they just can’t do it. People are winding up in nursing homes and intensive care places.”

Harry R. Kerr, the director of the Southeast chapter, said there weren’t enough survivors left to keep the organization running. “We just ran out of gas, that’s what it amounted to,” he said from his home in Atlanta, after deciding not to come this year. “We felt we ran a good course for 70 years. Fought a good fight. We have no place to recruit people anymore: Dec. 7 only happened on one day in 1941.”

Continue reading.

70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7th, 1941

At USA Today, "Remembering Pearl Harbor, 70 years later." And the New York Times has a somber editorial, "Remembering Pearl Harbor."

Closer to home, at O.C. Register, "After 70 years, we honor Pearl Harbor heroes," and "Pearl Harbor casualties included O.C. men."

Bonus: A spectacular photo-essay at National Post, "Archival photos reveal horror of the Pearl Harbor on 70th anniversary of the attack."

Photos: Top, the attack on the USS Arizona. Bottom, the USS West Virginia burns (via Wikimedia Commons).

Community of Holocaust Survivors Dwindles in Queens

At New York Times, "A Community of Survivors Dwindles":

ONE thing about life in New York: wherever you are, the neighborhood is always changing. An Italian enclave becomes Senegalese; a historically African-American corridor becomes a magnet for white professionals. The accents and rhythms shift; the aromas become spicy or vegetal. The transition is sometimes smooth, sometimes bumpy. But there is a sense of loss among the people left behind, wondering what happened to the neighborhood they once thought of as their own.

For Sophia Goldberg, change has meant the end of a way of life.

On a recent morning Ms. Goldberg sat in her tidy seventh-floor living room, surrounded by needlepoint portraits stitched by her own hands, and sighed over the changes immediately around her.

Ms. Goldberg, 98, lives in a 19-story apartment house in Flushing, Queens, one of two neighboring buildings that were erected for survivors of the Holocaust. When she moved there in 1978, she said, her neighbors formed a tight community of predominantly Jewish refugees like her who had fled to the United States from Austria or Germany.

“We had parties,” Ms. Goldberg said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We had card games. It was our people. We had Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in our apartment.”

Now, she said, “It’s completely changed — I have no neighbors here.”

For Ms. Goldberg, the transformation has been steady and overwhelming. Of the 326 residents in her building, now only 31 are Holocaust survivors, and only 7 of them are German or Austrian.

The new neighbors are friendly enough. But she said: “We do not talk. We say hello, goodbye. But that’s it. They don’t speak German. They don’t speak English. They speak Russian and Chinese. Sometimes they just shake their heads.”

Continue Reading.

The article links to Selfhelp Community Services, established in 1936 to help German émigrés flee Nazi persecution and settle in the United States. That generation is getting very old. No wonder Ms. Goldberg hasn't many friends around these days.