Artifact of the Month

Citation given to Captain Sidney M. Cooley of Springfield, MA
by the Jews in Beyreuth, Germany in 1946

When Sidney M. Cooley was drafted into the United States Army, he never expected to be promoted to the rank of captain, let alone be designated the military commander of a Displaced Persons Camp.  Sid Cooley thought that when the war ended, he would have completed his term of service and would be sent back to America, where his future wife was waiting for him.  But instead of being discharged, he was asked by his commanding officer to stay on to help out in the American Zone of Germany.  As a Jew, he was horrified by what he saw in the newly liberated concentration camps.  He wanted to do something meaningful that would make a difference for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors whose lives were permanently uprooted.

Sid Cooley got his chance.  He was stationed in Beyreuth, Germany and put in command of a unit that was assisting with Displaced Persons.  Word spread among the survivors that a Jewish officer who spoke Yiddish and who was sympathetic and understanding of their situation was in this area.  Because Beyreuth was located off the beaten track, Sid and the soldiers under his command were able to do many things to help the survivors that went beyond their orders.  Over the weeks, more and more Jewish Displaced Persons flocked into Beyreuth.  Sid Cooley was designated military commander of the area.  He was given control of an estate that had been in the possession of Julius Streicher, the editor of the Nazi hate newspaper Der Sturmer.  Sid moved over three hundred Jewish Holocaust survivors into the estate and assisted the representatives of the Jewish Agency in training the survivors to do agricultural work in preparation for immigration to Palestine.

Sid Cooley was discharged in 1946 and was not in Europe to see his project concluded.  However, most of the survivors he helped settled in Israel after it was declared a state in 1948.  When he left Beyreuth, the survivors presented him with this citation, thanking him for all he did to give them hope and help them return to life.  “…we were few and broken in spirit and in body.  You, our flesh and blood, gathered the broken remnants and breathed into us a spirit of hope and courage and self-confidence.  You were like a father and a brother…. Now we are several hundred strong and organized and on our way out of the Disapora.  Wherever we shall go we shall carry in our hearts the memory of your deeds….”

                        Gift of Judge Sidney M. Cooley and family