Henry Irving Tannenbaum's Story

Army, A platoon from the 83rd Division, 331st Regiment, Company F was shot at by German snipers near Ottre, Belgium. My father, Private Henry Irving Tannenbaum was the point man and appeared to die immediately. As other in the platoon cried out from their wounds, a German soldier in massacred the remaining men except for the platoon sergeant who played death, while the German soldiers stripped the bodies of their watchs. Then the German ran tanks over the dead and dying bodies leaving them in very grotesque positions. They left my father's body untouched. The sergeant went back to town and told the sentry, Tony Vaccaro on duty of the massacre. The two went back to the site and Tony took a picture of my father which he later called "White Death - photo requiem of a dead soldier- Private Henry I. Tannenbaum." Tony took the picture because my father's body looked so peaceful as contrasted with the chaos surrounding him. Tony went on to become a photo journalist for LIFE and LOOK magazine. "White Death" circulated as part of traveling exhibit for over fifty years in Europe and recently was voted picture of the century by a Frankfurt newspaper. I knew nothing of these facts until 1996. My mother thought my father was alive and eventually she went into a state mental hospital. My father had a form of hemophilia and bled to death very quickly. I found Tony through a friend in Luxembourg who a met at an American World War II Orphan Network (AWON) conference in 1996.