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Oral history interview with Harry Kennedy

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1999.A.0122.334 | RG Number: RG-50.477.0334

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    Oral history interview with Harry Kennedy

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Harry Kennedy discusses his early life; his birth in Cologne, Germany; his infancy and young childhood in an orphanage; his adoption by the Kahn family in Mannheim, Germany; his childhood in Mannheim, including school and religious life; his expulsion from his soccer team shortly before Kristallnacht in November 1938; the events of Kristallnacht in detail; his father's absence in Switzerland and his mother's in the hospital during Kristallnacht; arriving home to find his home ransacked; witnessing the destruction of Jewish homes, stores and synagogue; being sheltered by a neighbor; his mother's decision to send him to New York; his trip to Switzerland in 1939 where he met his father, and then to Italy where he traveled on the S.S. Saturnia; boarding the ship; the interrogation of himself and other passengers by French soldiers; his arrival in New York City; living with an Italian family; learning English and attending night school; learning in October 1940 that his mother and grandmother had been deported to Gurs concentration camp; his desire to enlist in the Army, which was delayed by the family he lived with who refused to sign the enlistment papers; enlisting when he turned 18; becoming an American citizen before he was deployed as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division; changing his name to protect himself; the campaigns he participated in, including D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, and being involved in the liberation of a small concentration camp near Gottingen; his life after the war; visiting his father in Switzerland; returning to New York where he studied at New York University and worked in Army intelligence; his marriage and family; and his career in the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
    Interviewee
    Harry Kennedy
    Interviewer
    Hilde Gattmann
    Anne G. Saldinger
    Date
    interview:  2001 March 28
    interview:  2002 May 13
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 videocassettes (SVHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Kennedy, Harry.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project conducted the interview with Harry Kennedy on March 28, 2001 and May 13, 2002. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project in December 2001.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:44:47
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn509575

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