Soldiers of The Great War: Jewish Military Service in WW I, as Reported in The Jewish Chronicle – “An American Souvenir Hunter”, September 25, 1914

The following article from The Jewish Chronicle is of a different sort: An very brief account about conditions in Belgium, by a Private Cohen – first name not given – of the Royal Army Medical Corps.  The incidental allusion to “an American” is notable. 

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AN AMERICAN SOUVENIR HUNTER

The Jewish Chronicle

September 25, 1914

Another soldier in the R.A.M.C. – also named Cohen – who has been captured and has escaped, writing from Shorncliffe Military Hospital, says, “I am footsore with walking in a pair of boots three sizes too big for me but I am in great hopes of going to the front again shortly.  I was in two battles, and the bullets were all round us, as we have been in the firing-line all the time.  I have buried a lot of Englishmen and one German.  Enclosed please find two German souvenirs I took off a dead German’s cap.  I was offered (pound) 1 for them by an American.”

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