Call Herman Zeitchik "Sir." He's earned it.
Zeitchik, who calls Miami Beach home part time when Baltimore's too cold, is now a chevalier, a knight in the French Legion of Honor.
The 86-year-old World War II veteran earned that elite recognition last September, more than six decades after landing at Normandy, helping liberate Paris, and holding back Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge. He also helped free starving prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp.
Luxembourg and French statesmen have numerous times invited him overseas to celebrate D-Day anniversaries, like just last year when he brought his daughter.
They’re so grateful, Zeitchik said of his European friends.
On June 6th, 1944, Zeitchik landed at Utah Beach with the 4th Infantry Division.
“There were bullets flying everywhere,” he recalls. “You didn’t make too many friends.”
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Around 150,000 men landed and 5,000 men fell that day.
But the bullets didn’t keep Zeitchik from snapping pictures. He kept his camera with him, even crawling.
“I just like to take pictures,” he said.
Zeitchik shared those memories with 11th and 12th graders at St. Thomas Aquinas High School on Wednesday. He wants future generations to remember what he experienced.
“I don’t think they’ll forget,” he said. “It takes a lot to shake the American people.”
But his message to social studies students was less about remembering, and more about advice.
“You have to do your best,” he told them. “I think that’s what saved me.”
Follow Julia Bagg on Twitter at @juliabagg.
