Untold
A family history left behind.
A family history left behind.
This is my grandfather, Lawrence (Larry) Lifshus.
He was a Jewish American Fighter Pilot during WWII. Through the discovery of an old cigar box filled with his personal archive, my family attempted to piece together the story of his capturing by Nazis. His plane was shot down during a bombardier mission from Molesworth, England to Bremen, Germany on March 30th 1945. After a harrowing journey, he was taken to Stalag Luft I, a POW camp near Barth, Germany, before being liberated by Russian forces a few weeks later.
According to my family, he rarely spoke about his experiences in the war, and he died before I had the chance to meet him. Finding this box filled with photographs, artifacts, documents, and a journal detailing his capturing, was a chance to unravel the mystery of his war years and, as a result, connect in ways we never expected.
“We landed in a small field, there were some houses and a woods at the edge of the clearing. We were deciding what to do when bullets started zinging all around us and we all ran away from the plane. I had my shoes tied to my parachute harness. I took my harness off when I ran forgetting all about my shoes. We ran about 50 yards when a little Dutch kid came running up to us waving a white Handkerchief, he tried to tell us there were Germans in the woods around us. We saw a bunch of soldiers coming out of the woods towards us…. We walked toward them with our hands up. They were coming out of the woods in all directions and they were German.” – Excerpt from my grandfather’s journal (see below)
Artifacts
Newspaper clipping – he was chosen “the most accurate bombardier at the school”
Pocket square worn to signal that he was an American to Russian troops – “Ya Amerikánets”
Navigation tools
He was awarded an Air Force Air Medal, a Distinguished Flying Cross, and a Purple Heart
His double sided silk map of Northern Europe
This is the cigar box where everything was found
