Black yarmulke owned by Milton Emont and likely used during World War II

Milton Emont (1923-2018) was born in Paterson, New Jersey, to George and Rose Emont, both of whom were born in Poland. He had three siblings, Harold, Natalie, and Gordon (1928-2002). George worked in a silk mill into the 1930s, and after the silk mill went out of business, he opened his own store in Jersey City. Milton and his brothers all worked in the store. The family attended a synagogue with a traveling rabbi, and Milton’s aptitude for languages, including Hebrew, enabled him to step in for the rabbi and run services from the age of 13. Milton graduated from high school two years early. After high school, Milton’s skill with languages led him to attend Montclair State College, where he focused on language instruction. He registered for the draft in 1942, and entered active service on March 5, 1943. After completing his bachelor’s degree in 1943, Milton moved to Texas for a month of basic training, and was then sent to the University of Cincinnati for an eight-month Army language-training course. In the Army, Milton served 22 months in the 3189th Signal Service Battalion. As a translator and teletype operator, he was responsible for sending and receiving messages in Section Headquarters located in both France and Germany. In 1945, he was able to complete eight weeks of graduate coursework in French and French literature at the Sorbonne and Institute of Phonetique, in France. After the war, he returned briefly to the United States and was discharged from the Army on April 16, 1946. He then traveled back to France, and spent another year working in telegraph airline communications for Trans World Airline Company (TWA) at Orly Field in Paris. Milton returned to the United States on June 21, 1947, and began working at Veterans Evening High School in Jersey City. He obtained a Master’s degree from Middlebury College in 1948 and began his doctorate work at the University of Wisconsin in 1949. While there, Milton met Marietta Gruenbaum, a Jewish immigrant who had spent two and a half years in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Marietta completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees on a Hillel scholarship. She met Milton during her final semester, and the two began seeing each other on group dates. After three months, when Marietta’s visa was due to expire, Milton proposed. The couple married in January 1950 and Milton completed his postgraduate work as a Fulbright Scholar at University Grenoble in 1952. The couple moved to Granville, Ohio, where they both began teaching at Denison University in 1954. Milton completed his doctorate in 1958, and returned to Paris several times for research. Milton and Marietta had two children.

The yarmulke was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Carl Emont, the son of Milton and Marietta Gruenbaum Emont.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Carl Emont