Davis Shares His Family’s Holocaust History
Mets first baseman Ike Davis is half Jewish and not religious. But he is acutely aware of the two distinct branches of his family history, which have a common thread in World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. Davis, whose father is Baptist and whose mother is Jewish, had many relatives on his mother’s side who died in the Holocaust, and one great aunt who survived it.
And his grandfather on his father’s side was a paratrooper in the United States Army who landed in France on D-Day in 1944 and later helped liberate one of the concentration camps. Davis said his grandfather’s experience there made him more sensitive when his son, the former major league pitcher Ron Davis, brought home a Jewish girlfriend, Millie, who would become his wife and eventually Ike’s mother.
Davis said his grandfather was from a “particular time” and that “his family was a certain way” but that his “experience of opening those doors to the camp and the suffering he saw gave him an affinity for the Jewish people.”...
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And his grandfather on his father’s side was a paratrooper in the United States Army who landed in France on D-Day in 1944 and later helped liberate one of the concentration camps. Davis said his grandfather’s experience there made him more sensitive when his son, the former major league pitcher Ron Davis, brought home a Jewish girlfriend, Millie, who would become his wife and eventually Ike’s mother.
Davis said his grandfather was from a “particular time” and that “his family was a certain way” but that his “experience of opening those doors to the camp and the suffering he saw gave him an affinity for the Jewish people.”...