From Omaha Beach to Nuremberg

A tough Jewish kid from the Bronx, Dan Altman enlisted in the Army when the U.S. entered World War II. Adapting street smarts to soldiering, he became a skilled sharpshooter and attained the rank of sergeant in the 1st Infantry Division.
On D-Day, Altman’s unit was among the second wave to assault the German defenses at Normandy. Surviving the invasion, the fighting in the lethal hedgerow country, the Hürtgen Forest, and the Battle of the Bulge, he was later assigned to gather information on the Nazi atrocities performed at the concentration camps for the trials at Nuremburg.
Beginning with his plunge into the blood-tinged surf at Omaha Beach, his candid, often graphic memoir is presented here as told to his granddaughter.

The late Sgt. Daniel Altman grew up in the Bronx, New York. He enlisted in the Army at 21 and served in the ETO. When he came state-side he integrated back into civilian life and repressed his memories of the war. He lived in Verona, New Jersey.

Fawn Zwickel is enrolled in a combined MA/PsyD program in psychology at the College of Saint Elizabeth. She lives in Rockaway, New Jersey.

Daniel Altman with Fawn Zwickel

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 208
Bibliographic Info: 31 photos, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2020
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7923-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3767-9
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments by Fawn Zwickel vii
Preface by Fawn Zwickel 1
1—Hell 5
2—Lucky Foot 15
3—Starving and Battered 28
4—Surviving Normandy 42
5—Face to Face with the Siegfried Line 52
6—Woodland Splinters 59
7—Snow, Blood, Bodies and Shit 70
8—My Private Battle of the Bulge 81
9—War’s Over—Off to the Next Assignment 92
10—Camp Ashcan 102
11—Transporting Guilty Cargo 108
12—Haunted Forever 117
13—Camp #219, Dachau 123
14—Buchenwald 131
15—Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz 134
16—Standing Guard at Nuremberg 139
17—Homesick 151
18—The Final Ride Home 154
19—Trouble Over the Atlantic Basin 161
20—Killing Time to Stay Alive 165
21—Fixing the Propeller 172
22—An Empty Welcome Home 175
23—A Changed Man at the VA 181
24—Compartmentalizing 186
A Last Word 191
Author’s Military Service 193
References 195
Index 197

• “A simply riveting read form first page to last…invaluable…recommended”—Midwest Book Review