« Because they will be unknown warriors, they must perforce be considered an unknown quantity. Since the algebraic symbol for the unknown is X, let us call them X-Troop” Winston Churchill.
This top-secret commando, created in 1942 by Winston Churchill was composed of German, Austrians, Czechs refugees, all Jewish, who had been forced to run away from their countries. Some of them were in concentration camps before they escape, some came as teenagers thanks to “Kindertransport” (a humanitarian rescue program led by the british government). All volonteers, they were intellectuals, artists or athletes.
Holocaust survivors, they have lost their families, their home. War seemed to be personal for them.
They adopted british sounding names. They had to destroy every personal piece of paper with their birth name on it. Trained in intelligence and interrogation, they were also trained to capture or kill nazis on the battlefield. Fluent German speaking, they were real assets, able to interrogate POW immediately, so decision could be taken on the spot. If this sounds familiar, it is because they were the real Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds”.
After being recuted to form an elite commando unit, they were deployed to Europe. They have stormed the Normandy beaches on Dday, then walked to Germany, Holland, Italy and beyond.
One of them was Hans Arenstein. He served under an alias of Henry Andrew. Born in Germany in 1922, he escaped in 1940 in the Kindertransport evacuation of Jewish children.
He was attached to the 47th Royal Marine Commando when he was killed by a mine in Senneville, Normandy, on August 11th 1944. He is buried at the British cemetery of Ranville, and commemorated at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver sur Mer, Normandy. He was 22.
Sources : X-Troop, the secret Jewish Commandos of WWII, Leah Garrett