Ben Viola, 42nd Rainbower has passed over the rainbow: 1918-2009

On October 4, 2009, my grandfather, a 42nd Rainbow Veteran, passed over the Rainbow. I wrote his obituary to be published in the Bergen Record tomorrow and Thursday. I wanted to share his story on this blog because I know my fellow Rainbow families would understand and appreciate all he did in his life. ~EMT

Bernard “Ben” Victor Viola, 91, passed away peacefully on October 4, 2009 after a long battle with dementia. He was born on August 6, 1918 in Fort Lee, NJ. Until the last years of his life, his was surrounded by love, laughter and family in his beloved home in Northvale, NJ. He took pride in the fact that the home he raised his children in with his wife of almost 70 years, Mathilda, he built from the ground up alongside his father, uncle and close friends. He would tell of his adventures of working at Alcoa Aluminum in Edgewater, NJ, where he retired as a tool and dye maker, and starting the Northvale Department of Public Works where he retired as Superintendent. People would listen with great interest as he reminisced about his years on the Northvale City Council and his usually funny boyhood memories involving his younger brother, Fred. Ben had a rare work ethic. He worked every day of his life, whether at the Rockland County Golf Course in his retirement years or mowing his lawn. His hands were never idle. He made tables out of crates, he was the go-to-guy for necklace tangles and he made lovely jewelry boxes. Ben created beautiful wooden hope chests for all of his daughters and granddaughters. Each trunk was put together with meticulous care and each was unique.

He spent World War II as a staff sergeant in the 42nd Rainbow Division 242 Company F. He was a modest man and never spoke of his heroics in the war until years later. He had close encounters with death, was awarded the Purple Heart, and witnessed many horrific days of war. His unit was one of the first liberators into the German concentration camp, Dachau. However, Ben was proud of his time in the Army. Later in life he reconnected with his Army buddies and attended biannual Rainbow reunions in Ocean City, NJ with his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. He also held many leadership positions within the Improved Order of Redmen New Jersey Organization, being a charter member of the Northvale Council.

Ben was a quiet man but had a dry sense of humor that he was never afraid to express. His smile would light up a room and his storytelling was compelling. He laughed easily. He only wore shirts with a breast pocket so his glasses were never far from reach. He would read the Sunday comic page to his youngest granddaughter in funny voices and always succeeded in making her laugh. He spoke fluent Italian and enjoyed eating Mathilda’s Italian cooking. He took joy in family dinners and sharing his wine with friends at his dinner table. He watched golf whenever it was on television, and played the sport whenever he had the opportunity.

Family was important to Ben and he was proud of his children and grandchildren. He was quick to write a note to a grandchild off at college and liked to chat with his family over the phone. He touched the lives of all that knew him and he will be missed every day by those he left behind. He joins his parents, Anthony and Alfonsina (Fevola) Viola, sister, Josephine DePolito and brother, Frederick Viola, in heaven. In addition to his wife, Mathilda (Paglierani), he is survived by four children: Patricia (Harry) Slagle, Mary Lynn Schatke, Donna (Chic) Marcason and Barry (Roseanne) Viola. And grandchildren: Andrew (Diane) Slagle, Christopher Schtake, Tommy (Laura) Schtake, Aimee (Ned) Gormley, Anne Marie (David) Cloutier, and Emily (Ryan) Tolmie. He is also survived by four great-grandchildren. He leaves behind many friends and his beloved cat.

Graveside services will be Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009 at Rockland Cemetery, Sparkill, NY at 11 am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the National Alzheimer’s Association, 225 N. Michigan Ave., Fl. 17, Chicago, IL 60601 or to the 42nd Rainbow Division Veterans Memorial Foundation Scholarship Fund c/o Jon Janosik, 3398 Kingston Lane, Youngstown, OH 44511.

~EMT, October 5, 2009

Death could be smelt billowing from inside Dachau. (Photo courtesy of Alfred Fontana)

Dachau Reflections:

Alfred Fontana was 28-years-old when he was drafted into the service in 1941. Prior to the war, Fontana worked at the Gordon Gin Plant in New Jersey. In 1937, he organized the plant into a union.

Fontana was one of the first groups of civilians to be drafted into the war. He accepted the fact he was drafted and wanted to do his part for his country.

He thought of the war as an adventure, but he never expected to see the nightmare he witnessed on April 29, 1945.

Fontana remembers vividly the horror of the Nazi's concentration camp, Dachau.

He remembers the cheering prisoners as the 42nd liberated the camp. He remembers seeing so many innocent prisoners dead and castoff aside as if they were no one's child or parent.

Dachau was a horror to all the young soldiers who witnessed it. It is a day that will forever live in Fontana's mind.

(All information gathered from 1/18/04 interview; Al Fontana passed away on December 27, 2008 at the age of 94.)

A young Viola went off to war never expecting to witness a horror such as Dachau.(Photo courtesy of Ben Viola)

Dachau Reflections:

For Ben Viola, Dachau was the ultimate horror.

He said he could to this day still smell the scent of the dead bodies in his nose. Viola was one of the first men into Dachau when his unit, CO F 222 Infantry, broke the gates of the concentration camp wide open.

He said his unit knew in advance that they were going to Dachau to save the people that were still barely alive. He said his unit was forced to kill many German officers in the process of liberating Dachau, but he said it was necessary to survive.

Many of the German officers who had performed the worst horrors possible had fled the camp the night before, leaving young German officers to defend it. One young German officer who had been captured told Viola that the Germans left behind in the camp knew they never had a chance against the prestigious Rainbow Division. He then begged not to be killed.

(All information gathered from 12/29/03 interview)

42nd Rainbow History: Dachau

Facing Evil:

The day had dawned and the Rainbow was in pursuit of evil as they crossed the Danube River. On April 29, 1945, the 42nd Rainbow Division came right into the path of the Nazi's Dachau concentration camp. It was on April 29, that Brig. General Linden and his party accepted the formal surrender of the Camp (Daly 96). Prior to the 42nd and the 45th Divisions attacking the camp, most of the German military and its officers had already left. Some German officers changed into prison garb to blend with the 33,000 inmates in an escape attempt (Daly 99).

Horror

Upon the confusion and excitement of seeing American troops, this initial group of inmates were pushed and shoved into an electrical compound fense. Several were killed. Other inmates wildly fought against remaining German guards clubbing, stoning and beating them to death (Daly 99). Other German soldiers were thrown in the moat and shot with their own guns.

These inmates had been starved, tortured and witnessed their families being murdered. To stop the frienzy Rainbowers had to shoot over the inmates heads (Daly 99).

The sights of this camp were beyond horror. Outside the camp proper, 1500 bodies were found in 50 boxcars.

These naked and barely clad inmates had been transferred from Camp Buchenwald. Due to lack of housing room, these inmates were left in the boxcars whithout food until they died. Rainbowers found only one survivor (Daly 99).

Scattered spirits

Prior to the German evacuation of its soldiers the night before, they killed important prisoners first then randomly others. Over 2,000 bodies were scattered everywhere. Inmates had stacked the bodies "like cordwood" (Daly 99).

This death camp opened in 1933. It systematically killed up to 200 men, women and children daily. They were stripped naked, led to gas chambers to die, their bodies thrown in a room to await cremation (Daly 99). However, the Nazis had no more coal and were unable to cremate the bodies (Daly 99).

They continued to either starve or gas the inmates. Now the bodies went to open graves or in the moat, causing a human dam of the water (Daly 99).

Hell

The stench was nauseating and overpowering everywhere. The hospital was a place where inmates died either on board beds with no linens or on the floor. Living conditions were worse than that of animals (Daly 99).

Within hours of liberation, medical personnel, food and supplies were brought in and the dead were buried. The camp was a living nightmare. It was worse than anything witnessed on the battlefield.

The average age of the Rainbower was 19 - 20. Tours of the camp were given so these young men would not forget. "Now I know why we are fighting," Rainbowers said (Daly 104).

-Written by EMT

Citations: Daly, Hugh C. 42nd Rainbow Infantry Division: History of World War II. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Army and Navy Publishing Building, 1946.

The Photo: The boxcars were filled with victims murdered by German officers. (Photo courtesy of 42nd Rainbower Al Fontana)

Fritz Krenkler: A Story of Fate, Family and Friendship

Fritz Krenkler chats with ease over the phone from his home in sunny Arizona. He talks about his family, upcoming trips he is planning to the east coast with his wife, Verna, and the beautiful mountains that cradle his home. Ironically, those Arizona mountains aren’t that much different from the mountains he grew up near in the small German town of Grossbettlingen.

Fritz was a young man when he came from Germany and settled in Pennsylvania with his family. He had dreams of attending college and becoming a mechanical engineer when World War II came to American shores. Fritz enlisted in 1942 but was told that all military forces had enough men. He was needed more on the home front, as a toolmaker, to make supplies. However, in 1944, life took an unexpected turn for Fritz. He was drafted into the Army and after completing ordinance basic training in Maryland and low-level intelligence basic training in Georgia, he found himself back in Germany as a replacement soldier in the 42nd Rainbow.

Returning to Germany as an American soldier was initially uncomfortable for Fritz. “These were my people; my relatives, and now I was there not as family but as a soldier,” he explained. It was long-time friend Richard Marowitz, also in Intelligence and Reconnaissance, who told Fritz within a few days of his arrival that the first time he heard bullets whizzing above his head, all of his reservations would disappear. Fritz confirms that his friend’s advice was correct. “I didn’t hesitate one moment,” he said. “I knew what I had to do.”

This included an encounter about a week after the war ended. Fritz was near the border between Germany and Austria, riding his German motorcycle, when he noticed a caravan of military vehicles that he didn’t recognize. With the war ending, he knew that there were many German soldiers traveling through Italy and Austria to reach their homes in Germany. Fritz remembers that German soldiers would receive papers from Allied forces showing they were screened, and from which camp they had been processed. This then allowed them to get work papers and food stamps on their return home. So, he was not that surprised when the caravan of vehicles was in fact German. He pulled his motorcycle to the side of the road and, because of his fluency of German, spoke to the German captain leading the caravan. The German captain wanted to know where he could bring his troops to be processed and ultimately go home. The German captain didn’t recognize the young American soldier right away. But, after a few seconds he asked Fritz: “Are you Frederick’s boy?” Fritz said he answered, “Yes, I am.” The man standing in front of him was not just a German captain, but his Uncle William. Fritz wonders how the scene must have looked to those German troops in the stopped caravan: A scruffy American soldier hugging a well disciplined German officer.

In that moment Fritz shared with his uncle it didn’t matter whether they were American or German. What mattered was that in the end they were only people; family. So, when Fritz learned recently about the Purple Heart Jewel, created by a German man as a token of friendship to those who liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp, it was again another humbling experience. The Purple Heart Jewel was created by Ludwig Stoeckl and on May 28, 2009, Fritz traveled to Germany, with a few others representing the Rainbow, to honor Ludwig as an honored member of the 42nd Rainbow Division Veterans Memorial Foundation.

The Purple Heart Jewel is symbolic of more than just friendship. Ludwig named the jewel after the same Purple Heart created by George Washington during the Revolutionary War. In that time it was the one declaration given to common soldiers (it wasn’t until years later that it was awarded to those soldiers injured in battle). Ludwig wanted to honor those common soldiers that liberated Dachau more than 60 years ago. The Purple Heart Jewel is worth over $20,000 and has 29 diamonds, representing the day in April 1945 that the camp was liberated.

“Ludwig is a very honorable man,” Fritz said, “He was not alive during World War II but he of course knew of it, of things like Dachau, and recognized that the world today has lost sight of important things from our past.” The past is something that Fritz doesn’t forget. That would be something hard to do when the days, months, years he spent in the Army included moments of fright, laughter but most importantly friendships.

Interview conducted on 8/30/2009 by EMT

A 42nd Rainbow Soldier's Story:

A 42nd Rainbow Soldier's Story:

Prior to being drafted, Ben Viola was a 24-year-old man with a wife and two young daughters. He married Matilda in 1939 and was working at Alcoa Aluminum in a nearby northern New Jersey town.In 1942, already being a member of the New Jersey National Guard, Viola was drafted into the Army. He remembers basic trainining being a terrible experience.When Viola made it home to his family, after almost three years in Europe, he said it was an amazing feeling. He had left to fight in World War II when his youngest daughter, Mary Lynn, was only a few months old. Viola said Mary Lynn, then almost four, wouldn't go near him for a few weeks. "She kept saying that I wasn't her father," Viola said. "She told me her daddy was fighting over in the war." Viola went back to his job at Alcoa Aluminum after the war and stayed with the company until it closed. He was the founder of the Northvale Department of Public Works and was on the city council. He and his wife also added two more children to their family with the arrival of daughter, Donna, in 1952 and son, Bernard, five years after.

Close Calls...Ben Viola thinks of himself as a lucky man. He had many close calls with death while serving as a member of the Rainbow in Europe. From landing in a potato bin during a German attack, to coming face to face with the enemy, Viola has many stories to share about his experiences during World War II.

Dachau...For Ben Viola, Dachau was the ultimate horror. He said he could to this day still smell the scent of the dead bodies in his nose. Viola was one of the first men into Dachau when his unit, CO F 222 Infantry, broke the gates of the concentration camp wide open. He said his unit knew in advance that they were going to Dachau to save the people that were still barely alive. He said his unit was forced to kill many German officers in the process of liberating Dachau, but he said it was necessary to survive.Many of the German officers who had performed the worst horrors possible had fled the camp the night before, leaving young German officers to defend it. One young German officer who had been captured told Viola that the Germans left behind in the camp knew they never had a chance against the prestigious Rainbow Division. He then begged not to be killed.

(All information gathered from 12/29/03 interview EMT)

42nd Rainbow Millennium Chapter

"These words - Brotherhood, Comradeship, Dedication, -- Duty, Honor, Country -- have echoed through the decades, through the minds and hearts of veterans of the 42nd Infantry Rainbow Division and are being heard again by their families."

Welcome to the 42nd Rainbow Millennium Chapter blog spot! :)