War stories

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

Dr. Aaron Kuptsow was a 2nd Lt. Air Force navigator who specialized in a top-secret technology called radar when he was shot down over Germany. It was Nov. 26, 1944. He was 21.
Imagine being that young, suddenly in trouble over enemy territory, and knowing that before bailing out of the plane you had to smash the radar tubes in the craft to protect the technology.
That’s the bind Kuptsow was in.
"It was frightening. Even more frightening was knowing that I was parachuting into Germany and am Jewish," he said.
Kuptsow tried to get rid of his dog tags — marked with an "H" for Hebrew — as Jewish airmen were instructed to do if they landed in Germany.
"They started to shoot at me, and one of the farmers saw me throw them," Kuptsow said of discarding his dog tags.
One of the farmers retrieved the tags. When he saw the "H" markings, the guy became irate and punched Kuptsow in the jaw, breaking the young airman’s eardrum — an injury that went untreated.
"I was scared to death in a different country, with a broken eardrum. I wasn’t hurt too bad and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself," he recalled.
Kuptsow spent one month in solitary confinement and then six months in Stalag Luft I, the prisoner-of-war camp in Barth, Germany.
The Jewish prisoners were separated from the rest of the population and they feared they’d be transferred to a concentration camp. That never came to pass, and the 9,000 prisoners were liberated by the Russians on May 1, 1945.
The doctor’s dramatic tale is just one of dozens of war memories that state Rep. Mike McGeehan (D-173rd dist.) hopes to preserve with his World War II Journals, a documentary preserving the stories of countless Northeast Philadelphia veterans and their families.
The project, sponsored by the Major Artery Revitalization Committee, a non-profit organization devoted to neighborhood improvement in the Northeast, will call on local filmmaker George Holmes to record interviews of the veterans at various historical sites across the city, as well as at the Tacony American Legion Post.
"We can’t do it without you," Nancy Hartey, a McGeehan aide, told veterans who gathered at the Tacony American Legion Post for the project kickoff last Friday.
For Kuptsow, his rescue from Stalag Luft I brought relief after enduring the dangers of a harrowing war. The Russians kept the soldiers there under their control until they were flown to France two weeks later, he recalled.
The liberation/rehabilitation camps were named for cigarettes. Kuptsow had lost 30 pounds at the Barth compound and tried to gain some of it back at Camp Lucky Strike before flying back to the United States.
The young navigator arrived at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on June 23, 1945 — his 22nd birthday.
The experience made Kuptsow much more introspective and matured him a lot. While he had average grades in high school, he was an "A" student when he returned to the University of Pennsylvania and eventually became a doctor.
Kuptsow, now 85, practiced medicine for 39 years in Mayfair. He retired 19 years ago and lives with his wife Anita in the Baker’s Bay development along the Delaware River.
The couple have two children and four grandchildren.
"Like most of us who said very little for fifty years, all of a sudden everybody’s talking," Kuptsow said, referring to the broad movement to preserve veterans’ recollections of military service and the war.
The local project is a personal one for Northeast lawmaker McGeehan, whose uncle, John McGeehan, was killed in action in 1944. The legislator visited the Epinal Military Cemetery, where his uncle is buried, in 1985 during the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. He was the first in his family to make the pilgrimage to the cemetery, an expansive tract near the city of Epinal in France.
"To look out at the sea of all these alabaster crucifixes and stars of David — it really brings it home," McGeehan said. ••
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com

Find out more . . .

To learn more about Kuptsow’s ordeal, visit http://www.merkki.com/kuptsowaaron.htm
For more information about the Epinal Military Cemetery in France, visit http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/ep.php
To be included in the World War II Journals project, send an e-mail to phillyneighbors@comcast.net