Wednesday, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust welcomed 101 year-old World War II veteran, Sidney Walton, to the museum. Walton, who is Jewish, is doing a fifty state driving tour across the country with his family started in 2018. He hopes to raise awareness and appreciation of World War II vets and the sacrifices they made to save this nation by giving people a chance to meet an American veteran of World War II.
According to news reports of Walton’s tour, Walton always regretted that, as a young man, he had never been able to meet a veteran of the American Civil War. (Some Civil War veterans lived till as late as the 1950s.)
“We’re carrying the message of how few World War II veterans there are left,” Paul Walton told the Washington Post last year. “We wanted to give everyone an opportunity to meet one before it’s too late.”
Earlier this month, Walton served as the Grand Marshal of a COVID-19-safe Fourth of July Parade on the 101 Freeway.
Born Feb. 11, 1919 in NYC, Sidney joined the Army at 21 to fight Hitler nine months before Pearl Harbor. As a Corporal, he fought in the China, Burma, India Theater (CBI), 34th Infantry, 8th Division, and returned to the U.S. after the war.
LAMoth Program Director Jill Brown hosted a fascinating talk with Holocaust Survivor Ernie Gross and Dachau Liberator Don Greenbaum, another Jewish WWII veteran several weeks ago. At the request of LAMOTH, Gross and Greenbaum participating in video discussion, speaking to each other after 75 years. Both men now live in Philadelphia. You can view the recording at https://youtu.be/4lupgwAU2eA