Egon Oscar Hoenig

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Egon Oscar Hoenig

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Egon Oscar Hoenig – immigrant, child of the Great Depression, World War II veteran, member of the rapidly dwindling “Greatest Generation,” devoted husband, loving father, proud Grandpa, Buppa and Opa – died at the age of 97 under hospice care on May 27, 2017 at his home in West Caldwell, New Jersey, with Betty, his wife of over 67 years, at his side. Born in Pforzheim, Germany, Egon immigrated to the U.S. with his parents in the early 1920s to escape economic chaos and hyperinflation. Egon grew up in Elizabeth, NJ, and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1937. He began work at Prudential Insurance Company that year and enrolled in night classes at Pace Institute. With trouble brewing in Europe, Egon joined the National Guard in 1940 and within a month was promoted to Corporal. At the 102nd Cavalry Essex Troop in West Orange, Egon discovered a new passion – horseback riding – which he did with gusto nightly after work. His regiment was federalized on January 1, 1941, and the next day, he left for full-time duty at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, his first time away from home. During his time, Egon was promoted from Corporal to Sergeant to Warrant Officer and, in October 1942, his unit shipped out in convoy to England. While training overseas for almost two years, Egon pursued another passion – motorcycle riding – explored the theater life in wartime London, and broke a few young English ladies’ hearts. As a Warrant Officer, Egon landed on Omaha Beach two days after D-Day, drove a jeep through the streets of Paris the day before Liberation, and participated in military engagements as the Allies progressed across France, Germany and Czechoslovakia to liberate Europe from Hitler’s tyranny. In one of the most meaningful and poignantly sad moments in his life, this included being one of the first units to liberate the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. Nearly every day Egon was away, he wrote letters to his family in the States; these treasured accounts – which he eventually crafted into a memoir – exemplify that he was a man who, as expressed in his prologue, “always tried to do what is right.” When the war ended, he went AWOL for a weekend in September 1945 to attend his Dad’s 50th birthday party. In one of the not uncommon ironies in 20th century history, Egon participated in the Allied victory in ...

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