Update: Judge Aaron Cohn dies at 96
He was Sam and Etta’s middle child, and from the beginning Aaron Cohn had the heart of a warrior and the wisdom of a judge.
For 96 years, he bravely fought for his Jewish heritage and for liberty, never forgetting the powerful moment when he saw the living standing among the dead at a Nazi Concentration Camp.
As a boy, he watched the University of Georgia Redcoat Band strut down Fourth Avenue, beginning a love affair with the Bulldogs that never waned. As an adult, he steadfastly supported boys and girls, and when he retired after 46 years as the judge of juvenile court he was among the nation’s oldest sitting jurists.
A first generation American and decorated World War II hero, Cohn died on the Fourth of July — 10 months after he retired from the bench and 16 months after he buried Janet Ann, his loving wife of 69 years.
Funeral services will be 2 p.m. Sunday at Temple Israel, 1617 Wildwood Avenue. Interment will follow at Riverdale Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to PAWS Columbus, the National Infantry Foundation’s Holocaust exhibit or the Ruth and Leslie Lilienthal Garden Fund at Temple Israel.
Leslie Cohn, his son and law partner, said the service at the synagogue would be for Aaron Cohn the father, grandfather and judge but that the tone would change at Riverdale Cemetery.
“The burial will be for Col. Aaron Cohn,” he said.
Cohn lived long enough to receive every meaningful award his hometown offers. But plaques and certificates can’t express the regard this community has felt for a person that practiced law in the same house on Second Avenue that he lived in as a child.
As a young attorney Mayor Teresa Tomlinson visited his court. She last heard Cohn speak on Veteran’s Day 2011 and said she has recounted excerpts of his remarks many times. She marveled at the lives he has touched in and out of the courtroom.
“Judge Cohn touched more young lives and more families than anyone could ever count,”
Tomlinson said. “He knew he had a moment in time to affect young people as they passed through his court and he didn’t waste a second. The wisdom, encouragement and sometimes tough talk he dispensed was as valuable as gold. He has shaped generations of our citizens. We are forever grateful for his service.”
Cohn didn’t call it service. He called it love. That affection was returned by the successful men and women that thanked him for setting them straight when they were teens.
Leslie Cohn remembered a day at Smokey Pig Barbecue when an oversized man wearing a shirt with no sleeves that exposed muscular, tattooed arms met them at the door.
“I could see him looking at us and I thought to myself that I was going to get my tail whipped right there in the parking lot,” Leslie said.
The man looked down at the judge and the diminutive Cohn stuck out his jaw like a turtle sticking his head out of a shell.
“You Judge Cohn?” the man asked.
“Yeah, what about it?”
“See that truck. That’s my truck. See that name on the side? That’s me. Those things are mine because when I was a kid, you gave me a chance.”His decisions were based on law, but there was always a dose of concern. He didn’t throw kids in jail and forget about them. He intervened and interceded — and Warner Kennon, his successor, said those were not just empty words.
“Judge Cohn sincerely cared about all of the children regardless of who they were,” he said.
Long before he went to work with him in 1994, Kennon stopped by to watch Cohn conduct hearings and lecture troubled children. “I heard him craft his words to each particular case,” he said.
Kennon also experienced that caring spirit. He lost his father when he was 13 and his grandfather when he was 18. Cohn became Kennon’s surrogate father.
“We were like a family. When my son was playing in the state tennis meet, there was a rain delay. Judge Cohn took him aside and talked to him like a coach. He won, and nobody was prouder than Judge Cohn.”
Muscogee Superior Court Senior Judge John Allen said Cohn’s success on the bench could be traced to his history and his life experience.
“He had a sympathy and an empathy with the public that carried over to the children who came in front of him. He didn’t just train to be a judge. He developed into the judge he was and he set the standard on how to deal with children.”
Cohn was a master storyteller and his tales have taken listeners on journeys to another Columbus, a time when children who lived downtown used the grounds of the old Muscogee County Courthouse as their playground. It was a Columbus where a small Jewish boy had to learn to box to survive.
Cohn was born in 1916, an era in which anti-Semitism was blatant. His father owned one of the town’s 14 livery stables and they moved to Fourth Avenue, next to the original Temple Israel.
It was an ethnic neighborhood and when they were older the Jewish children attended Columbus High — often tagged the Blue Jews instead of the Blue Devils. He had learned to play tennis on the outdoor courts at the YMCA and he became a stalwart on the high school tennis team.
At the University of Georgia, he also lettered in tennis and became friends with future Bulldog tennis mentor Dan Magill. They had met in 1933 when they competed in the finals of the state ping-pong championships — a match won by Cohn.
“We became friends when we were at the university,” Cohn said years ago. “But in his book, he mentioned a table tennis victory over me. He doesn’t talk about the time I whipped him for the state YMCA title.”
Cohn was considered the university’s oldest living tennis letterman.
Cohn became an Army officer in World War II. While serving under Gen. George Patton, he was part of a skirmish that Cohn said led to the end of the war. It started Dec. 16, 1944 — a date he often cited — though the Battle of the Bulge lasted for 40 days.
He survived without a scratch and in 1945 he had a life-changing experience when his unit helped repatriate a Nazi concentration camp at Ebensee in northern Austria.
“When we came into the camp we saw bodies stacked up, the crematoriums and the gas chambers. Among the prisoners were doctors and lawyers, and teachers, and children When they found out I was Jewish they went berserk because they had never seen a Jewish person with a gun,” he often described.
Back in Columbus, he tried the retail clothing business working for his father-in-law at Kayser-Lillienthal, a popular women’s shop on Broadway that catered to the wives of ranking officers at Fort Benning. He soon turned to the law.
Cohn became juvenile court judge in 1965. For him, it was more than a job. The court became his calling.
Leslie Cohn said his father dispensed justice with fairness and dignity but there was also an underlying toughness.
“A few years ago, he sentenced a young man to the Youth Detention Center and when he did the kid charged the bench. Security called for Daddy to rush out the door behind him but he didn’t move.”
Once the prisoner was subdued, deputies asked the judge why he didn’t follow the plan.
“Why should I?” Cohn asked. “I went through the Battle of the Bulge so I’m not going to run from a sucker like that.”
His latter years have been spent collecting honors and awards from his community, from the Army, from his alma mater and from his professional peers. He was even inducted into the Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame. He enjoyed traveling, but he enjoyed getting home even more. He followed his Bulldogs and when he was able he used his courtside seats for Columbus State University basketball games.
More than anything, he enjoyed being a citizen — a title that gave him privileges at his favorite barbecue joint.
A few weeks ago, on his way to visit his mentor, Kennon stopped by Smokey Pig. He placed his order and said he wanted something for the judge.“A Judge Cohn Special,” the man behind the counter yelled out.
Translated, that was a Smokey plate with Brunswick Stew, a small order of meat and a reduced price that the judge had negotiated long ago.Cohn has been in and out of the hospital for the past several weeks.
The end came at home, the only place he wanted to be. Around the room were his three children and grandchildren. He was their hero and their father.
Others recognized deeper traits, as expressed by Dr. Tommy Lawhorne, a star defensive player at Georgia before becoming an even bigger star in the operating room.
Aaron Cohn, he said, “was a paragon of dignity and character and a damn good Dawg.”
This story was originally published July 5, 2012 at 8:09 AM with the headline "Update: Judge Aaron Cohn dies at 96."