BY RENNA VAN OOT, CEO or Jewish Family Services of Delaware
—
I was asked recently to share something about my parents’ experiences during World War II, and how the legacy of their generation shaped my own.
There are countless stories of courage, loss, and survival from that period—especially within the Jewish community. I have read Holocaust testimonies, listened to survivors speak, and stood in awe of their resilience. I cannot claim my family lived through anything comparable. But I can share our story, which is woven, in its own way, into the fabric of that history.
I grew up knowing that my father, Jim, served in the war. He arrived in Normandy shortly after D-Day and fought through France, Belgium, and Germany. What I did not fully understand—until reading his unpublished memoir years later—was how deeply the Jewish experience of the war shaped him and shaped the world in which I was raised.
A Young Soldier Leaves Home
Jim Van Oot
Jim was born in 1921 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of a Yankee from upstate New York and a Southern belle. He was a cerebral and sensitive child, the sort of young man who read voraciously, thought deeply, and disliked unnecessary authority—traits not always appreciated when he graduated high school at 16 and was promptly sent to a military college.
He completed his officer’s training at 20, spent a few years stateside, and eventually shipped out to England. On June 15, 1944—nine days after the Allied landing—he stepped onto the shores of Normandy.
My grandmother kept all of the numerous letters my dad wrote home. In his retirement years, he gathered them together, filled in the gaps, and put together an unpublished book for his kids and grandkids. He wanted us—his children and grandchildren—to understand what he had witnessed. He hoped that by remembering, we might prevent such cruelty from ever repeating.
Awakening to Jewish Realities
My father was raised Southern Baptist, though as my aunt once said, “it didn’t stick.” He grew up surrounded by people who looked like him, prayed like him, and believed certain things—until he went to war.
Music was his refuge. Though he made his career as a DuPont chemist, he was, at heart, a musician: a trumpet player, a singer, a man who found harmony where words sometimes failed. In the Army he joined a quartet and soon realized that the other three singers were Jewish.
He listened to their stories. One of the men, Erich Hartmann, was the son of a German Jew who had fought for Germany in World War I, only to flee to the United States as antisemitism escalated.
In one of his letters home, my father wrote:
I am learning things about America every day I am away from my country . . .
It was, I think, his first encounter with the idea that Jewish history and American history were entwined—and that both were more complex than he had known.
The Doorway in Cologne
My father fought through some of the war’s bloodiest months, witnessing brutality and moral collapse on a scale that defied comprehension. It was in March 1945, in Cologne, that he encountered a moment of humanity in the midst of extreme inhumanity—one that stayed with him for the rest of his life.
His unit entered the Klingelpütz prison, where Jews and political prisoners had been beaten, starved, and tortured. Among the prisoners was a Jewish man in his 50s whose legs had been tied in a lotus-like position for so long that he could no longer straighten them. After triaging others to the hospital, my father helped lift the man into a Jeep and drove him home.
A woman came to the door. When I asked her name, she answered with trepidation. A knock from an army officer had long been a cause for fear. I stepped back and gestured to the Jeep. The room behind her went silent as they recognized him. In an instant, people rushed outside crying ‘Onkel! Papa!’ The celebration began, and I was forgotten. I drove back to the prison with joy and satisfaction that I was able to do something positive in that gruesome world.
The Night He Finally Cried
For years after the war, my father held his memories tightly sealed. He built a life—marriage, children, career—without allowing himself to fully feel the weight of what he had witnessed.
Then, on the 25th anniversary of D-Day, a documentary aired showing footage from the camps.
I was nine or 10. I remember my parents debating whether I was old enough to watch. I remember the black-and-white images, the bodies, the skeletal survivors. And I remember my father suddenly rising to his feet, tears streaming down his face, saying, “I was there. I saw that.” He left the room.
In his memoir he wrote:
Finally, I was able to cry. I ran upstairs and sobbed on the bed. That catharsis freed me of the emotions I had been withholding for so long, memories that had been eating away at me. I can speak of those days now, but often tears come with the memories. Why do people have to treat each other this way?
It was the first time I understood that my father carried a Jewish story—one that wasn’t his by birth, but one he experienced through what he saw, whom he helped, and whose suffering he witnessed.
Trudy Van Oot
My Mother, Germany, and Choosing a Jewish Neighborhood
There is another story—my mother’s. She was raised Catholic in Nazi Germany. Hers is a story for another time. After the war, she worked for the Americans helping identify war criminals and issuing new documents for German citizens. She met my father, who was then the military governor of the county she had been relocated to after her home and city were bombed. In the rubble of postwar Europe, each navigating their grief, exhaustion, and recovery, they found one another. By then he was 24 and she was 23.
When they chose a place to raise their family, they settled in a new neighborhood north of Wilmington. It was one of the first unrestricted developments in the region, built by a Jewish developer, and home to many Jewish families. I believe they chose it deliberately.
They wanted us to grow up surrounded by diversity—but especially by Jewish culture, Jewish friendships, Jewish values. They wanted us to see the beauty of Judaism, the joy of Jewish life, and the importance of standing against bigotry in all its forms.
They wanted us, in their own way, to never forget.
What I Carry Forward
I did not grow up Jewish. But, somehow, I grew up with a deep sense that the stories my parents brought home—stories of the people they felt morally bound to witness—were entrusted to me as well.
My parents taught us that history is not someone else’s responsibility. Remembering is something all of us must do. And so, in sharing my father’s story, I hope to honor not only his memory, but the lives that intersected with his—and shaped mine.
About the Author:
RENNA VAN OOT, JD, MSS, MLSP, currently serves our community as the Chief Executive Officer of Jewish Family Services of Delaware. She is passionate about nonprofit mission-based work and has served on numerous boards, including her current position on the board of YWCA Delaware. Renna grew up and worked predominantly in northern Delaware and the metropolitan Philadelphia region, and now resides in Chester County, Pennsylvania. She extends warm greeting to all the kids from Green Acres.
