Ernest Marvel has a case full of medals in his Frankford home.

He was awarded his most recent addition, the French Legion of Honor, in July — almost 80 years after he helped liberate the country from the Germans in World War II.

Marvel, now 98, has rarely left the Bethany Beach area, save for the war.

“I’m a home boy,” he said.

He speaks fondly of his family. His garden is his pride and joy. He likes to dance and sing karaoke on the weekends at the local VFW and Eagles Club.

But Marvel also holds dark memories of a different time, when heroes had to fight through Europe to free thousands held in concentration camps under Adolf Hitler’s control.

He was one of those heroes.

In 1945, Marvel made his way through French and German villages, across the Rhine River and to the gates of Dachau.

Marvel’s war story

Pfc. Marvel entered the war late, just after the Battle of the Bulge, according to historian Eric Montgomery. A member of U.S. Army Company B, 179th Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion, 45th Infantry Division, the 20-year-old made his way to Europe aboard the Queen Elizabeth troopship.

One of Marvel’s first missions, according to Montgomery, was to crawl “across an enemy-held field (strewn) with mines and booby traps.”

“We had to climb from foxhole to foxhole to get to our headquarters to let them know where we were,” Marvel said. “Each foxhole had two Germans in it, but they were kids. They were maybe 15 or 16 years old, and they were scared to death.”

His division crossed the Rhine River in storm boats as the Germans fired mortars at them.

“About three boats down from me there was a mortar shell landing, and it blew it apart,” Marvel said. “We were about halfway across. It could’ve been us.”

From there, the soldiers moved into Germany, taking village after village, often house by house.

“I was a bazooka man for a good while, and I would knock out the wheels of a tank so they couldn’t move. I’d shoot a phosphorus grenade into the turret, and it’d get so hot, they’d have to come out. Some would come out fighting, some with their hands up,” Marvel said.

He bombed German soldiers shooting from perches in church steeples, as well.

“I could hear ‘em for ages, screaming as it blew ’em out,” Marvel said.

He became reflective as he spoke.

“It’s not a good feeling,” he said. “I’m doing better.”

Marvel said he has post-traumatic stress disorder. After the war, he’d wake his wife up in the night as he experienced flashbacks. Ultimately, he got help from a psychiatrist.

“He said my trouble was it was all bottled up in me; I wouldn’t let it out. He said, ‘You start letting it out and you’ll feel better.’ And I did. I started telling different people about different things and it started coming around, but it’s still never left my mind,” he said.

Liberating Dachau concentration camp

Part of the trauma he experienced was during the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. Marvel’s memories are vivid of the horrific place where thousands of people were killed.

“There was about a half a mile of concrete road, and they had a big German barrack made out of brick on each side of the road. In between was a white-bark tree,” he said.

Marvel and his fellow soldiers moved through the buildings and killed or took prisoner the German soldiers inside.

Elsewhere on the grounds, he opened up a boxcar, only to find it and several others like it full of bodies.

“The smell was terrible. They had … big incinerators that they were burning them with and they couldn’t burn them as fast as they were dying,” he said.

That day, U.S. soldiers found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies brought to Dachau, all in an advanced state of decomposition, according to the U.S. National Holocaust Memorial Museum.

He was shocked by the condition of the prisoners still alive inside the camp, who were starving and wracked with diseases.

“You’ve seen ‘The Walking Dead’?” Marvel asked of the zombie apocalypse TV series. “They looked worse than that. They were dying of malnutrition. They were nothing but skin and bones, and their eyes sunk right into their heads.”

Soldiers “tossed candy bars and cigarettes over the barbed wire to the starving prisoners until ordered to stop,” according to the July 2022 National WWII Museum article, “The Last Days of the Dachau Concentration Camp,” but most of them stayed out of the main compound for “fear of disease.”

“Medical staff came, regulated the supply of food and water to those beset with malnutrition and created a typhus ward to respond to the epidemic of that dreaded disease in the camp,” the article states.

U.S. forces liberated 32,000 prisoners at Dachau, according to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A connection to the present

The only injury Marvel said he suffered during the war was from being hit by shrapnel on his arm. He still has a scar.

“Our general … he wanted us to take this village. He said they had been flying over and reconnaissance planes saw no activity,” he said. “We got out halfway into the field. It was breaking day, and they started shooting at us. … And the shrapnel was flying everywhere.”

Marvel was one of eight of 28 men to survive the attack, he said.

One of the soldiers who did not survive was Orla Moninger, a man Marvel had become close friends with since arriving in Europe, he said. When they returned to retrieve the bodies the next day, Moninger’s hand was over his heart, holding photos of his family, Marvel said.

Marvel’s grandson, Donnie Carey, knew of Moninger from stories shared by his grandfather. He began wondering if the fallen soldier had any family still alive. The historian he’d been working with, Montgomery, found Moninger did indeed have a living son, and Carey gave him a call.

“He said he heard (his father) was getting off a train in Germany and was shot,” Carey said, recalling the conversation with Moninger’s son. “The hair just stood up on my arm because I knew I had some information he had never heard. … It was right before holidays and he was like, ‘I have a story I can tell now.’ It was a great moment.”

A grandson, a country music singer and the Legion of Honor

Carey said he became interested in learning more about his grandfather’s time in the war about six years ago. That was when his wife read “The Diary of Anne Frank,” the well-known writings of a young Jewish girl who spent two years hiding from Nazis with her family and ultimately died in a concentration camp.

“She said, ‘You know, your grandfather experienced a lot of this stuff at Dachau,’ and I just realized how honored I was to still have the opportunity to help him and learn from him,” Carey said. “He’s my hero.”

Carey and the rest of Marvel’s extended family surprised him last summer when they took him to see country music singer Jamey Johnson at the Freeman Arts Pavilion in Selbyville. Johnson gave Marvel a shoutout before singing “In Color,” a song about a veteran.

The family made their way to the front of the stage and Johnson said, “Thank you for your sacrifice, sir.” He then came down and gave Marvel a handshake, a hug and some guitar pics.

Video of the moment was posted online, and one of those who viewed it reached out to let Carey know Marvel qualified for the Legion of Honor, France’s highest decoration.

“I’m just trying to do everything I can to help him be recognized while he’s still here,” Carey said.

Marvel turned 98 in May.

This summer, he contracted pneumonia on top of COVID-19, but recovered in time for the Legion of Honor ceremony in Washington, D.C. It was held the day before Bastille Day, (July 14) France’s most notable patriotic holiday. Marvel and two other American World War II vets were presented the award by French Ambassador Phillipe Etienne.

The award was created in 1802 “to recognize outstanding services rendered to France by military and civilian personnel,” Etienne said.

An average of 2,200 French citizens and 300 foreigners are decorated each year, according to the Legion of Honor website.
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Italian authorities scrambled Sunday to relieve overcrowding in shelters after scores of boats carrying a total of about 1,000 migrants reached Italy’s southern shores and two of its tiny islands over the weekend.

Nearly 50 boats arrived between Friday night and Saturday on Lampedusa island off Sicily, according to state radio and other Italian media. Other boats carrying migrants reached Pantelleria, another tiny island favored by vacationers.

Hundreds of migrants stepped ashore from the virtual flotilla of smugglers’ vessels on those islands. Several of the vessels launched by migrant smugglers held as few as eight passengers. But others had around 100 passengers aboard, many of them from Tunisia, according to the reports.

Other boats reached the shores of the Italian mainland Saturday, either unaided or assisted by Italian coast guard vessels.

The Italian news agency ANSA said that 92 migrants, most of them from Afghanistan, reached Puglia — the “heel” of the boot-shaped peninsula — in a sailboat Saturday. Still other migrants sailed to Calabria in the “toe” of the peninsula, while other boats reached Sicily and Sardinia, Italy’s two biggest islands, in the last two days.

On Sardinia, Carabinieri paramilitary police spotted 29 migrants walking along a road, ANSA said.

The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders tweeted that one of its rescue ships, Geo Barents, saved 25 migrants, including five minors, from a small boat in distress in international waters near Libya Saturday night. Geo Barents already had other migrants abroad plucked to safety in other rescue operations, the group said.

With the disembarkation of hundreds of migrants from boats in the last days, the residence temporarily housing rescued migrants on Lampedusa quickly became overcrowded. Corriere della Sera said the residence housed 1,500 asylum-seekers, nearly four times its capacity.

Interior ministry authorities arranged for a commercial passenger ferry to sail from Sicily to Lampedusa, where it was expected to arrive on Sunday night, embark 250 migrants and take them to Sicilian migrant residences to lessen crowding on the tiny island’s facility.

While hundreds of thousands of migrants have set sail from Libyan shores aboard smugglers’ boats in the last decades, many also set out from Tunisia.

Italian media noted the Tunisian coast guard had thwarted at least a score of attempts by vessels filled with migrants to head toward Italy and rescued many others from boats in distress on Friday and Saturday.
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Pope Francis, who has often said he may step down in the future if bad health impedes him from leading the Catholic Church, on Sunday praised the humility of one of the few popes in history to resign willingly instead of ruling for life.

L’Aquila, a central Italian city which Francis visited briefly, is the burial place of Celestine V, who resigned as pope in 1294 after only five months to return to his life as a hermit, establishing a papal prerogative.

Pope Benedict XVI, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in about 600 years to resign willingly, visited L’Aquila four years before stepping down. In the past, Francis has also praised Benedict’s courage.

When the Vatican announced in June Francis’ trip to L’Aquila – to inaugurate an annual “feast of forgiveness” – it fueled speculation that a conjunction of events – including the induction of new cardinals on Saturday and meetings starting on Monday on the Vatican’s new constitution – could foreshadow a resignation announcement.

However, in an interview with Reuters last month Francis, 85, laughed the idea off, saying “it never entered my mind,” while leaving open the possibility that he could step down for health reasons in the distant future.

In the homily of a Mass for thousands of people in a central square, Francis noted that in “The Divine Comedy,” Dante Alighieri condemned Celestine for having carried out what the medieval poet called “The Great Refusal.”

But Francis, who prayed silently before Celestine’s tomb, said that by relinquishing power, Celestine showed the strength that comes from humility.

“In the eyes of men, the humble are seen as weak and losers, but in reality, they are the real winners because they are the only ones who trust completely in the Lord and know His will,” Francis said.

The pope, who has been using a wheelchair and a cane for the past few months because of a knee ailment, sat through most of the Mass but read his homily in a strong voice and often went off script.

He told the crowd how the pilot of the helicopter that brought him from Rome had to circle for some time because of thick fog in the mountainous area before finding an opening in the mist. He compared this to seizing an opening from God in one’s life.

Although Francis has quashed rumors that he plans to resign anytime soon, the visit underscored the Catholic Church’s need to regulate the status of pontiffs who step down.

L’Aquila was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2009 that killed 309 people, injured several thousand, and destroyed many buildings.

At the start of Sunday’s visit, Francis donned a grey fire fighter helmet and was taken around the ruins of the city’s cathedral, which is being reconstructed.
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Poland and Czechia signed an agreement Saturday to protect Slovak airspace as Slovakia gives up its old Soviet-made MiG-29 jets.

The vow of protection by NATO allies is to last until Slovakia receives new F-16s from the United States, something expected to happen in 2024.

Under the agreement, Poland and Czechia are providing the necessary forces to quickly react in the case of violations of Slovakia’s airspace.

The agreement was signed at a Slovak air base by defense ministers Mariusz Blaszczak of Poland, Jana Cernochova of Czechia and Jaroslav Nad of Slovakia.

Blaszczak said under the agreement, a pair of Polish F-16 fighter jets would begin patrolling Slovakia’s air space starting Sept. 1. He called the effort a way for the neighbors to “deter a possible aggressor.” Slovakia has a short border with Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February.

Slovakia has a fleet of 11 MiG-29 jets, and last month Nad said Slovakia may consider donating them to Ukraine under certain conditions.

Asked by a reporter at a joint news conference about whether the jets might go to Ukraine, Nad said Slovakia was in talks with Ukraine and European Union allies about how best to help. But he said he could not say what that help might look like yet.

Since the start of the Russian invasion Feb. 24, Ukraine has urged Western allies to provide it with warplanes to challenge Russia’s air superiority.

Poland, Czechia and Slovakia belong to a region that was under Moscow’s control during the decades of the Cold War. Many people here worry that if Russia isn’t stopped in Ukraine, Moscow’s renewed imperial ambitions could target them too.
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Serbia and Kosovo have settled an ethnic dispute over the movement of citizens across their border, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Saturday.

“We have a deal,” Borrell said in a tweet. “Kosovo Serbs, as well as all other citizens, will be able to travel freely between Kosovo & Serbia using their ID cards. The EU just received guarantees from PM [Albin] Kurti to this end.” 

The dispute stemmed from predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, something Belgrade has refused to recognize.

Serbia and Kosovo still have to agree on the hotly contested use of Serbian car number plates issued in the north of Kosovo where Serbs defy the government in Pristina and see Belgrade as their capital.

Independent Kosovo is recognized by the United States, all but five EU members, but not by a number of other states including Serbia’s allies Russia and China.

The most recent flareup of tensions between Serbia and Kosovo has been triggered by a directive for Kosovo authorities for local Serbs to switch their car number plates from Serbian to Kosovo ones from September 1.

Serbs from northern Kosovo, responded by setting roadblocks and clashing sporadically with police before NATO peacekeepers oversaw their removal.

The talks between EU and U.S. envoys with the authorities in Serbia and Kosovo have so far failed to yield concrete results about the car number plates issue.

Earlier in the day, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said he was hoping the EU would provide guarantees for the personal documents agreement. He also said Serbia would be issuing a “a general disclaimer” in which it would be written that the use of identity cards issued by Pristina was allowed for practical reasons with an aim of facilitating the freedom of movement but not tantamount to the recognition of Kosovo’s independence.

“Under the EU-facilitated Dialogue, Serbia agreed to abolish entry/exit documents for Kosovo ID holders and Kosovo agreed to not introduce them for Serbian ID holders,” Borrell tweeted.

Belgrade and Kosovo’s Serb minority also claim entitlement under a 2013 EU-brokered agreement to an association of semi-autonomous majority-Serb municipalities, which Pristina has refused to implement.
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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced the decision to cancel the September 12-18 EuroPride celebration during a news conference where he also proposed extending the term of Serbia’s prime minister, who identifies as a lesbian.

Members of the European Pride Organizers Association chose Serbia’s capital three years ago to host the annual event. Vucic said a crisis with neighboring Kosovo and various economic problems were among the reasons why the Balkan nation’s authorities did not think they could handle EuroPride, which features a Pride parade.

“This is a violation of minority rights, but at this moment the state is pressured by numerous problems,” he said.

EuroPride organizers said Serbian authorities must provide security against “bullies” who threaten the march and seek to discredit it. European Pride Organizers President Kristine Garina urged Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to honor a promise to support the event.

“President Vucic cannot cancel someone else’s event,” Garina said. “The right to hold Pride has been ruled by the European Court of Human Rights to be a fundamental human right.”

An organizer in Serbia, Goran Miletic, said police must formally ban the march to prevent it from happening. If they issue a ban, organizers would file a complaint at Serbia’s Constitutional Court. He insisted that indoor events planned as part of the week-long celebration can’t be banned.

“The only thing that can happen is for the police to ban the [pride] march,” Miletic said. “However, such a hypothetical decision would be contrary to the constitution.”

Serbia pledged to protect LGBTQ rights as it seeks EU membership, but increasingly vocal right-wing supporters harass and sometimes attack people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Serbia’s right-wing and pro-Russian groups have gained strength in the past several years and some secured parliament seats during the country’s April general election. Several thousand people recently joined a march in Belgrade against LGBTQ Pride.

“It’s not the question of whether they [extremists] are stronger, but you just can’t do it all at the same moment, and that’s it,” Vucic said. “I am not happy about it, but we can’t manage.”

Vucic won another five-year term in the first round of April’s vote, and his Serbian Progressive Party won the general election in a landslide. The president said Saturday that Brnabic, who has led the previous two governments in Serbia, should lead the new Cabinet that is expected to be formed in the coming weeks.

Brnabic first became Serbia’s prime minister in 2017, in what was seen as major change for the country that is predominantly conservative and male-dominated. Brnabic lives with her female partner, but LGBTQ groups have criticized the prime minister, saying she has done little to improve the position of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals in Serbian society.

After Belgrade’s 2010 pride march produced clashes, subsequent marches took place with strong police protection.

EuroPride was first celebrated in London in 1992, and Belgrade was set to be the first city in southeast Europe to host the event, according to organizers. Next month’s event was expected to attract thousands of people from throughout Europe.

Vucic said the celebration could be postponed for “happier times.” He insisted that state authorities must plan instead for energy problems anticipated for the winter, partly as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Serbian government has condemned the Russian invasion but has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia.

Vucic said tensions with Kosovo, a former Serbian province whose independence the government in Belgrade has refused to recognize, were another source of pressure on authorities.

The tensions soared last month from a dispute over travel documents and license plates, and have raised concerns about instability in the Balkans, where multiple wars were fought amid the breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbia relies on support from Russia and China to continue claiming that Kosovo is part of its territory.

Washington and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo independence. U.S. and EU envoys visited Kosovo and Serbia earlier this week in an effort to ease the tensions.

 
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