HE WAS FROM KNOXVILLE, UNSURPRISINGLY: ‘We are all Jews’: Soldier who defied his German captors to be awarded Medal of Honor.

It was within these conditions that the POWs subsisted until roughly one month after their capture, on Jan. 27, 1945, when Roddie Edmonds, the highest-ranking American noncommissioned officer at Ziegenhain stalag that day, was told to order his nearly 200 Jewish-American soldiers out of the morning roll call.

Instead, the master sergeant ordered more than 1,000 of his fellow prisoners to stand together in front of their barracks.

The commandant scoffed, noting that they couldn’t all be Jewish.

Roddie Edmonds was defiant, telling the Nazi: “We are all Jews.”

The commandant furiously marched over to the master sergeant, placed his Luger to Roddie Edmonds’ forehead and once again told him to order his Jewish soldiers to step forward or this time he would execute him.

“You can shoot me,” Tanner, who was standing next to Roddie Edmonds at the time, recalled the NCO saying. “You can shoot all of us. But we know who you are. And this war is almost over, and you’ll be a war criminal.”

The Nazi slowly lowered his pistol, did an about-face, and walked away.

He deserves the Medal.