A Look Inside The Secret Mission of 'The Ritchie Boys'

FARMINGTON, Mich. (WJBK) - There were many heroes of World War II, but for one group of young men, their existence was a secret many still don't even know about today.

"The Ritchie Boys," were mostly Jewish, German and Austrian soldiers who were brought together by the U.S. Army because of their special intelligence skills. They were recruited to fight against a country they had either been expelled from or had to flee. They trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, thus the nickname.

Dr. Guy Stern was one of the Ritchie Boys and remembers his dangerous assignments well. He's the curator of the exhibit, "Secret Heroes: The Ritchie Boys," now on display at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills. It's full of artifacts and memorabilia preserving the mission of the group which had many ways of getting top secret information from prisoners.

"It was an assembly of people who were capable of handling interrogations and psychological warfare. We would simply overwhelm them with info we already had. So we tried to make the prisoners think that the information he would provide was already known to us and he wasn't giving away any vital secrets," Stern said.

And the Ritchie Boys used other tactics to gain important knowledge, like games of good cop/bad cop and offering extra rations of food and cigarettes to get the inside story. It was complicated work and even though the servicemen had fears of their own, these "secret heroes" prevailed.

Stern says, "There were many reasons why you were fearful, but nonetheless you had your task to do and you did it as best you could."

The exhibit is on display until February 29 at the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus 28123 Orchard Lake Road Farmington Hills.