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Oral history interview with Wolfgang Mueller

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1998.A.0016 | RG Number: RG-50.106.0091

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    Oral history interview with Wolfgang Mueller
    Transcript
    This is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Wolfgang Mueller conducted
    by Gail Schwartz on January 21, 1998
    in Silver Spring, Maryland.
    This is tape number one, side A. What is your full name?
    Wolfgang Mueller.
    And where were you born?
    In Hanover, Germany.
    And when were you born?
    On March 10, 1919.
    Let's talk a little bit about your family first.
    How long have they been in that part of the world?
    Do you know how far back?
    Oh, yes.
    I actually have records of my grandfather's grandfather.
    And his name was already Karlmann Mueller.
    And he lived in a little town in Westphalia called Stormede.
    Stormede is near Geseke.
    And as a matter of fact, my my Hebrew name
    is the same name as his son.
    His son, who is actually also my ancestor, was Isaac.
    And my Hebrew name is Yitzhak.
    And what about your mother's family?
    Well, they are also from the same part of Germany.
    And my mother's name was Anna Rosenthal.
    And they are descendant from a rabbi in Westphalia.
    His name was Hirsch Cohen.
    And he was a very important rabbi
    who took part in the conferences that
    helped to establish emancipation for the Jews
    when Napoleon first came to Western Germany
    in the early part of the 19th century.
    Did you have a large extended family around you
    while you were growing up as a young child?
    Well, my father was an attorney in Hanover.
    He moved to Hanover, which was the largest city that was
    fairly reasonably close by--
    Hanover.
    And my father was born in Paderborn.
    These are all little rural country towns in Westphalia.
    And the records show that the family was, for centuries,
    involved in the feed and grain business.
    And of course, the Jews were only emancipated late
    in the 19th century.
    And that was after my father was born,
    very late in the 19th century.
    And he was able to go to college and become an attorney.
    And that's the reason that he set up his practice
    in Hanover, a law practice in Hanover, Germany.
    And of course, actually in Hanover,
    from my immediate family, there was only my mother, my father,
    my brother, and I. However, we would frequently go back
    to Paderborn and Neuhaus--
    I'll tell you about that later--
    where my grandparents lived.
    And we would spend a great deal of time there.
    And of course, we had millions of cousins.
    And it was always a wonderful time for us.
    What is your brother's name?
    And what is the difference in age?
    My brother's name is Dr. Klaus-Peter Mueller.
    He's seven years younger than I. And he
    lives in Palo Alto, California.
    Now let's talk a little bit about your childhood.
    You said you were born in Hanover.
    Were you born in the central part of the city,
    on the outskirts?
    Well, I was born fairly close to the central part of the city.
    And the apartment-- we lived in an apartment house.
    And we lived on the first floor.
    It was a beautiful, very large apartment, very luxurious.
    And it was at number 18 Ferdinand-Wallbrechtstrasse
    near the Lister Platz.
    And even though about 75% of the city of Hanover
    was destroyed during the air raids in the Second World War,
    that particular house is standing on that street,
    almost none of the others.
    And the other miraculous thing-- and I
    just seem to be very, very fortunate that way.
    The home that we moved to after that is also standing.
    It sounds like your family was upper class.
    Would you describe it that way, or upper middle?
    Yes.
    My father was a professional man.
    And of course, my grandparents on both sides
    were wealthy merchants, very wealthy merchants.
    So the Jews in Germany were somewhat
    different from the Jewish people that came more
    from Eastern Europe, because they had been emancipated
    for about 50 years.
    And they had very quickly worked very hard
    trying to become part of the mainstream
    of the life of a country.
    My father served in the First World War as a soldier.
    He was very proud of it.
    He went to the university.
    And he belonged to, of course, a Jewish fraternity.
    But he also fought with sabers.
    And he had these scars on his cheek.
    He was tall and quite handsome.
    And he had very good relations with the German people--
    German officials, too.
    Which university did he go to?
    He went to-- he went to Fribourg.
    In your neighborhood, was it a Jewish neighborhood,
    or non-Jewish, or mixed?
    It was mixed.
    It was a suburban neighborhood, oddly enough,
    almost reminiscent of where I live now.
    And the interesting thing about my life as a young boy--
    I find that there was great similarity
    between the way I lived and the way my grandchildren live now
    in this country.
    Let's talk about your early life.
    You said you then moved.
    At what age did you move from one house to the other?
    I think I was six or seven years old when we moved
    to the house, the second home.
    That was at 11 Wallmodenstrasse in Hanover, Kleefeld.
    And it was just at the time also when my brother was born.
    And I had terrible whooping cough at that time.
    I was sick.
    And they had to take me out of school,
    because it was no good to have me around the house,
    because my mother was expecting my brother.
    And I lived for several months during the fall of 1928--
    it was 1928, in the fall of 1928--
    with my grandmother in Neuhaus.
    I have very vivid recollections of all of that.
    Do you have any recollections up to the age of six, anything
    that you could talk about up to the age of six,
    before you moved?
    Yes, I do.
    What do you remember about that time?
    Well, I remember being very small
    and living in the apartment in Hanover.
    I think I can remember--
    I have a recollections that go back
    to when I was four years old, or even younger.
    Such as?
    Well--
    Did you have friends?
    --I remember, for example, my parents playing ping-pong.
    They set up a table in the apartment.
    And I was already trying to do it at that time.
    I'm an avid tennis player today.
    And I remember playing with my trains underneath the dining
    room table.
    And a very big thing for also Jewish children in Germany
    was Christmas.
    And the German Jewish people in those days in the city-- they
    had a Christmas tree.
    And the children got presents at Christmas, and so forth, and so
    on.
    Christmas was an important thing.
    Now, that doesn't mean that there
    wasn't any Jewish identification, because there
    was.
    And I don't want to give that impression.
    We knew we were Jewish.
    And we did many Jewish things.
    I was Bar Mitzvah, for example.
    But I do remember a lot of things
    about when I was very little.
    And also, my mother took me to the beach.
    There was a beach resort that was not too terribly
    far in the North Sea.
    And a lot of Jewish people went there.
    It was called Nordeney.
    It is an island of the Frisian--
    one of the Frisian Islands.
    And you had to take a train to a little town called Emden.
    And then we took a steamer to that island.
    And I remember that when I was a little boy.
    I even remember getting seasick on the steamer.
    And then I remember spending a lot of time on the beach.
    And I think I was very fortunate.
    I think a lot of my good health comes from the fact
    that, when I was a little child, I
    spent a tremendous amount of time on the beach,
    more than average.
    Do you remember at that young age having non-Jewish friends?
    Well, when I was that little, of course,
    I don't remember what kind of friends I had.
    But when I was a boy, I had non-Jewish friends,
    plenty of them.
    OK, let's move on then.
    Now you've moved to your second home.
    And let's talk again.
    Was that in a mixed neighborhood of Jews and non-Jews?
    Yes, definitely.
    And you had non-Jewish friends then?
    Very much so.
    Very much so.
    The neighbors next door to us, their name was Von Reden.
    And the father was an official.
    Of course, he was an attorney, too, like my father.
    But he worked for the government.
    But he worked for the provincial government there.
    And of course, I really didn't know that.
    His name was Baron von Reden.
    And he had a brother who was my sister's age.
    My sister's older than I. And then
    he had another brother that was my age.
    And believe it or not, they had a small son
    that was my brother's age.
    So you had a sister also.
    Yes.
    When was she born?
    And what is her name?
    Her name is-- she's called now Trudie,
    but her name is Gertrude.
    And she was born in 1915.
    She was four years older than myself.
    She's in good health, thank God.
    She lives here in this area.
    She's also a big contributor to the Holocaust Museum.
    What kind of school did you go to?
    Well, in Germany, children go first to the folkshule.
    And you start there at the age of six.
    Actually, your first day of school is a big day.
    I remember it vividly.
    And it was also the custom always to give
    the kid a big thing with candy.
    It was a bag, a cone-shaped bag.
    And everybody got their picture taken with that.
    It was my first day of school.
    And you go to that school for four years.
    And I went to that school.
    And then, after that, you go to the gymnasium.
    And I went to a school called the Leibniz
    School in the central part of the city.
    And I had to pass an exam.
    Everybody has to.
    Some children never go to the gymnasium.
    Many children, or the working class children,
    they go three more years folkshule.
    And then they don't go to school anymore.
    And they take up a trade.
    The young people take up a trade much younger in Germany.
    But if you plan to go to college or follow professional people,
    they went to the gymnasium.
    And in order to qualify for that,
    you had to pass a test, which I did.
    And I started in this gymnasium.
    So again, this was with Jews and non-Jews in the--
    Oh, yeah.
    --all the way through in your school.
    Any problems that you noticed?
    Well, there was very occasionally some--
    somebody called you a Jew, or something like that.
    And I would fight, a lot of times,
    with the kids about that, a lot of times.
    But--
    What do you mean you would fight?
    I would have fights if they called me a Jew.
    I'd hit them and stuff like that.
    I had some really bad fights.
    And what would happen?
    Nothing.
    We would just have a fight, and it was all over.
    But then I think what we're getting
    at is what happened as we got towards the time
    that the Nazis came into power.
    We'll get to that.
    I want to cover the part before that.
    But outside of that, I was very much interested, much more
    interested, in soccer football in Germany
    than I was in my schoolwork.
    And I remember already, very early, I
    used to spend when I was still-- before I was in the gymnasium,
    I spent most of my time making up teams.
    So we couldn't wait till we get out of school.
    And then I would play football with the other kids.
    And most of those kids that were my friends,
    they were working class kids.
    There were the kind that actually became Nazis later.
    Did you have any other interests besides soccer?
    Not too much.
    Oh, yes, I was an avid reader.
    And I don't think I had there so many disciplined interests.
    But I had many interests.
    And I belonged to the Boy Scouts.
    And I learned how to ski.
    And I learned all kinds of athletics.
    I started to play tennis in a club
    when I was already very young, 10, 11 years old.
    And of course, there I associated
    with a better class of people.
    But they weren't necessarily Jewish at all,
    all kinds of people.
    I didn't know whether they were Jewish or not Jewish.
    Did you run into any problems because of that--
    No.
    --there?
    No, not that I was uncomfortable back then in those early years,
    not that I was uncomfortable.
    You said you had a Christmas tree.
    How religious was your family?
    And how did you know you were Jewish?
    All right.
    We did also have a Seder.
    But it was not as important as Christmas for the children.
    And I went with my father to the synagogue
    occasionally on the high holidays.
    And then of course, as I got older,
    then I started to go to Hebrew school
    just like the kids do here.
    And then I started to get ready for my Bar Mitzvah.
    And then I was more around Jewish children.
    Also, then when I went to the Jewish community center,
    I got involved with Jewish young people's organizations.
    And I started to make some very good friends
    among the Jewish boys my age, and girls.
    How religious--
    There was another thing.
    My father was a member of B'nai B'rith.
    He was the president of the B'nai B'rith in that town,
    in Hanover.
    And I was very much aware of all these things, and all
    that it involved, whatever it was to be Jewish, and all that.
    I knew all of that.
    And the B'nai B'rith had a summer camp on the same island
    at the beach.
    And I was a young child already, prior teenage.
    And after teenage, every summer, I would go to that summer camp.
    And I'd be only around Jewish kids there.
    And that was very Jewish.
    I had kosher food there.
    And they sung "Hatikva."
    And they sang Hebrew songs.
    And it was very Jewish.
    And I met a lot of Jewish girls.
    So I had that mixed exposure.
    They're both Jewish and non-Jewish.
    Were you proud at that young age of being a Jew?
    Or what did it mean to you at that time?
    No, I can't say that I was proud about it.
    I can tell you that, as I got older,
    and as the anti-Semitism became more virulent in Germany,
    I thought it was a curse to be Jewish.
    I thought it was a terrible, terrible curse.
    And I thought it was very unfortunate that the--
    I was envious of the non-Jew, that I couldn't be a non-Jew.
    At the same time, I never had any ideas of not being Jewish.
    Don't get me wrong.
    I was too young to even consider that.
    But later, when I was going to school in England-- and I'm
    getting ahead of myself now.
    And I had a very good friend from a very good family,
    very similar background as myself, from Frankfurt.
    And I would take walks with him on Sunday afternoon.
    At that time, the Nazis had taken over in Germany.
    And we were already somewhat expelled from our homes.
    And we had to leave there.
    And we talked about that it was some kind of a curse that we--
    that we were cursed to be-- we were afraid.
    We were terribly afraid, terribly afraid.
    It was very, very scary to be Jewish.
    Let's move back a little bit in time.
    Tell me about your Bar Mitzvah--
    Well, I--
    --which would have been in 1932.
    Yes, it was in--
    actually, I think it was very early in 1933.
    My birthday is on March 10, very soon now.
    I'll be 79 very soon.
    But it was in 1933, I think.
    13 years would be '32.
    '32?
    Maybe it was '32.
    Maybe you're right.
    Maybe you're right.
    Or maybe it was a little late.
    I don't know.
    It could be.
    I'm not sure.
    It was '32 or '33.
    It seems that, in the year of my Bar Mitzvah--
    but maybe it was a year later--
    I left and went to England.
    Let me--
    I'm almost sure of that.
    I think I must have been Bar Mitzvah a little later.
    I think I was Bar Mitzvah in the very early spring of '33.
    Any problems with that?
    Well, there was no problem.
    But it became more evident--
    in relation to what we're talking about,
    I remember listening to the radio and hearing Hitler talk.
    It was in '33 when Hitler came to power.
    It was just about that same time.
    And it was shortly after that that the teachers in my school
    started wearing swastikas in their lapels.
    And in the morning, when we--
    I'm not talking about Bar Mitzvah now.
    I'm talking about something else.
    But in the morning, when we had to go to class in Germany, when
    the teacher walked in, you always
    had to go up and say, good morning, teacher.
    And after the Nazis came to power,
    you had to get up, and put your hand up, and say, heil, Hitler.
    But I wouldn't do it.
    And that probably saved my life.
    That's probably why I'm here today.
    I wouldn't put my hand up.
    And the principal of my school, his name
    was Dr. Heyligenstaedt, and he knew my father.
    He was a fraternity brother of my father's.
    He called him up.
    And he said, listen, Ernst, you better take that kid
    and send him out of the country, because he's
    going to get himself in trouble, and he's
    going to get you in trouble.
    And then, that summer, they sent me to England.
    Before Hitler came in, was your father active politically?
    No, I don't think he was active politically so much.
    But he knew everybody.
    My father knew everybody.
    And he was a very personable kind of a guy.
    And he represented-- he had some very big clients, banks,
    and places like that, and big business people.
    Well, that was horrible.
    What kind of relationship did you have with your parents?
    Was it a close, intimate relationship or a more
    distant one?
    I would say it was a normal relationship.
    I don't think it was very especially close.
    My father and my mother didn't have a good marriage.
    And they're a very different kind of people.
    And that put a strain on the family life
    when I was a young boy.
    It made it easier for me to be comfortable when I left, too.
    But my mother was the one that had the vision.
    And I remember she already very, very early
    wanted us to learn English.
    My mother knew English.
    She had been to England as a young girl.
    And she also knew French.
    She had studied in Lausanne.
    And she was a very unusual woman--
    a very difficult person, but very unusual.
    And I always opposed her.
    I didn't like what she wanted me to do.
    It's only lately when--
    even when I thought about this interview, I think about her.
    And the reason that I am alive today
    is probably only because of my mother.
    All of us are alive.
    And it goes further than that.
    They sent me to England in 1933.
    And they made arrangements with a family there.
    Well, we'll get to that in a moment.
    Yeah, OK.
    I want to cover a little more.
    OK.
    What language did you speak?
    What did you speak at home?
    German.
    And what other languages were you learning as a child?
    I learned French in school.
    And I knew-- they tried to teach English,
    but I knew very little English, very little English.
    I wasn't interested so much then.
    I was interested in Germany, and my friends, and my Boy Scouts,
    and my--
    like a boy.
    I was a boy--
    and sports.
    So you felt very German.
    Yes, I think so.
    I started to-- towards the end, during the time of my Bar
    Mitzvah, I became aware of it, that I
    was a Jew, that I was different than the rest of the Germans.
    In what way?
    It was already starting that Jews--
    for example, I used to go to an indoor swimming pool
    with a friend of mine.
    And then they made rules when I was--
    I was still in Germany then.
    The Jews couldn't go there anymore.
    So it wouldn't take very much to know that I was a Jew.
    And I remember I went with my friend.
    And we put our swimming trunks on real fast
    that nobody should see that we were Jewish.
    And it was scary to be there, because we were someplace we
    weren't supposed to be.
    And I was already aware very much very early
    that there was danger there.
    When did you first hear about Hitler?
    OK.
    I was going to school as a little boy.
    I was still very little.
    I'm going back now, maybe to 1929, to 1930, '29 or '39.
    So I was 10, 11 years old.
    And in Germany, they had a [GERMAN]
    on every street corner in the cities.
    What is that?
    That is a kiosk, an advertising kiosk.
    It was a round column.
    And the [GERMAN], the--
    Posters?
    Yeah, poster.
    [GERMAN] was oil, what you wash your clothes with, soap powder.
    And all those companies, they had their big posters there.
    And there were also political posters there.
    And the Nazis always had very prominent, very strong color--
    red, or bright yellow posters--
    with a tremendous amount of printing on it.
    And there are swastikas all over it.
    And I would stand in front of that [GERMAN]..
    And I would read every word on that poster.
    And my eyes were popping out of my head,
    because they talked about the Jews,
    and what the Jews were doing, and Jews
    were ruining the country.
    And that's what was going to save the country,
    to get rid of the Jews.
    And the Jews had to be--
    and this and that.
    And it was about that time, very shortly afterwards,
    that I was with my father in the car.
    And we were in Paderborn.
    We were going to Paderborn.
    And we had the radio on in the car.
    And the news came on.
    And they announced that they just had had an election.
    And the National Socialist party had gained a tremendous number
    of seats in the Reichstag, in the German parliament.
    I was worried.
    And I said to my father, what does that mean?
    What does that mean?
    It scared me.
    And he said, oh.
    He said, it's nothing, it's only politics, don't worry about it.
    That was my father.
    My mother was different.
    My mother was different.
    OK, now it's 1933.
    And Hitler becomes chancellor in January.
    By the way, when you saw these posters,
    what thoughts went through your mind?
    Were you very frightened?
    Yes.
    I was very concerned, very concerned.
    Of course, I was young.
    I tried to forget it.
    It was traumatic.
    It was scary.
    It was frightening.
    There's something out there.
    It was very similar to, like, a child
    is afraid to walk by himself through the woods,
    or be in the dark, very similar.
    Something very, very threatening was out there.
    Did you talk it over with your brother or sister?
    No.
    I don't think I ever said anything to anybody about that.
    Even your mother?
    No.
    Or friends?
    No.
    OK, now Hitler is chancellor in January of '33.
    Do you remember the parliament building burning?
    No, I was in Berlin.
    I was in Hanover.
    No, I know, but talking about it.
    First of all, when that happened,
    I think I was already in England.
    And I don't--
    I remember that it happened and all.
    But I was not intimately involved with that.
    OK, let's go talk more about your trip to England
    and how that came about.
    Well, OK.
    It was after my Bar Mitzvah.
    In this particular summer, they decided
    to send me there to this--
    they were already then thinking of saving their firstborn son.
    And they sent me to this to learn more English
    for the summer.
    It was also compromised, I think,
    between my father and my mother about what
    they should do about me.
    And I was the future of the children.
    And of course, some of this is a surmise on my part.
    I don't really know what.
    I did what I was told.
    I knew that they told me that I had to be taken out of school.
    That was one of the things.
    I had to be taken out of school.
    So for the first, they decided to send me to England.
    This is after the principal told your father.
    Yeah.
    And then, because I already--
    I was very uncomfortable about raising my hand, and all that,
    and saying, heil, Hitler, and he wants to kill the Jews.
    And that was not for me.
    You know?
    So this must have been the summer of '33, 'cause--
    Right.
    OK.
    So I arrived in England.
    And then and I stayed there.
    And I lived in a boarding house.
    How did your parents know where to send you?
    They made arrangement au pair.
    One of the girls from that family
    had been in our home the year before.
    My mother had sent away for college girls
    to come in as an exchange student plan.
    And she, my mother, arranged all that stuff.
    So your sister was not sent.
    No.
    I was sent.
    And--
    What was it like for you to leave Germany?
    It was a great trip.
    I was looking forward to it.
    It was exciting.
    I went on the boat.
    And then I had to take a train, a boat train.
    Did you go by yourself?
    By myself.
    And the lady picked me up at the Victoria Station.
    And I had to have a flower in my lapel.
    And she recognized me.
    And you said your English wasn't that good.
    No, my English wasn't--
    I hardly knew any English.
    But she knew who I was.
    And she took me.
    And it was in Norwood.
    It was south of London.
    Was it difficult for you to say goodbye to your parents,
    and your sister, and brother?
    No, not then.
    That was not a final goodbye.
    We're just going for a vacation then.
    And it was no--
    oh, I'm sorry.
    And then I was there.
    And that's how I learned English very fast,
    because if I wanted to get anything to eat,
    I had to ask for it in English.
    All these people are sitting around the table grabbing
    the food.
    It's a boarding house.
    Also, I went to the movies a lot.
    And in the movies, you learn English.
    And I watched the movies.
    And it was great in the movies.
    They had an organ, and you sing along, and all that stuff.
    And I walked by myself around London.
    And I had to speak in order to find my way home,
    and things like that.
    And I walked from Norwood to London Bridge all by myself.
    They were worried about me.
    I just kept on walking.
    It was a long way.
    And I saw London Bridge.
    And it was unbelievable.
    My eyes were popping.
    I saw so many new things.
    And I really wanted to learn more about the world.
    There was a lot to see.
    And--
    How long did you stay there?
    I stayed there for a month or so.
    And then what happened-- my mother, with her sister,
    came to London.
    And without telling my father, she enrolled me in the school
    over there.
    He was angry with her when she got home.
    But she did it on her own.
    She enrolled me in the school.
    And I left.
    I never went back home.
    I went to school.
    And actually, when I went to school,
    it was the Ewell Castle School in Surrey.
    And when they took me to school, school hadn't started yet.
    She had made all the arrangements.
    It was a boarding school.
    And--
    What were your thoughts about not going back to Germany then?
    That's what my mother said I was supposed to do.
    I did what I was told.
    I didn't have any thoughts about it at all.
    You didn't feel bad about not going back--
    No.
    --to your friends and your family?
    Not really.
    I made new friends.
    It was exciting, new things to do.
    And it was great.
    It was in a castle.
    And there were kids there, especially one boy
    in particular I remember.
    It was a Jewish boy from Israel--
    from Palestine, in those days.
    And he and I became bosom friends.
    He was already there, too, before school started.
    And he also loved to--
    I was a pretty good tennis player really by that time--
    very, very.
    For a boy, I was an excellent tennis player.
    Were there are many Jewish children in the first
    boarding house, that one that you were in for a month?
    None.
    I didn't know any Jewish children.
    None.
    English.
    Was that difficult for you to be the only Jew?
    No, not at all.
    Did they give you any difficulty?
    No.
    In England?
    No, not at all.
    No, not whatsoever.
    I don't think they even knew the difference between Jew
    and not Jew in England.
    It was just very nice.
    And on the contrary, it was very early on that I learned
    that people, even in different countries, if they spoke
    a different language, were very much
    like a people in my country.
    The young people, too-- the same things made them tick.
    And they wanted to do the same things.
    And they loved sports.
    And they loved to do things.
    And they loved girls, and loved all kind of fun things,
    and cars, and things like that.
    And those were all the things I loved.
    So I got along very well.
    This is a continuation of the interview of Wolfgang Mueller.
    It's tape one, side B. And we were talking
    about your time in England.
    And your mother had come over and enrolled you
    after that month in the school.
    Right.
    And then school started.
    And it was a military type school.
    We ate there, wore uniforms.
    And we used to go jogging every morning across country.
    And I was a very good runner, and I loved that.
    And we did a lot of running.
    And then I learned to play cricket.
    I learned all these new sports.
    And of course, I played soccer.
    I was a goalie for my school.
    And then I traveled all over England
    and represented my school.
    And I played tennis.
    And I was a big shot.
    And I had a great time.
    And I learned English.
    Now, all this time, things were happening back in Germany.
    How aware of those events were you?
    I must tell you that I was not aware.
    I don't know whether it was subconscious,
    I didn't want to know, or I was just too busy with my life.
    And as a matter of fact, occasionally
    during those times, I did go back to Germany on vacations.
    And I went back to Germany two or three times
    during this period that I was in England.
    And of course, by this time, I could speak English.
    And then I pretended that I was English,
    and that I wasn't Jewish.
    And I spoke English.
    And that took care of that problem.
    And did you see a change in conditions
    when you went back to Germany?
    Did you sense a tightening of restrictions?
    There were-- I knew that it was more dangerous to be Jewish.
    I was aware of that.
    How were you aware of that?
    Oh, it was already--
    the way the Nazis did it, they conditioned you for it.
    I got conditioned to it like everybody else.
    In other words, we just conducted ourselves in a way
    that we stayed out of trouble.
    And of course, for me, it was very easy
    because I spoke English.
    And then I just--
    I was English.
    When I was around Germans, I spoke English.
    Did you pretend you didn't know German?
    I don't know.
    Maybe I did.
    We spoke English, like my sister.
    I remember my sister and I were sitting in a restaurant.
    She knew English, too.
    She had been to England.
    And we stayed in England.
    And they waited on us.
    And we were pretty sure Jews couldn't go in there.
    But we talked English.
    And it was great.
    We were foreigners.
    Did you miss your brother and sister
    when you were at school in England?
    Well, yes, no.
    Not that much.
    Not that much.
    I was busy.
    I was busy.
    Really, I was busy with my life.
    And so many exciting things were happening.
    You see, then the groundwork was laid in that time for me
    to come to America.
    Well, what happened was I left Cranbrook.
    And I was enrolled in a better school.
    My mother took care of that, too.
    She came back to England, to London.
    I saw her in London.
    And she put me in the Cranbrook school
    in Kent, which was a very fine school.
    Your previous school was called?
    Ewell.
    Ewell.
    It was near Epsom.
    It was more of a--
    for younger children.
    And this was more almost like a junior college--
    very, very.
    As a matter of fact, they have a campus
    in this country somewhere, a very famous art place.
    In Michigan.
    Yeah, in Michigan.
    And that's where I went.
    And my mother wanted me to--
    only the best.
    What was your relationship with your father during this time?
    It sounds like your mother was making all the arrangements.
    What connection did you have with your father?
    But I really liked my father a lot better than my mother.
    You see, my mother always made me
    do a lot of things that were a little bit harder to do.
    But my father, he--
    even as a little kid, I used to go to my father's office,
    and play with the typewriters, and stuff like that.
    And my father, he was a different kind than my mother.
    And he was much easier to be around.
    My mother was not easy to be around.
    She was demanding.
    She was a demanding person.
    How was your father's practice affected
    when you would go back to visit and conditions
    were changing in Germany?
    My father was unbelievably busy during those years.
    Because of the connections that he had,
    he started to become in the local area
    there the focal point of the whole Jewish community,
    because he was the one that could get them out
    of the concentration camps.
    And he could get all kinds of permits for Jewish people.
    And they really rallied around him.
    And one of the reasons that it took him so long to leave
    was because he felt that he had a responsibility there.
    He was also making lots of money.
    How did he get that position?
    Was he elected to that?
    Or he just assumed that position?
    It was just his personality.
    And like you said, he knew the chief
    of police and the district attorney.
    And he had that way with him that he
    could get along terrific.
    He was actually a country boy from Westphalia.
    But he was also very highly educated.
    He was an intellectual.
    So he really knew how to handle himself.
    And they all liked him.
    And he had a down-to-earth way with him.
    And as a matter of fact, the chief of police of Hanover--
    like I told you, the director of my high school called him.
    Everybody knew him.
    And the chief of police from Hanover--
    my brother told me this.
    I didn't know.
    My father told me.
    He said, he called him in 1938, I guess, or whatever it was.
    And he told him, Ernst, if you don't leave,
    we're going to have to come and arrest you.
    You better get your boy and get out of here.
    And he called his relatives.
    I'm jumping ahead of myself.
    But he called his relatives in Paris.
    He had cousins in Paris.
    And he said, I've got to leave, and I
    can't take a thing with me.
    I don't have a thing I can take with me.
    They said, just go.
    At that time already-- that was after the Kristallnacht--
    my mother was already here.
    They said, just go, and take your boy to England.
    We'll take care of you.
    Don't worry.
    We've got plenty of business interests in England.
    And he did go.
    And it was so fast--
    the blitzkrieg, the war after that--
    that the whole family in Paris was arrested before he really
    got settled in England.
    And he almost was interned as a German alien in England.
    But he told them in London that he
    knew where all the airports were in Hanover.
    He went to the police.
    And they let him go.
    A lot of my other uncles and things,
    and cousins, were interned in England.
    So my father managed also to survive.
    And my mother was here at that time.
    Back to before that time, you had said earlier,
    before you left for England, that you didn't want to say,
    heil, Hitler to your teacher.
    And the principal called your father.
    Why didn't you want to say, "heil Hitler"?
    What did it mean to you?
    Well, I knew that Hitler was somebody
    that wanted to kill Jews.
    He threatened.
    The Nazis were singing songs about Judenblut
    should run in the streets, and things like that.
    But I was not that stupid.
    I didn't want to be killed.
    Yeah.
    Did any of the friends, the schoolmates of yours,
    taunt you for not saying, "heil Hitler"?
    Did they say, "heil Hitler"?
    Did they taunt you?
    Did they criticize you, make it difficult for you
    because you didn't say it?
    No.
    No.
    I don't know.
    No, I didn't have that kind of a problem.
    The friends that I had, the Jewish friends that I had,
    they were Zionists at that time.
    I was a little older then.
    And I was already exposed to Zionism then.
    You see, I was in this Jewish Boy Scout
    movement from the Jewish community center.
    And a lot of them were Zionists and stuff like that.
    And I was active in that.
    And so I started to know about Palestine and the other things.
    And one friend, the older brother of this one
    friend of mine, he had left on his bicycle,
    and going to Czechoslovakia.
    And he was going to Palestine.
    Did he make it?
    Yes.
    That's another story.
    Maybe that'll come later.
    It's a very exciting story.
    Were your parents Zionists?
    No, not at all.
    Just the opposite.
    Just the opposite.
    German.
    How did they feel about your being in a youth group?
    Well, there were no discussions, no political discussions
    in our house.
    Anyway, everything was what my father said.
    That's how it was.
    My father was the boss, what he said.
    But my mother, she didn't agree with him.
    But she did it behind his back.
    I remember I was back in Germany on a vacation.
    And my mother wanted me to take some money out
    of the country, put it in a bank in England.
    And my father would have killed her.
    It was strictly-- he wouldn't bend a rule or something,
    Nazi regulation, for anything.
    So I made a hole in my tennis racket.
    I took the back of my tennis racket, and I put the money--
    I had a room upstairs in our house.
    And I put the money into the tennis racket.
    Then I put the back back on it, put the leather thing
    around it.
    And I carried the tennis racket in my rucksack.
    And I was sure, when the guards came on the train
    and they asked if I had anything to declare
    that time when I was going back to England, that I
    was going to be-- like dogs can smell you when you're scared.
    I was terrified, but I made it.
    And then, even after I got to school,
    I hid the money for weeks, months.
    I was afraid that spies would know
    that I had that money before I called this person
    that my mother knew in London.
    There was a banker that I had to take the money to.
    How much did you give you?
    I don't remember, but it was a few thousand dollars, I guess.
    That was a substantial amount.
    Yeah.
    So you're now at school in England.
    And you're going back and forth to see
    your parents and your family.
    No, not back and forth.
    Well, I mean to visit.
    Yeah.
    Did your parents have-- or did your mother
    have any idea of sending your brother or sister along
    with you?
    I'm not sure.
    There was very little discussion.
    My trips over there were so short.
    And then I would tell stories about England.
    And they would sit and listen to me.
    And they would laugh.
    And I would travel to my grandmother's and to my aunts'
    [? And other parts- ?].
    I had a good time.
    And I wasn't really too much into what was going on.
    But whatever it was, it wasn't any good.
    And I wanted to get out.
    So it was not hard for you to leave Germany to go back
    to England after your vacation.
    Oh, no.
    I loved it.
    I couldn't wait to get out of there.
    It was a terrible place then, the way
    they were with the Jews.
    And it was getting worse all the time.
    And--
    Did you see any restrictive signs on stores?
    I think I did.
    But I don't-- it wasn't--
    it's very hard.
    I've read plenty of stuff since then.
    And all this has been explained in the literature.
    But unless you have experienced it, it's very hard to describe.
    Like I just told you earlier, the Jewish people
    that lived there were conditioned to it.
    They had a way.
    They were so smart, those Nazis.
    I have a lot of stories that I can probably tell you
    later about what happened to my grandmother who stayed there
    until they were finally sent to the camps, and how they still--
    and I just read again in the calendar
    that I got from the Holocaust Museum
    about Theresienstadt, Terezin, and how
    they were told that that was really a good place.
    You're going to pay a little more,
    and they could, 'cause it was a very special place to go to.
    And everybody rationalized everything,
    that it was really going to be OK.
    Nobody actually would believe rationally
    that their lives were really in danger,
    that people would actually take and slaughter people.
    And you know how people could rationalize that once
    they were discriminated against like we were.
    And I was very much aware of the discrimination.
    And I don't want you to think that I wasn't.
    And I always-- just like my father before me, and probably
    for generations Jews before me, I
    was very good to deal with discrimination.
    I was very, very skilled.
    And I think I am still that way, even
    in this country in my daily life.
    What do you mean, skilled?
    I'm very skilled in--
    What do you mean by that?
    --getting along and trying to make the world
    think that I'm just like everybody else.
    That's what I mean.
    That's being skilled in dealing with discrimination.
    But of course, today, my attitude has changed totally.
    What I felt as a little boy, I am that way very strong today,
    very, very strong.
    I am very, very right-wing Jewish today, very strong.
    I'm a hawk.
    I don't like Arafat.
    You know what I'm talking about?
    Yes, I do.
    OK.
    Yeah.
    You're talking about the visit of Arafat to the museum.
    Is that what you mean?
    Well, it's one of the things I'm alluding to.
    Yeah.
    And yet the Jews in Germany, they rationalized so much
    about what was going on.
    My father was such an intellectual, such a reader.
    He read everything.
    He knew everything about Zionism, and about Maccabees,
    and about Jews, and about Jewish history.
    And he knew everything about everything.
    But they rationalized.
    They rationalized how everything was going to be OK,
    and how we have to get along, and how we have to make it go,
    and how Israel is never going to-- that's never going
    to work, how the Jewish state in Israel never work,
    and things like that.
    I've heard all that stuff.
    I've been weaned on that.
    Believe me.
    So you were in England until what year?
    Until when?
    1936 I came to America.
    How did those arrangements get made?
    OK.
    In Cranbrook, there was tuition, a lot of tuition.
    And my father-- the Nazis had the Devisen regulations.
    It was not permitted to send German marks out of Germany.
    So even though my father was the way that I said,
    he was still a Jew.
    And he knew how to get along.
    And he knew about a man in America
    who also was a very distant relative on my mother's side,
    and who also had been the son of the rabbi in Paderborn
    where my father had gone to cheder.
    When my father told me about it, he said, when he was a boy
    and he went to the rabbi's study to cheder,
    there was this German school cap hanging on the mirror.
    And that was Max's cap.
    And Max had gone to America, the rabbi's son.
    So your father had a religious upbringing then.
    Of course.
    Of course.
    He was a Jew.
    He was a Jew very much.
    Not religious, he was a German Jew.
    That's all the children.
    The Jewish religion, they pretended the Jews--
    that it was a religion.
    You're Jewish, it's like being Christian.
    You just had-- you just don't believe in Jesus Christ.
    But Jesus Christ is very nice, too,
    and everything was all right.
    But the Jews don't have that.
    But they didn't--
    [COUGHS] excuse me.
    They weren't afraid, like Eastern Jews, of a progrom.
    You see, the Eastern European Jews were already persecuted.
    They were used to persecution.
    During my father's lifetime, there wasn't any persecution.
    There was social discrimination against Jews.
    In other words, the people of the class of professionals
    that my father belonged to--
    they really didn't like Jews that much.
    But certain Jews, they had enough money.
    They could get along very well.
    And that's the way it was.
    That's just like it is here today.
    So my father knew that Max Nordhaus, who
    lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico and was
    the president of a big company, was supporting two old ladies
    that had taken care of his parents
    when they had gotten old in Germany.
    So he corresponded with Max and made arrangements
    to send the money to the old ladies.
    And Max sent the money to me in London, in Cranbrook.
    And when the check came, my father told me what to do.
    When the check came, I had to go to the office
    and endorse the check.
    And then my father says, you have
    to write a note to Mr. Max Nordhaus,
    and thank him, and acknowledge the check.
    And I did in English.
    And the next time, he wrote to me with the next check.
    And he said, I want you to get finished in school,
    and come to Albuquerque, and work in my business.
    I couldn't wait.
    I couldn't wait.
    I was ready.
    I was 16 then--
    15, 16 years old.
    I want to go right now.
    So my parents decided that was the thing to do.
    So they sent me.
    So--
    How did your parents distinguish between you and your brother
    and sister?
    Well, my brother was much younger.
    You see, he was much younger.
    He was still too young.
    And my sister-- the boy was first, the firstborn son.
    I think.
    I don't know.
    I don't know.
    I can't exactly answer that question.
    She came a year later, my sister.
    She came to America a year later.
    But they wanted to get--
    by this time, they knew that she had to go, too.
    And I guess they knew that, eventually, they had to go.
    And my mother, she went.
    She left before my father.
    But my father and my brother were still
    there till the last minute.
    We were just absolutely very, very fortunate, very fortunate.
    So you get this letter from Mr. Nordhaus.
    Yeah.
    And of course, I told my parents.
    I think I even called them up on the telephone.
    And I went back to Germany.
    So I saw my teacher in school, in English school.
    And I said, I want to immediately take
    the school certificate.
    That was the exam.
    I wasn't finished with my classes.
    But I said, I can do it.
    I said, I want to do it.
    I want to take the certificate.
    And I told him I was going to take German.
    And math, I wasn't that good in.
    But I'd take German.
    And I'd take English.
    And I'd take French.
    And I'm going to pass it.
    I want to take the certificate.
    I want to get out of school.
    I'm going to America.
    And my teacher cooperated.
    He was a fabulous man, CH Osborne.
    And he took me out of class at that time.
    And he gave me-- he was an English professor, a fantastic
    guy.
    And he gave me reading.
    And he gave me schedules to do.
    And I worked by myself in the library for about a month
    or so.
    And then I took the certificate.
    And then I got out of school and went home.
    I said, OK, I took the certificate,
    I want to go to America.
    See, when you want to do something--
    How many other--
    You had to be 18 years old to take that.
    How many other Jewish children from other countries
    were with you at the school?
    That school in Cranbrook?
    I don't even know for sure.
    I don't know for sure.
    I know I didn't--
    Were there other Jewish--
    In Cranbrook was this boy that I was telling you about.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Is this the one that you were talking about?
    He was a different type of a boy than I was.
    He was not as athletic, and things, like me.
    And he was not so--
    Is this the boy you were talking about
    that you would take a walk with and--
    Yeah.
    --talk about it was a curse to be Jewish?
    I had an intellectual relationship with him,
    but I didn't really know what happened to him or anything.
    Did he agree--
    Maybe I was too selfish.
    And he agreed with you that it was a curse at that time
    to be Jewish?
    Yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, there was no question about that.
    He was from this terrific family in Frankfurt.
    They were in the jewelry business, I remember.
    I don't even know what happened to him.
    I don't even know.
    I lost track.
    What was his name?
    I can't remember.
    I should know.
    I'm trying right now.
    I can't remember.
    OK, so now you've passed your exam.
    And what happens?
    I might remember his name tonight,
    but I can't remember it right now.
    I feel bad that I can't remember, but I can't remember.
    We can always add it later.
    That's OK.
    So you've passed your certificate.
    Yeah, I passed my certificate.
    Oh, we had to go get the visa.
    And right away-- it didn't take that long--
    my number was called.
    Max Nordhaus sent the affidavits and everything, all the papers.
    My father was very good in arranging all of that.
    And we went to Hamburg.
    I still remember sitting in the American consul's office
    in Hamburg.
    And they had-- what was the big magazine at that time?
    Life Magazine?
    No.
    They didn't have Life yet then.
    It was Look, I think.
    Oh, Look magazine.
    Or maybe something else even.
    But a magazine, and I opened it.
    And they had this double page of a white convertible Packard.
    I said, that's what I want.
    So anyway, I got on the boat.
    You went back to your family first--
    I went to--
    --and then went to--
    --Hamburg.
    And then--
    Who came with you to Hamburg?
    My father and mother.
    My mother was very teary and stuff.
    And she kissed me and hugged me more than I had ever
    been kissed in my life.
    It almost made me uncomfortable, kiss me so much.
    But I just wanted to go.
    And then--
    What month was this?
    It was in July, early July, very early,
    in the middle of the summer.
    Of 1936.
    Right.
    And then, that night, we got on the boat.
    Did your parents say anything special to you
    when you left them?
    Well, my father gave me a lot of things.
    I even have some stuff that he gave me--
    advice, and stuff like that, what I should do and things.
    One of the things he told me, I'll never forget.
    I always tell everybody.
    He says, you're going to America.
    And you're probably going to be in business, he said,
    because you didn't go to college or anything.
    I wanted you always have a college education.
    And probably that's not going to happen for you.
    But he said, you're going to be in business,
    so I want you to remember one thing.
    Don't lie to nobody, he says, because a liar
    has to have a very, very good memory.
    And he told me, you're not that smart.
    [LAUGHS] So that was one of the best things
    I ever got from my father.
    I never forgot that.
    Was it hard to say goodbye to your brother and sister?
    No.
    I hardly remember any of that.
    I can't remember.
    It was something that you just don't remember.
    I just left.
    They came on the boat, and we had dinner on the boat.
    What was the name of your boat?
    President Harding.
    I have a picture of it here.
    We had dinner on the boat in Hamburg the last night.
    They could come on board and have dinner.
    And I had a very good cabin class, or something.
    And they left.
    And they waved.
    And the boat left.
    You know, it's really--
    I must be a terrible person or something, but I wasn't sad.
    I kind of--
    I don't know.
    If you had been in camp and something over there,
    in school or something, you're kind of glad when your parents
    leave and you're on your own.
    At that point in my life, I was so glad to be out on my own.
    I wanted to prove myself.
    I wanted to-- you know.
    Well, I was sad.
    They were my parents.
    And I waved.
    I stood on the boat and waved.
    And I was a little bit upset, but not very much.
    How did you feel about leaving your homeland?
    Or did you, at that point, consider Germany your homeland?
    Let me tell you something.
    When I came to America, I never-- well, first of all,
    I had an unbelievable time on the boat.
    I had a ball on that boat.
    That trip was-- as young as I was,
    I already had a girlfriend on the boat.
    And it was wonderful.
    And she even got off with me in New York.
    And she showed me New York.
    But when I got to New York, the first night I was in America--
    I had had a little bit of that already in London,
    but it was different.
    When I knew I was in America and I had left Germany behind me,
    It was like a millstone was off my chest.
    I was free.
    I was in a world where it was different.
    I was free.
    I had escaped.
    I knew I had.
    As ignorant as I really was of everything,
    I guess subconsciously I wasn't as ignorant as that.
    I guess I knew how dangerous and how terrible it was.
    And I guess I didn't think enough about my--
    I should be worrying about my parents,
    and about my brother and sister, and about all the other people.
    But you know something?
    Everybody-- you can't really worry about the whole world.
    You have to live your own life every day.
    You have to be focused on where you are.
    And that's what I was doing.
    I was focusing on being in America and ice cream soda
    on the corner, banana split, and the gorgeous girls.
    I couldn't believe it was going on-- and the big buildings.
    And we went to the American Express.
    My father had bought me this Pullman from New York
    to Albuquerque.
    But I had a coupon or something.
    It was paid for in Germany.
    And I had to go to the American Express
    and exchange it for the ticket.
    Of course, my English was so lucky--
    talk in English, with an English accent yet.
    I had no problem communicating with anybody
    after all that time in England.
    And the girl says to me, well, you
    can take a plane to Chicago.
    And then there's a tourist Pullman out of Chicago
    that you can take into Albuquerque for the same money,
    which you already paid for.
    It's very expensive, this passage
    that you have on a Pullman from--
    and you make better time.
    And I think one of my interests was
    I wanted to stay a little bit longer
    in New York, another few days in New York.
    And I said, that's what I want.
    But she said, the only thing is you're going
    to have to send your bags.
    I had a lot of heavy bags.
    She said, you can't take all that luggage on the plane.
    At that time, you couldn't do that.
    You'd have to send that express.
    OK.
    I didn't know the difference.
    It was express collected.
    My relatives really loved it when
    they got that big bill when I got there, to New Mexico.
    So I did.
    I took a plane from New York, stopped in Cleveland.
    And on the plane was this guy with bushy eyebrows,
    white hair.
    And I was sitting here.
    And he was sitting there on the other side of the aisle.
    And I could tell he must have been
    an important man, because there was
    another man that kept coming to him
    from the front of the plane.
    Apparently, he had a typewriter on the plane,
    writing letters and things like that.
    And the man started talking to me.
    And I told him, I just come from Germany.
    And he was interested in me.
    He started asking me questions.
    And I answered him.
    And he wished me a lot of luck.
    He asked me where I was going.
    I told him I was going to Albuquerque,
    and all that, with my relatives.
    He was very interesting.
    And then he got off the plane.
    And about three months later, I went to the movies
    and saw the March of Time.
    It was John L. Lewis.
    I told you the story.
    It was--
    No.
    It was John L. Lewis.
    I met him on that plane.
    I didn't know who he was, of course.
    And it was very hot that summer.
    And then, when I was on that Pullman from Chicago--
    and Chicago, I stayed at the Palmer House.
    I didn't know-- that's where the taxi took me.
    Oh, my, I saw Chicago.
    And I went to the burlesque and all.
    And then I went to the American Express again.
    And I got my tickets.
    And I found the station that I had to go to catch the train.
    And it was a several day ride to Albuquerque--
    very good accommodation, no problem.
    And it was so hot.
    And I remember it was the election.
    And Roosevelt, I guess, was running against Lyndon.
    And the election was going on.
    And I didn't know anything.
    And they were shouting, election.
    And there were people electioneering around there.
    And I thought it was so cool.
    And it was hot, though.
    And I never saw such heat.
    When I got off the train, I thought,
    my god, you could fry an egg right there on the platform
    it was so hot.
    But the compartments were not hot.
    It was nice.
    I don't know if they had air conditioning,
    or put fans, all that.
    It was fine.
    So Mr. Nordhaus met you when you arrived.
    When I arrived, there was somebody there at the station.
    His name was Rudolf Dreier.
    He was a cousin that was a little bit older than I.
    There was another German guy from Germany
    that had gone to the--
    Max Nordhaus always took these boys
    as the ones he wanted in his business.
    And Rudolf met me.
    And he told me, well, I'm going to take you over to the house.
    He says, but I want to tell you Max Nordhaus died.
    And I had to sent him a telegram when I was arriving.
    But I forgot to put whether it was AM or PM or something,
    and something on the telegram.
    But he was there anyway.
    He told me I didn't send the telegram right.
    So I couldn't believe it.
    When I got there, he had died.
    And they didn't even know I was coming.
    And they were still in mourning.
    And they didn't know I was coming.
    The only way that they finally found out--
    because he had written a letter to my father.
    And they found the letter on his desk in his office.
    And he told my father not to worry.
    He was going to take good care of me.
    This is a continuation of the United States Holocaust
    Memorial Museum interview with Wolfgang Mueller.
    This is tape number 2, side A, and you've
    arrived in Albuquerque.
    OK, of course, the family was kind of in disarray
    because the head of the family had suddenly passed away.
    He had suffered a heart attack at his desk in his office.
    This is July 1936.
    It was around July 26 when I arrived there.
    Just I was getting closer.
    So they didn't know exactly how to handle
    it, what to do with me.
    So I was very fortunate again.
    I was there like one day or so, one or two days.
    And they put me up in their home.
    It was a magnificent home, extremely wealthy people.
    This was his home basically.
    And they had a place in the mountains
    above Las Vegas, New Mexico, called Trout Springs.
    And they said that the mourning period was about over,
    and they planned to spent a few weeks there in that place.
    And they asked me if I'd like to go with them.
    And I said, yeah.
    And also they found out, of course,
    right away, and talking to me, of course--
    I was easy to talk to because I knew English.
    And they knew that I played tennis
    and that I was also an avid skier and all that,
    and they liked all that.
    As a matter of fact, I think the first morning,
    I had to go play tennis with them.
    And, of course, I was very good, very, very good, much better
    than them.
    So that, they really liked me.
    And one of the girls was kind of cute.
    And then so I got to drive with her up to the mountains.
    And then I spend like a whole month of August
    and I think half of September in the mountains there.
    And there was a Jewish boy from Cincinnati, Bobby Weinshanker.
    That was a cousin of theirs.
    It was there too.
    And so I had a pal.
    And we took horses and we packed into the mountains.
    And there was a Mexican boy that was our age.
    It was a son of the caretaker that
    lived on the other hill opposite to where
    they had their cottages.
    And, of course, he was our guide.
    And it was the most incredible summer I ever
    had altogether, fabulous.
    And they had a tennis court there.
    They had a tennis court on their estate there.
    And they had these cabins like--
    Camp David I guess is like that--
    and with people sleep in there, the central place where you ate
    and everything and had company from New York and from all
    over.
    And these were young couples, a little bit older than me.
    But they were girls there that were my age.
    And then I played tennis with everybody.
    And I rode horses.
    And I had a ball.
    I thought America really was the best place in the whole world.
    Were you thinking about Germany at all?
    No.
    I forgot Germany.
    I didn't even remember where Germany was.
    I didn't even-- it was too incredibly wonderful.
    Did you have contact with your parents that summer?
    Maybe letters.
    Maybe occasional correspondence.
    I got a letter occasionally, maybe.
    I remember I have a letter from my Uncle Heinrich, who
    was really one of my favorite uncles, that
    died in a concentration camp.
    And he wrote to me.
    And I still have the letter.
    I have it in my archives.
    And he said I ought to marry that little Maxine.
    He knew about her.
    Not his daughter.
    I was thinking about marriage--
    like that was the last thing I was interested in, marriage,
    you know.
    So anyway, Rudolf Dryer came in September
    after about a month or six weeks.
    And he said they decided to put me in the hardware
    department in their business.
    He was going to take me back and put me to work.
    And I left there, and then I went to work.
    And then pretty soon I moved out of their house.
    And I started to make some money.
    I also met some American boys.
    One boy was working on a newspaper and everything.
    And I found out, you know, he was very impressed
    with-- he took me to wrestling matches and bought
    American teletype machines and cars and girls
    and drinking whiskey.
    And then I became very Americanized,
    and I started working, started working.
    That's what I was doing, working.
    And then pretty soon-- first, I was just
    like clerking there on the office.
    And then very, very quickly I moved up,
    because I guess I dedicated myself to the job pretty well.
    Like, for example, they had a catalog.
    I remember, a hardware business, they have a big catalog
    with all of that.
    Every week they had to change prices.
    And they had a ditto machine.
    And I would stay till late on Saturday,
    and I would make all the prices.
    And I would make the addition for the catalog.
    And they had 17 branches all over the state of New Mexico.
    And I would send them out to all the branches.
    And pretty soon they gave me more responsible work.
    Within a short time, I had a secretary.
    And I was bidding on government contracts.
    And I was moving up in the company.
    And by the time that it was time the war started,
    I was already selling.
    I had my car.
    And I had a room and everything.
    I had a nice place to live.
    And I was selling hardware.
    I was traveling.
    Had you heard about Kristallnacht?
    Do what?
    Had you heard about Kristallnacht?
    Yes.
    What were your thoughts?
    In the meantime, first, my sister came a year later.
    And she was supposed to join me in Albuquerque.
    But she didn't make it, because they gave her a package.
    What Jewish people did in Germany
    when the children went to America,
    in our class of people, first of all
    they try to train them in some skills
    that they could make a living over here.
    And my sister, like I told you, was four years older than me.
    So she had learned how to do calisthenics and massage
    and stuff like that, physical therapy.
    And also, these people from Hanover
    had a daughter in Washington that
    was also a physical therapist.
    She was about a year or two older than my sister.
    And-- I'm sorry--
    the daughter met her at the boat in New York.
    And because my sister had a package for her,
    my sister didn't know what it was.
    Usually gave her Leica, or something like that,
    something that they could send along, money, you know.
    So money was too dangerous.
    I don't think they gave money, but probably a Leica
    or something like that she had in her bag.
    And she gave her the package.
    Her name was Margaret.
    Goldman was her maiden name.
    I don't know if she married then.
    Later it was Green.
    And she said to my sister, you know,
    Trudy, I think there's a job for you in Washington.
    She knew that she was a therapist, you know.
    There is a job.
    They need somebody.
    They need a girl at this place on Connecticut Avenue.
    And my sister had the guts to get--
    she was supposed to come to Albuquerque--
    to get on the train to Washington and to apply
    for this job at 1747 Connecticut Avenue at Emile's.
    It was something like Elizabeth Arden.
    And she got the job.
    So she started to live in Washington.
    And down the street from where she worked on Connecticut
    Avenue, up the street towards DuPont Circle, in the basement,
    there was this German couple.
    She was from a family in south Germany.
    And he had been a waiter, a Jewish man
    on the Hamburg America Line.
    And then he-- a steward--
    and then he'd worked in the Mayflower Hotel.
    But he had gone back to Germany and gotten
    her a few years earlier.
    And they had opened up his little restaurant
    in the basement, a coffee shop in the basement of Connecticut
    Avenue.
    What happened that she had 11 brothers and sisters.
    And two of her brothers had been in a concentration camp.
    Their name was Kilzeimer, her maiden name.
    And his name was Brandler.
    And one of these brothers, they had got them out.
    They sent them money to get them out of the concentration
    and bring them over here.
    And they'd been in there for Rassenschande.
    You know what that is?
    So because they had German girlfriends, you know.
    And in Germany, they had been cattle dealers,
    had been in the cattle business.
    And also really, what they had in that little town
    in Konigsbach.
    It's near Pforzheim in Badens--
    that's Baden in Germany--
    they had had a butcher shop, kosher butcher shop.
    And you know, in Germany in the country,
    if you have a butcher shop, you actually
    have a slaughtering place too.
    They slaughtered animals.
    And they sold the meat.
    And the kids went out and started buying cattle for home,
    and later they traded in cattle.
    So they had become big cattle dealers.
    And they came over here.
    And one of them, this particular one, his name was Bernie.
    And he got a job at Briggs and Company
    making hot dogs when he got over here.
    He would go to work at 2:00 in the morning.
    He got off early, around 10, 11 o'clock,
    and he went to his sister's restaurant.
    And she had the lunch orders then from those office
    buildings.
    So he went around and delivered the orders for the tips.
    And that way, he got a little bit extra money.
    And they told him, there's this good
    looking Jewish girl, German girl--
    Jewish wasn't important-- German girl had started
    to work doing the cleaning.
    She comes up here and gets a cup of coffee almost every day.
    So he waited for her.
    So she met him, and he became her future husband.
    I had asked what your thoughts were when
    you heard about Kristallnacht.
    Oh, I'm sorry.
    Well, what happened my mother was here.
    And my mother had come to visit my sister.
    It ties into this.
    She'd come here to visit my sister.
    And she was in Washington.
    She came out to Albuquerque.
    And she stayed with me for a while.
    I was in Albuquerque.
    And then the Kristallnacht occurred.
    Of course, it was in all the papers and everything.
    And then my father sent her a telegram.
    And things had gotten rough in Germany then.
    And he told her to delay her return.
    But she was on a visitor's visa.
    Was this synagogue in Hanover destroyed?
    Oh, yeah.
    Hanover was destroyed.
    And Paderborn, it was burned down.
    And, you know, people were arrested.
    And my brother told me all about what happened.
    He was a little boy.
    He was 10 years old.
    But he told me so people getting--
    at night, my father was away a lot traveling.
    And he was standing in the front of the window at our house,
    and he saw this van pull up across the street there.
    And there was the Cohens living there.
    And these guys were coming out.
    And then he heard the screaming.
    And they dragged this man out and beating him with a stick.
    And the woman was running behind him and her hair flowing.
    And they beat him like he was dead.
    And then they threw him in that van.
    And when he saw that, little as he was,
    he told my father when he came, we got to leave.
    We got to get out of here.
    The children were smarter than parents.
    My brother told him, said that to my father.
    My brother tells the story.
    You should interview him.
    He was there.
    He saw that.
    He will never forget that trauma.
    And he had many other things happen.
    I was with my brother in Germany two years ago,
    and we went to all these places and the cemeteries.
    And he saw the grave of one of the women
    that had taken care of him for a short time during those years.
    But Just before they left--
    she was a cousin of my father's.
    And she died in a concentration camp.
    And my brother cried at her grave.
    And he didn't know it that she could have gotten out,
    but she stayed with her mother, lots of stories like that.
    And I'm short circuiting the story now.
    But, you know, the following year,
    they called me from Germany.
    And they opened a street.
    They named a street after my grandmother.
    Did you know that?
    Did I tell you that?
    Yeah, in Neuhaus.
    And I told them that if they do that, I
    would come with my family and attend the dedication,
    and we did.
    And that was last year.
    And they had that street there now.
    And it was quite a thing.
    And all my cousins were there.
    It was in all the papers.
    I have all kinds of newspaper articles
    from Germany and everything.
    And--
    Why did they name the street after your grandmother?
    Well, my grandfather and my great grandfather
    already owned the flour mill in this village, Neuhaus.
    And they were the major employers there.
    And my grandfather, my grandmother's husband,
    died before the First World War.
    And she had a German guy, an associate, and her son
    in the business.
    But she was a very wealthy lady, and she was very generous.
    And then they were very, very mean to her.
    My father, they tried to get her to leave.
    But she wouldn't leave.
    And eventually, she went to Theresienstadt.
    And she perished there.
    And her son was there too.
    And he died in Auschwitz.
    You know, the Museum have the letters and everything.
    And other son, we don't know where he died.
    He was sent to Bergen-Belsen and was probably sent to Auschwitz
    too, but he died too.
    So those are my uncles.
    And in Paderborn today, they have a Holocaust Memorial.
    And all their names are on there.
    And I have pictures of all that.
    And so in that sense, I'm connected with it,
    very much so.
    When we were in Germany last year,
    and I was there with my wife and my children-- and everybody
    was there.
    And my cousins were all there.
    All from my grandmother's children,
    they were descendants.
    Even my brother took his son.
    And they had a HaShoah service at the synagogue there.
    And you know, they didn't even have a rabbi.
    They had a Catholic guy doing some--
    they had a couple of guys and myself
    that could do a little davening, say a little bit of Kaddish
    and stuff like that.
    No Jews.
    But the place was filled.
    All the Germans were there.
    And they read all the names of all the people that got
    killed, a boy and a girl read it.
    I was very moved by that, the names and ages.
    So the Germans today, officially,
    are trying to do something.
    Not that I'm sticking up for the Germans or anything.
    But it makes you feel good that it's not totally
    forgotten in Germany.
    I still get a lot of literature from Hanover, from Paderborn,
    from everybody.
    They've written up histories of our family
    and histories of the Jewish people, all kinds of books
    and stuff like that on the pictures.
    To get back to where we were in time, so it's the late '30s.
    And war breaks out September '39.
    Yeah, like I said, it was probably in '39 when
    my father--
    a month or two, maybe a month, six weeks before my father
    and my brother got to England.
    And then--
    Your mother stayed in the United States?
    My mother stayed.
    And we tried everything, the relatives,
    and wrote letters to Congress to get her visa,
    get her some kind of a permit to stay.
    Nothing worked.
    The government didn't want to help the Jews.
    So the only thing that she could do, she had a cousin,
    on of my grandmother's brother, another brother
    of my grandmother's-- these families,
    these Jewish families in Germany at the turn of the century were
    huge, huge.
    12 children was nothing.
    And this was Bernard Schuster.
    And we knew this.
    He was living in El Paso.
    So he had a house there.
    So my mother went to El Paso.
    And the idea was that she went to the consulate in Juarez
    and made an application for a permanent number.
    But she had to have legal residence in Mexico.
    So she got an address in Mexico.
    But she didn't really stay there.
    She stayed really in her cousin's house.
    And once a month, I think, she walked across the Rio Grande,
    across the bridge, and reported to the consul.
    And she had to stay there several years
    till her number was called.
    And in the meantime, the war was going on.
    In the meantime, I was drafted.
    Now, I was down in El Paso, and I visited her, of course.
    Well, so you continued to work in Albuquerque.
    Sure.
    And then, what was--
    I had an important job.
    I was making a good living.
    What was the next change?
    Well, I was drafted.
    When was that?
    It was about three or four months
    before Pearl Harbor in 1941.
    December 7th, it was in '41.
    And I got my draft notice.
    I had signed up for my first papers.
    You know, I hadn't done my citizenship yet.
    And then I went to the draft board.
    And the lady again--
    maybe my manipulation.
    I haven't changed, I guess.
    I'm still that way.
    The lady told me--
    I took my physical and all that in Albuquerque.
    And I passed all that.
    And she told me that you can have your number transferred
    to Washington.
    I told her that I had a sister in Washington.
    By this time, my mother had moved to Washington.
    She had gotten a visa, and she moved to Washington
    to my sister.
    And she says, you can-- and I hadn't seen my sister.
    I didn't know her husband.
    I didn't know my brother-in-law.
    So I had always wanted to go there.
    So she said you can have your number changed to Washington.
    And that way it would be about a month later before you actually
    have to go in, because before they do all that paperwork.
    That sounds like a winner to me.
    I did that.
    So I agreed to that.
    But I quit my job.
    I sold my car.
    I packed my bags.
    I brought a lot of presents for my sister
    and for my mother and stuff, like with a hardware business,
    radios and toasters and stuff like that.
    And I bought a bus ticket across the United States
    to Washington.
    It was a great, great experience.
    I never forget it, wonderful.
    It took like a week.
    And I saw the country.
    And I had a good time.
    And it was fabulous.
    I stopped in Kansas City.
    There was a place where we were dealing with a Kansas City
    Steel Company.
    And they entertained me because I'd been a customer.
    I'd been buying nails and stuff like that from them.
    They showed me a time like I never had in my life before.
    Took me out.
    And--
    Previous to that, what was it like for
    a 19-year-old, 20-year-old young man born in Germany
    to read in the newspaper or hear on the radio
    about the Anschluss in Austria and the invasion of Poland
    by Germany in September 1939?
    What were your reactions having been born in Germany?
    It was terrible.
    But there's nothing I can do about it.
    What can you do about when you read about something
    that's happening in China?
    Or in Southeast Asia?
    Or even maybe in Mexico or in South America?
    Did you feel any connection to Germany then
    having been born there?
    Yes.
    I knew that it was--
    but I was out of it.
    I was here.
    I was here.
    I was out of it.
    I was here.
    I guess I went to synagogue.
    I went out with Jewish girl.
    But they were American girls.
    Yeah, I went out with some German people.
    But we didn't talk about that either.
    Was it a feeling that this wasn't
    your Germany in a sense that was doing these kind of things?
    I don't know how to answer that.
    I don't know.
    I didn't-- I wouldn't want there.
    And all I wanted to do was stay in America and fit in here
    and become an American.
    That's all.
    That's the only thing that interested me.
    And anyway, I wasn't even thinking of it in cosmic terms.
    Again, I was just focusing on every day of my life.
    I was doing my life.
    It never occurred to me--
    I would have gotten, of course, crazy
    if they would have known that they
    had taken people and killed them and stuff like that.
    I didn't even know that when I was in the service.
    That was very, very, very later in the service I saw it,
    when I was in the intelligence.
    Then I really saw everything.
    And that, of course, changed everything when I saw that.
    But again, I just felt so fortunate.
    And, you know, I still do, because somehow I
    was able to just get out of all of that stuff.
    I was saved.
    I don't know for what I was saved, but I was saved.
    I was just a lucky guy.
    Just call me Lucky.
    Now you're in Washington.
    And your number has come up, your draft number.
    Yes, and then my draft number.
    And then I went to New York.
    I spent a week in New York.
    And I enjoy-- then I was drafted.
    And I was in the infantry.
    And I was sent first to Fort Lee.
    And then I was sent to Macon, Georgia, Camp Wheeler.
    What was it like to put on an American soldiers uniform?
    It was great.
    I was proud of it.
    I loved every moment of it.
    No, I loved being a soldier.
    I didn't love the regimentation by this time.
    You know, I didn't really love--
    I can't say that I loved that so much.
    But I made friends in the army.
    And I had a great time.
    And then Pearl Harbor came.
    And it was on a Sunday morning, afternoon, by this time.
    And I remember I was playing poker.
    I was in this bunk, in this barracks where I lived.
    I was downstairs.
    But I was in this game with these guys upstairs.
    I was sitting on the bunk.
    And they heard this come on the radio
    that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.
    And I had a full house, three 8s and a pair of kings
    or something like that.
    And I had made my bet.
    And all the guys left and went to the radio.
    I said, anybody-- you know, I didn't care about the radio.
    That's how I was.
    I was so different.
    I was out of it.
    I didn't know, I think.
    Maybe that came from having been through this in Germany.
    I had a deaf for this stuff.
    And I remember that night, the guys were all crying.
    You know, I heard them in my bunk, the other soldiers.
    I couldn't understand it, they were
    crying, because they knew war was really going to start.
    And their lives were really going to--
    they were aware of it.
    I didn't have any kind of feelings.
    On the contrary, I couldn't wait to get over there and kill
    Hitler.
    I didn't have any fear or anything like that at all.
    Then I heard Roosevelt's speech.
    And then we were on the drill fields the next day,
    and they called my name.
    Oh, my God, I said, KP again.
    Report to the First Sergeant.
    So I went and I reported.
    And I said, you have some books out from the library.
    You have to take them back, because you're shipping--
    hi.
    That's my wife-- you're shipping out tonight.
    And I said, oh, my God, what's going on?
    So I called home.
    And I told them I was shipping out.
    I didn't know where.
    And then they put me on a train.
    And I reported.
    And again, later, I found out why, there was a bunch of--
    we wound up after a couple of days
    shuttling around on the railroad in a field in Florida.
    And it was an air warning thing, because when the Japs attacked
    Hawaii, they had a radar there, and it
    had picked up the planes, but nobody paid attention to it.
    You remember reading that?
    And so the army decided as a crash measure
    to improve the radar, especially for the East Coast,
    because they thought then the Germans might attack the East
    Coast of the United States.
    The whole world was afraid of Germany.
    And why did they take me?
    Because you have a Form 20 in the army when you first go in.
    In those days, they clipped it on the corner with holes in it
    from your IQ test.
    And because I had such a high IQ test,
    I was selected-- when you had a certain IQ test
    to learn about this radar.
    Can you believe that?
    I didn't know where I was, what I was doing.
    And so anyway, that's why I was in the radar.
    All of sudden I found myself in the Signal Corps
    part of the Air Corps.
    And then I applied for officer candidate school
    after I was there for awhile.
    We called ourselves the Fighting 614.
    All the guys I was with were a college guys
    from Princeton and Harvard and really terrific Ivy League
    types, you know.
    And they all wanted to become officers.
    So I did, too.
    You know, everybody else.
    So when I marched out in front of the board,
    there was like this redneck captain and the lieutenant.
    They asked me my name.
    And they found out that I was from Germany.
    They told me to go outside.
    The next day, I was on a train to Jacksonville
    and I was in the MPs, because there was sensitive stuff.
    They didn't want a German spies there.
    That's how they thought, OK?
    And then I was there in the MPs.
    And then I volunteered for overseas.
    Did the other soldiers give you a hard time
    because you were from Germany?
    Did they what?
    Did the other soldiers ever give you
    a hard time when they heard you were from Germany?
    I don't think-- my English was--
    I was like an American.
    I was not any different than anybody else.
    I had lots of friends.
    And we worked at night.
    And we did duty.
    And we had a great time.
    I played a lot of tennis.
    My tennis always-- I played in the finest country
    clubs in Tampa.
    It was in Tampa where that was, where I was.
    We were stationed in a hotel.
    It's great.
    And I just always been lucky.
    But then I was in Jacksonville.
    And that wasn't so nice.
    So I volunteered for overseas.
    So I went back to Washington on the train.
    Had you gotten your citizenship yet?
    Yeah, I got my citizenship while I was in Tampa.
    How did you feel about becoming an American citizen?
    Oh, that was a great thing, you know.
    And I found out it was much easier because I
    had been in service and all.
    So I went and got my citizenship.
    Piece of cake.
    It was nothing to it.
    Was it a special day for you?
    Huh?
    Was that a special day for you?
    You know, I kind of took it in stride.
    My life has been like that.
    The special days are just another day,
    another day in the life of Wolfgang Mueller.
    On March 23 it will be my 50th anniversary--
    if I make it.
    It will be another day, right?
    Be married to this lady for 50 years.
    So you volunteered for overseas duty.
    Yeah, I volunteered for overseas duty.
    And they sent me overseas.
    And I was on a troop ship.
    And it was quite an experience.
    First, you're in a repple depple and all that.
    And then I was in a troop ship.
    And you know something, there's not too much else to do,
    but we gambled, you know.
    And I got so lucky.
    I must have won like all the money on the troop ship.
    I had a money belt and had all my pockets full,
    everything full.
    And when I got to England, I took my whole outfit
    out drinking.
    And--
    What were your thoughts when you returned to England
    in the uniform of United States Army?
    I knew my brother was over there and my father.
    And I couldn't wait to get to London and get to see him.
    You know, I wanted to see my father and everything.
    That's what I did.
    Did you get to see him?
    Oh, yeah.
    What was that like to see him?
    Yeah, well, by this time, my father was living with a woman.
    And my brother had been sent like with the children
    out in the country to get out of the air raids.
    And he had just gotten back.
    He was going to school in England.
    Oh, yes, and I took my brother--
    then I arranged for my brother to come to America.
    My uniform and my ribbons, I went to Grosvenor Square
    to the American embassy, and I made all the arrangements.
    And I took him to Cardiff in Wales.
    And I put him on the boat.
    That's how he got to America.
    And by the time I got home from overseas, he was in service.
    So now you're in England.
    And then what happened?
    With the military.
    Yeah, I'm in England.
    In the meantime, I've become a non-commissioned officer.
    And I was an RAF liaison.
    And our job was--
    I was connected with the Air Corps--
    and our job was to procure parts from the RAF
    for American planes.
    I was in an area, all around us were all the American air
    bases, the bombing bases.
    So I met all the guys that were on the airplanes and everything
    and went out drinking every night.
    Typical life of an American soldier in England.
    And then one day, again, I got notified
    and I was told to report to London,
    to the headquarters of the ETO.
    All the time, after a while they find out something about me.
    ETO stands for--
    ETO, European Theater of Operations,
    General Eisenhower's headquarters
    in the [INAUDIBLE] building.
    That's a big department store in London, office building.
    And I went there.
    And they said that they just found out--
    they just figured out from my Form 20 that I knew German.
    And they needed interpreters.
    This is a continuation of the United States Holocaust
    Memorial Museum interview with Wolfgang Mueller.
    This is tape 2, side B. And you just got your new orders
    to report in England.
    So, again, all of a sudden, I found myself
    in an incredible environment.
    All the guys were German Jews like myself,
    not all of them, but 90% of them.
    And--
    What month, what time span are we talking about?
    It was after VE Day.
    It was after VE Day, but not too long after VE Day.
    So it had to be--
    VE Day, it was--
    So we're now in spring of '45.
    Yeah.
    So the entire time that you were--
    up to that, you were in England the whole time.
    OK.
    As a liaison to the Royal Air Force, you said.
    Hmm?
    As a liaison to Royal Air Force.
    Yeah, I was in the 8th Air Force.
    I was just in the 8th Air Force.
    But I was in what they call a repple depple, replacement
    depot or parts depot.
    And I was in the supply.
    And I became a technical sergeant, you know,
    five stripes.
    And I was in charge of a whole office of people and stuff
    like that, just getting supplies and things.
    So you never went on to--
    I did what I had to do, doing paperwork.
    But at that point you had not been on the continent yet,
    you were still--
    No.
    And now it's VE Day--
    In London.
    And now it's VE Day.
    Yeah, VE Day comes and goes.
    And they need interpreters.
    And I'm selected to become.
    And I get orders.
    I get assigned to this office, Air Technical Intelligence
    Office of New Staff, United States Air Force headquarters.
    That was the main office, honey.
    I was in the headquarters.
    General Spaatz's headquarters in the Intelligence.
    And this was the Air Technical Intelligence
    where they had the pool of interpreters
    that they sent all over.
    And I got orders, it said, Tech Sergeant Wolfgang Mueller
    can commandeer anywhere in the European theater
    any kind of transportation.
    He can go anywhere he wants to.
    He had under a special order, signed General Spaatz.
    And our office had an office in Paris already
    and an office in London.
    Did you know any of the other German Jewish soldiers
    at that point?
    No, I met them all there but--
    They weren't anybody from Hanover--
    But, of course, we talked and we've exchanged experiences.
    And it's all the same, you know.
    And then--
    Were you aware yet at that point of what happened to the Jews
    by then?
    No, not really.
    Not really.
    Not really.
    But I was in an environment then, of all of a sudden--
    like, for example, I was stationed
    right in the West End of London in a gorgeous apartment house,
    in like a flat.
    You know, it must be very rich people at one time.
    And it had been commandeered by the army.
    And again, like I had been in Florida, the people I was with
    were of a different class.
    And the soldiers that I been with on the air bases, these
    were all very intelligent guys.
    We had fabulous conversations, had great dates,
    you know, went out with great women and stuff like that.
    And we had a great time.
    But the war was still going on.
    The V2s were already coming to London.
    There was still a lot going on.
    And I was-- no, I guess after VE Day, there were-- no VE Day,
    sure the war was going on.
    There was a war in Germany, of course.
    Yeah, the V2s and the V1s were coming.
    And I was flying into Paris.
    By this time the army had taken Paris.
    And--
    Go back just one minute.
    I remember before I went in the service
    I was in my sister's apartment in Washington.
    And we were listening to the radio.
    And we heard about the Battle of Tobruk.
    And at that time, before that happened,
    we thought Hitler was omnipotent.
    He was going to take over the whole world,
    was a little bit afraid of Hitler at that time as Jews,
    because it looked like nothing could stop him.
    But then one of the greatest celebrations,
    one of the most elated feelings that I ever had
    was that night in my sister's apartment
    when I heard that the English army had
    defeated Rommel at Tobruk.
    I thought, I think maybe they really stopped him.
    The man on the radio said it was very important,
    because if he would have linked up with Japan and stuff,
    maybe nobody could stop him anymore.
    At that time, that was very, very big thing, very big day,
    very, very big day.
    I've had a few big days in my life.
    Another big day was when I was here in Washington
    and the Voting Rights bill was passed.
    And I went down to the Congress.
    Somehow I got passes.
    And I went in there.
    And I saw them vote on that.
    And that was also a great moment for me.
    I thought it was a great moment in this country,
    in the history of the world, that finally, I thought--
    And, you know, I always thought it
    was so terrible what's going on between the Blacks and Jews.
    My neighbor here and his wife both have
    numbers on their arms.
    And they're both dear friends of mine.
    They're wonderful, wonderful people, the Spiegels.
    They're very active in the Holocaust Museum.
    And we were in the B'nai B'rith together here years ago
    already.
    And we had one project.
    I remember, a civic project.
    And we were both on the board.
    One time I was a president, and he
    was a president of the large.
    And the project was where we gave a kid in the inner city
    a citizenship award, like $100 or something,
    and a certificate.
    It was one of the things that our lodge did.
    And my neighbor, Sam Spiegel, was vehemently
    opposed to that project because he didn't want
    to do anything for the Blacks.
    And you know something, I could never
    understand how a man that had been through what
    he had been through, how he could
    have that kind of an attitude.
    I didn't let it interfere with my personal feelings
    towards him, but intellectually, I never could beat that one.
    But I fought for it, but we always gave him
    that citizenship award.
    I think you feel that way because of your background?
    Or what you saw as a child?
    Those posters on the street.
    Well, I think the only thing that's important
    for a person is to be able to stand up for what they really
    think is right.
    I think I have learned that a little bit.
    And I tried to teach that also to my family and my children.
    I've tried to live that kind of a life.
    And I think it's very, very hard.
    It's also a very hard thing, because, you know, like
    in this country where we have discrimination here
    against Black people, for example,
    or the minorities, all of them-- it's not just in this country.
    Everywhere.
    In this country it's so terrible because it's
    such a free country.
    And everything else is so great.
    And still we have that going on.
    And we have so much of it.
    And for a Jew to subscribe to anything like that I think
    is a most unworthy thing in the world.
    And most people, if they're--
    and we're getting onto something else now,
    and I feel strongly about that too, and very few Jews do--
    most people go along with the program,
    especially if their job is at stake,
    their livelihood is at stake.
    Regardless of whether it's right or wrong,
    if this is the program, if this is
    what the establishment expects of you,
    you better do it, because otherwise you
    might lose your job.
    You see what I mean?
    Well, you know, the German people,
    the average people in Germany, that's what they did.
    The average people in Germany didn't
    want to go and kill a few Jews.
    And even the people that were in the army
    or in the concentration camps and working there,
    and they did what they were supposed to do,
    they didn't really want to do that.
    That was the program.
    That's what you did.
    And human beings are very funny.
    You know, I've worked in the meat business.
    And when I was first working in a slaughterhouse
    and I saw animals and lambs and calves getting killed,
    it made me sick to my stomach.
    It didn't take me very long to get used to it.
    And when people get treated terrible,
    pretty soon you don't know that they're people.
    And for Jews-- now, I'm talking about Jews, about us, OK--
    to discriminate against anybody, even Germans, for what they
    are, to group them together as whole bunch of people,
    that's a terrible thing, because everybody is one person.
    And I think that's important.
    And you've got to remember that.
    And that's what I believe in.
    I don't know why I brought that up.
    I didn't really want to make a speech.
    But we got around to that subject.
    That's what life has taught me.
    And that's what I think about when
    I think about all the terrible things that are happening.
    Now, you know, it's not finished.
    You know, terrible things are still
    going on in Africa, in Asia, in Russia, in South America.
    If you've done any traveling at all,
    you know it's so wonderful to be in this country.
    And we really don't appreciate how good we have it here.
    But I try not to forget it.
    You got to Paris.
    You're flying to Paris.
    Sorry.
    You had left England.
    And then you were sent to Paris, you said, after VE Day.
    Yeah.
    And then I reported to the office there.
    There was a lot going on there, went to Paris.
    Also, I visit my relatives in Paris.
    I found them, you know, the ones that had survived.
    I had a great time.
    And I brought them stuff from the PX and stuff like that
    and became very popular.
    And very, very nice to me and became very friendly.
    And then pretty soon, I was assigned
    as this interpreter to American engineers and officers
    that were sent into Germany to check out
    different technical things that the Air Force was
    interested in, intelligence matters,
    also arrest certain German guys that they wanted to bring back,
    like these space scientists and people like that.
    So I participated in all those programs.
    And I made many, many trips into Germany
    and got all over Germany.
    I also got a chance to get into places
    where had been slave labor camps and where there were still
    terrible conditions going on.
    And I was actually on the ground.
    And I saw what was really had happened.
    I was in a factory in Nordhaus where they made V2 rockets
    and stuff like that.
    Yeah, we'll talk about that.
    It's unbelievable.
    We'll talk about that.
    So your first trip back to Germany was to do what?
    What year was that?
    No.
    Your first trip back to Germany--
    Afterwards?
    No, no, no.
    During the war, you were in Paris
    and you said they sent you--
    Yeah, almost immediately, very soon.
    That's what I was there for.
    And where did you go in Germany?
    I was in Munich.
    And I was in Goslar.
    And I was in Brunswick and--
    Did you interrogate--
    I was in Leipzig.
    I was in Czechoslovakia.
    I was in Austria.
    I was everywhere.
    And you are now interrogating Germans
    for-- this is intelligence work.
    Yeah, I was interrogating Germans.
    Part of my job was interrogating Germans.
    Part of my job was interpreting documents.
    And part of my job was driving a Jeep for American officers.
    So you're now doing intelligence work.
    Right.
    And--
    I'm an interpreter.
    And did those people that you were interpreting for
    know you were Jewish?
    I didn't waste any time telling them about it.
    But I don't think--
    I'm talking about the Germans.
    Oh, the Germans?
    Oh and how.
    How did they know you were Jewish?
    Oh, I told them.
    They were shaking in their boots when I came.
    American intelligence officer.
    Oh, my God, I was at the Rosenthal factory
    in Selb, in Czechoslovakia.
    And because the Germans--
    actually, I went there without an officer.
    I was just there with a secretary.
    It was a Jeep.
    They sent me there on a special mission,
    because they wanted me to get certain information.
    We had an office in Munich at that time.
    And because the Germans were doing a lot with ceramics,
    and a lot was around technical.
    And one of the interesting things
    was the prime target, intelligence target,
    at that time that technical intelligence pursued
    is the intelligence that the Germans had on the Russians.
    We were getting ready for the next war already.
    And one of the things that was always
    very important like-- that was very far east.
    I was in Leipzig too.
    Always try to get in there before the Russian armies got
    in there.
    I was in the place--
    what is it?
    Zeiss and the Zeiss works, all over Zeiss works.
    Interviewed all the engineers.
    And then they we couldn't get rid of them.
    They wanted to go back with us, because the Russians
    were coming the next day.
    What was it like to come back to Germany,
    put your foot down on German soil?
    It was unbelievable.
    The cities were all destroyed.
    The people were homeless.
    The children were hanging around the garbage
    cans trying to get some food.
    And you gave a girl an orange, and you could never
    get rid of her or something like that.
    And it was incredible.
    And, of course, also underneath, the scene
    that I saw all these DPs.
    The country was full of DPs and also
    around all the military posts.
    And the DPs, and they were so poor,
    and they were so desperate.
    And they were trying to find a way.
    But they were dirty, and they were stinking.
    And you didn't know to be nice to them
    or whether to get away from me, you know.
    Did you identify with any of them?
    No.
    No, not really.
    I did in a very abstract way.
    What could I do?
    You know, I couldn't--
    it was not within my--
    I had no way to help anybody.
    Most of those people that I saw couldn't even speak German.
    They spoke broken German.
    They're Eastern European people.
    It's pathetic kind of a situation, bad, bad, bad, bad.
    I remember the only emotional reaction
    I had be anger when I came back here, because people didn't
    even seem to care, because all the misery that I've seen,
    the misery.
    I felt sorry.
    I didn't feel anger then at the German people.
    No, no, no, I don't feel anger.
    Not at all.
    I never felt angry with anybody at that time.
    I just felt sorry, because it's so terrible.
    It was a devastation.
    And we were so much better off, because we had everything.
    And everybody was kowtowing to us.
    We were big shots.
    I told you in Selb, the president of the company
    was there taking me around.
    And I was the big shot American.
    He wanted to give me the whole 100 piece
    set of Rosenthal porcelain.
    He couldn't do enough for me.
    Give me all the information, you know,
    whatever I wanted to know about and whatever secrets they had,
    I couldn't even write it all down.
    They couldn't do nothing.
    Again, the people, they were running,
    they were trying to save their lives.
    Look, later, I was with my-- how people are--
    I was with my family in Germany in the '60s, in '65 I guess.
    And we rented a car.
    And my children and my wife, we stopped in a filling station,
    fill up the car.
    I had a Mercedes.
    And I spoke German to the guy at the filling station
    to fill up my car.
    And he could tell the I looked, my family.
    He says, you're American, aren't you?
    I said, yes, Deutsch, you know, German.
    And spricht Deutsch, your German is wonderful, you know.
    So I said, well, ich bin Deutsche Jüde.
    I'm a German.
    I was at the Eastern front.
    He didn't know a thing.
    You see?
    We laughed.
    We laughed.
    When you were interviewing people,
    when you were doing this intelligence work,
    did you feel that you had to tell them you were Jewish?
    Oh, when it was strictly business, I probably didn't.
    You know, we talked to psychologists.
    And we talked to all kinds of people, technical things.
    I was very busy.
    Sometimes, it was very difficult for me to interpret.
    I didn't know the English words, just very technical a lot
    of the stuff.
    And a lot of them were very interesting people, you know.
    And some were Nazis.
    What did that do to you to be sitting
    there talking to a Nazi?
    Or interpreting for a Nazi?
    Nazis, we just arrested them.
    We made sure that they were arrested.
    If they weren't some where they were locked up,
    we saw to it that they were locked up.
    There were places all over where the Nazis were being kept.
    Did you have any gut reactions to being with Nazis?
    Just damn Nazis, you know, Nazis.
    There were all sorts of people.
    Sometimes I talked to German people
    that defended their position.
    And then, of course, I argued with them.
    But deep down, I saw that everybody
    is just trying to get by, trying to make a living, get by.
    It was Hitler.