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A Soldier's Voice Rediscovered

[New York Times] Paul Vitello - Max Fuchs did not talk much about what he did in the war. His children knew he landed at Omaha Beach. Sometimes, they were allowed to feel the shrapnel still lodged in his chest. And once, he had told them, he sang as the cantor in a Jewish prayer service on the battlefield. On Oct. 29, 1944, at the edge of a fierce fight for control of the city of Aachen, Germany, a correspondent for NBC radio reported: "We bring you now a special broadcast of historic significance: The first Jewish religious service broadcast from Germany since the advent of Hitler." Fuchs, now 87 and living in New York City, was 22 that day. The battlefield service has drawn 310,000 hits and unlikely fame on YouTube. Fuchs volunteered to sing that day because there was no cantor available. He had been studying to become a cantor when the war broke out, but left his studies and was drafted, and never considered the chaplaincy. He later served as a cantor at the Bayside Jewish Center in Queens.
2009-09-18 08:00:00
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