Viewing page 111 of 124

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-4-

In later life, by chance, I saw Heilbrunn and Littauer more frequently than any other survivors of the 88th. Heilbrunn became a professor of physiology at the University of Pennsylvania. I went into the same line of business, and we used to see each other annually at our Society meetings. He died in an auto accident in the late 1950's. Littauer was fiction editor of Collier's magazine. After it folded he became a literary agent. After I moved to New York in 1947 we used to arrange lunch together at least once each year. He died in 1969.
Neither Littauer nor Heilbrunn ever seemed to feel that being Jewish set him apart from the rest of us. Bernheimer's attitude was different. At that period songs and ^[[j]]okes were ^[[c]]urrent, especially in the northern states, about the supposed cowardice of Jews and their aversion to military service. Bernh^[[e]]imer was aloof with strangers, and became friendly only when he was convinced that they accepted him as an equal.
As a southerner, I sympathized with Berheimer, for there was at the time little anti-Jewish feeling in the south. At Vanderbilt, and at the University of Tennessee, Jews were admitted to fraternities from which they were excluded at northern schools. So Bernheimer and I were always on good terms. He was determined to show by example that a Jew could be as brave as anyone else, and I admired him for it. 
He faltered once, but his squadron mates never knew [[strikethrough]] it [[/strikethrough]] it. Only Littauer and perhaps [[insert]] ^[[Jordan]] [[/strikethrough]] knew^[[|]]at the time.Littauer told me about it at one of our luncheaon meetings in New York^[[|]]long afterward. When Bernheimer and Jordan went to Paris on that three-day leave, Bernheimer overstayed the leave by two ^[[d]]ays. When he reported back to the squadron he confessed to Littauer that he had boarded a train from Paris headed toward the Spanish border, intending to desert. Thinking it over during the hours on the train, he had changed his mind, got off at Bordeaux, and returned. Listauer, after listening to his story, agreed to forget the two days ^[[o]]f AWOL. Bernheimer returned to duty and continued his teamwork with Jordan for the rest of the war. 
After the war Bernheimer went to work for a New York newspaper. One day in the early 1920's he was found dead in his apartment, a suicide.
P.S. Our southern ,friendliness toward Jews, before E E ^[[1]], did not 
[[insert]] Love, ^[[Dad]] [[/insert]]
mean that we were more toleran^[[t]] [[insert]] ^[[than]] [[/insert]] Yankees were.
We just had not come into contact with the 
northern type of Jew. Southern Jews were mostly of old families that had lived here long enough to become assimilated. The north had some Jews like that, but most were recent immigrants .