2022 National Tribute Dinner

The Ritchie Boys Recipients of the 2022 Elie Wiesel Award

The Museum will confer its highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award, on the Ritchie Boys, a little-known special World War II US military intelligence unit that included many Jewish refugees from Nazism and was instrumental to the Allied victory.

Facing significant intelligence deficiencies, in April 1942, the US Army activated a plan to convert Fort Ritchie, a Maryland National Guard Camp, into an intelligence training center. Approximately 20,000 men—many of whom were immigrants and refugees from more than 70 countries, including 2,800 German and Austrian refugees who fled Nazi persecution and had arrived in the United States as “enemy aliens”—were trained there. They became known as the “Ritchie Boys.” Their enormous contributions to defeating Nazism—one army study concluded they were responsible for obtaining nearly 60 percent of the actionable intelligence gathered in Europe during the war—and their postwar justice efforts remain little known to Americans even today.

After their training, the Ritchie Boys were dispersed in different army units. Many landed on the beaches of Normandy soon after D-Day. From that point on, Ritchie Boys were involved in every major battle in Europe, using their language skills to gather intelligence, interpret enemy documents, and engage in psychological warfare encouraging German soldiers to surrender by dropping leaflets, through radio broadcasts, and in trucks equipped with loudspeakers. Hundreds of Ritchie Boys were attached to divisions that liberated concentration camps and interviewed former prisoners to document the atrocities that took place. Jewish soldiers were in great danger if captured, and two were captured and executed due to being identified by their captors as German-born Jews. After the war, a number served as translators and interrogators—especially during the Nuremberg Trials.

In August 2021, the bipartisan US Senate Resolution 349 officially recognized the bravery of those troops. About 200 Ritchie Boys are estimated to be alive today.

Photo: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Otto Perl

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General Mark A. Milley Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

General Mark A. Milley is the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council.

Prior to becoming Chairman on October 1, 2019, General Milley served as the 39th Chief of Staff of the US Army.

A native of Massachusetts, General Milley graduated from Princeton University in 1980, where he received his commission from Army ROTC.

General Milley has had multiple command and staff positions in eight divisions and Special Forces throughout the last 40 years to include command of the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division; the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division; Deputy Commanding General, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault); Commanding General, 10th Mountain Division; Commanding General, III Corps; and Commanding General, US Army Forces Command.

While serving as the Commanding General, III Corps, General Milley deployed as the Commanding General, International Security Assistance Force Joint Command and Deputy Commanding General, US Forces Afghanistan. General Milley’s joint assignments also include the Joint Staff operations directorate and as a Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense.

General Milley’s operational deployments include the Multi-National Force and Observers, Sinai, Egypt; Operation Just Cause, Panama; Operation Uphold Democracy, Haiti; Operation Joint Endeavor, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq; and three tours during Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan. He also deployed to Somalia and Colombia.

In addition to his bachelor’s degree in political science from Princeton University, General Milley has a master’s degree in international relations from Columbia University and one from the US Naval War College in national security and strategic studies. He is also a graduate of the MIT Seminar XXI National Security Studies Program.

General Milley and his wife, Hollyanne, have been married for more than 35 years and have two children.

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