On October 11, 2014 my father, Harvey S. Meltzer, then living at the Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg, MD, with his wife Phyllis, and feeling just fine, went to take a nap in the afternoon so he would have energy for dinner out that night. He never woke up. He was 88 years old, and died as peacefully as a man could. His life was less peaceful, and his experience with the 90th Division, and in the Battle of the Bulge, went to form the core of his life in so many ways.
It started when he turned 18 and went to opt for accelerated induction in the town he grew up in, Worcester, MA. He was told there wasn’t anyone listed under the name of Harvey Meltzer and when he went home to ask his parents what was going on, he was told by them that his real birth name was Seymour Harvey Meltzer, not Harvey S. Meltzer. A neighbor had teased him as a child, so his parents decided to switch his 2 names, forgetting to tell him! Despite that shock, he nevertheless got to register, and kept his Harvey S. Meltzer name for the rest of his life.
Ultimately, he was assigned to the 42nd infantry division until the night he had his memorable Christmas 1944 dinner in Strasbourg. Until that moment he had never been close to combat. But back in camp after dinner that night, his outfit was ordered to wake up and told to board trucks, in which they were driven all night, and then told to get off the trucks. Not much else was told them (sound familiar to you fellow infantrymen?). As it turned out he was at that moment being transferred to the 90th Division in Patton’s 3rd Army and headed north into the Battle of the Bulge. He was part of the 359th Regiment, Company F.
His first experience of combat that he remembers was that his new outfit was ordered into the woods in Luxemburg to relieve the 26th Yankee Division (he believed), who had to that date been unable to dislodge the Germans from a key point in that sector. His first taste of combat was a night attack into those woods. He remembered little of that night, other than the tracers and noise and neberlwerfer shells and death and shooting- all as an 18 year old.
He survived, made it through the Battle of the Bulge, was awarded a purple heart after being hospitalized twice for frostbite of both his feet, and survived the rest of the war, helping liberate the concentration camp Flossenburg, in Czechoslovakia, in the process.
For many years after the war, he awoke every night with screams and cries and nightmares, but refused to talk about it. He also refused to visit or return to Europe until middle age, because he could not face his nightmares there.
But, his wartime experience gave him the opportunity to go to college under the GI bill (his family was not well off), and with his accounting degree he ultimately had a very successful career as head of royalties at Columbia Records, part of CBS. He was married many years to my mother, Pauline, and then many further years to my stepmother Elena, and after she passed away, he again found happiness in his 80s and married his surviving wife, Phyllis. But during the prime of his life though, he carried all his experiences and memories inside himself, sharing them with very few people.
Then VBOB came along and he went to one of the VBOB reunions in Europe- I believe the 40th, and it transformed him. All of a sudden, he became aware that he was not alone anymore- he met so many other veterans who “understood” and who shared his pride and his pain. And he fell in love with Europe and vacationed there often, after.
He attended the 50th VBOB anniversary too, and I had the honor of taking my father to the 60th Anniversary, where we had one of the best weeks of our lives together. I got to meet so many wonderful veterans, and I got to see the battlegrounds and meet the people of Belgium and Luxemburg, who treated all the veterans as if they were liberators that very week- it was wonderful.
I also got to discover, first hand, where my dad’s first night of combat occurred- it is now a national park in Luxemburg- Shumann’s Eke. My dad’s outfit, and others, DID push the Germans out, and that was the start of their withdrawal out of Berle, Luxemburg. He was honored there during our trip, as were others, at the monument located outside the famous woods and by the people of Berle, who carried the torch of memory and thankfulness into our present..
My dad has, ever since VBOB, gotten involved again with his 90th Division Association reunions too, and his group therapy sessions at the NYC VA (PTSD). Indeed, his rolodex, upon his death, had more veterans names in it, then anyone else. My Dad is survived by his wife Phyllis, me and my wife (his daughter-in-law) Wen Xian, his grandsons Zachary and Benjamin, his daughter Sandra and son-in-law Jeff, and his granddaughter Elizabeth, and many friends and family who loved him. I am attaching 2 pictures of my dad- as a young soldier, and as a very proud older veteran.
I am his son Curt Meltzer, and I wanted to write this Remembrance to Honor my father, and his service during WWII. Thank you all for showing my dad he was not alone- thank you all for your friendship and caring and understanding, and for the Honor to yourselves and our Country that you all have brought with your service. God bless you.
Curt Meltzer