03/12/03

8Couple

Richard Peterson, a sergeant with the U.S. Army's 106th Infantry Division, saw a German soldier level a rifle at him, and Peterson gave himself up for dead.

He heard a rifle crack. The German dropped dead. Looking around, Peterson saw another American soldier with his just-fired rifle. It changed Peterson's views on people of other races. The soldier who had saved his life was black.

Willi and Adda Rikken told me that story as we sipped coffee at Carpe Diem on Old Shell Road, along with Dr. Norman Lichtenfeld and his son, Alex.

They read it in the book "Healing the Child Warrior," by Dr. Richard Peterson, psychiatrist -- the man whose life that black soldier had saved during the Battle of the Bulge.

At the time the incident happened, Willi and Adda were both awaiting liberation by the Allied armies that had landed at Normandy and pushed relentlessly eastward until the massive German counter-attack in the Ardennes Forest.

Lichtenfeld's father served with the 106th before his capture during the final months of the war.

Willi, a Dutch youth, had been sent into the countryside to labor on a farm to avoid conscription as a forced laborer for the Germans.

Adda, a Belgian, had been a refugee early in the war but ended up under German occupation.

After the war, Willi spent a career as radio operator for the Holland-America steamship lines, and Adda became a schoolteacher. Now they volunteer their time to conduct Americans on tours of Belgium's World War II sites.

And they are doing their part to provide a suitable memorial for the 11 black American soldiers massacred by the German SS in the Belgian village of Wereth.

The soldiers, part of U.S. artillery forces, were overrun by the initial German thrust and fled into the Ardennes. They were taken in by a Belgian family in Wereth, but a German sympathizer betrayed them to the SS. They were led into the corner of a nearby pasture and shot down.

Lichtenfeld and his father made a pilgrimage back to Belgium in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. There they met Adda and Willi, who showed them the site of the Wereth monument.

The Lichtenfelds and Rikkens have since been raising funds for the Wereth 11 monument.

"Let's do it for all the black men who helped liberate us," said Adda.

The couple came to Mobile as guests of the Lichtenfelds. Since I first wrote about their efforts last July, around $7,000 has been raised toward the monument, including about $4,000 from Alabama. They need about $7,500 more.

The money has helped to purchase the monument site, on the very land on which the massacre was carried out. Steps now lead from the pasture to the monument site. Simple bronze plaques in French, Dutch, German and English tell what happened there.

Some of the money has come from individuals. Some has come from military organizations, including organizations of black soldiers and veterans. The Rikkens and Lichtenfelds are hoping for some support from celebrities, who might lend their names to the campaign. (Did you hear that, Oprah?)

The Rikkens are staunch admirers of Americans. Whenever an American is in Belgium and needs the help of someone who speaks English, they drop what they're doing and help out.

Adda remembers the contrast between the way the Belgians reacted to the conquering German Wehrmacht and the liberating American Army. Every Belgian household wanted to have at least one American soldier as a guest.

They were puzzled, though, over the Americans' concern about race. They didn't understand why white soldiers couldn't accept their hospitality in the presence of black soldiers. The Europeans had no legacy of slavery or a Civil War fought largely over racial issues. To them, one life given to the cause was as good as another life.

"White mama cries, black mama cries," was the way Adda put it.

The memorial at Wereth isn't the continent's only monument to black soldiers. A large obelisk at Verdun, France, honors black soldiers who died recapturing that city from the Germans.

And Adda Rikken told me about the time they escorted a Sioux Indian to a monument at Recogne, Belgium, not far from Bastogne, where the 101st Airborne Division made its heroic stand against the encircling enemy. The monument commemorates the American Indians who had helped liberate the country.

There were Indians in nearly every military unit, said Lichtenfeld, a military history buff. Every one of them was nicknamed "Chief."

The Rikkens remember that the Sioux emotionally placed his hand on the monument and told them: "Think it over. We have to go 5,000 miles to find a monument."

Contributions to the Wereth monument still may be sent to the U.S. Wereth Memorial Fund, BankTrust Inc., P.O. Box 3067, Mobile, AL 36652 or in care of Lichtenfeld's office at 6701 Airport Blvd., Suite B110, Mobile, AL 36608.

(Readers may write Gene Owens at the Mobile Regis ter, P.O. Box 2488, Mobile AL 36652-2488, call him at 219-5652 or e-mail him at go wens@mobileregister.com )