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The Decorated Nazi Commander's Son Who Joined the Israeli Army
(Daily Mail-UK) Michael Havis - Bernd Wollschlaeger, born in 1958, was taught that the Holocaust was a lie and that his father, Arthur Wollschlaeger, was a war hero who was personally awarded the Iron Cross by Adolf Hitler. A major turning point for Bernd came when Palestinian terrorists massacred 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich. His father reacted: "Look what they do to us again! They, the Jews, are tearing down our reputation to make us look bad." The massacre raised a question - if Jews were being killed in Germany again, when had it happened before? He learned that his father's unit terrorized Jewish villages in Russia, slaughtering the locals, and tearing out pages from the Torahs in the synagogues to use as insulation for their tanks. Furthermore, he discovered that his father had sent people to their deaths at Auschwitz. At an interfaith summit in Germany he bonded with an Israeli girl and later visited her in Israel. The girl's parents welcomed him. "They hosted me like a long-lost brother," said Bernd. "I asked the father how he learned German and he showed me the number tattooed on his forearm....He was in Auschwitz....He took me to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and there I realized the extent of the murder and I broke down emotionally." Back in Germany, Bernd eventually converted to Judaism and completed medical school. He later traveled to Israel and served in its army as a medical officer. Today, he is a family physician in Miami, Florida.