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Oral history interview with Eric Multin

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1992.A.0127.20 | RG Number: RG-50.154.0020

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    Oral history interview with Eric Multin
    Transcript
    I want to do a little test first.
    Would you just state your name and birth date?
    Eric S. Multin--
    M-U-L-T-I-N. May 8, 1906.
    All right.
    Now I'm going to stop it.
    This is Muriel Nathanson interviewing
    Eric Multin on May 27, 1986.
    To begin with, Mr. Multin, I want
    to thank you very much for agreeing
    to be a part of this project, and we appreciate
    all that your cooperation.
    You are most welcome.
    Now there will be many questions that I will be asking you.
    And please feel free to talk as fully as you can.
    Could you tell us, please, about your family background?
    My parents were uneducated people
    who met as salesman and salesgirl in a department store,
    got married, later became the manager of a branch
    of this department store.
    Where was this?
    Was in the Saar territory, in Dillingen on the Saar territory,
    Dillingen on the Saar.
    They later bought this store, developed it,
    built a new building, six stories, of which three
    were department store.
    Very successful.
    Very, how shall I say?
    Simple life.
    We were educated strictly.
    And I have only one sister.
    Our parents did everything for us we could,
    but we were not spoiled in this sense.
    Our parents couldn't devote much time to our upbringing.
    For education, I went to the public school for four years.
    Was from the beginning a very good pupil.
    Later on, to the, what they called realgymnasium.
    This is the high school.
    And the high school extended-- the last two
    years of the high school are already university compared
    with the American system.
    I completed my studies, the high school.
    Made my Abiturium, what they call an Abiturium,
    which is the baccalaureate, and went in 1925 to Cologne--
    to the university, to Cologne, and registered as a student
    of business administration.
    How old were you then?
    I finished in '25.
    I was 19 years old.
    You see, the high school, here you
    are finished with high school at 17.
    You have nine years high school and have two years more.
    So I was 19, and made my master's in--
    the equivalent of my masters in 1929,
    and my PhD in political economy in 1932.
    This was all at the University of Cologne?
    Cologne, yes.
    My sister, in the meantime, married in 1925 a Luxembourgian.
    And my parents retired very early.
    My father was 49 years old when he retired,
    and he rented his business to one of the biggest department
    store concerns in Germany.
    At this time, the Saar territory was German.
    Yes.
    Mistake.
    I correct myself.
    That's all right.
    The Saar was German until 1918.
    After 1918, according to the peace plan,
    it became, through the auspices of the then League of Nations,
    and was transferred to the authority
    of the French Republic.
    We became-- we got the French currency.
    We were in, community economic union with France.
    On the other hand, we had our border with Germany--
    our economic border with Germany.
    And in the Saar lived many old, French-born families.
    Many of them spoke French--
    still French.
    So I, since my mother language was German,
    I studied in Germany.
    And when I was--
    when I finished my PhD, I went to Mainz on the Rhine
    to affirm--
    You have not the same system here.
    This is-- would be translated as a fiduciary.
    In other words, we are consultant, economic consultant
    for everything.
    And tax-- we had a tax department.
    We had a book--
    book supervising department.
    We were called upon by the courts
    to make inspections of the books.
    We were called upon by firms who were in trouble to make
    arrangements between creditors.
    And it was completely set up.
    And I went through all phases.
    And in 1930-- by the end of 1932,
    I think it was, there were two main partners, one
    Jewish and the other Christian.
    The Christian partner left the firm,
    and I became the junior partner of the remaining Jewish partner.
    I still worked until August 1934,
    because my senior partner had a very Jewish name,
    and looked Jewish, and I didn't.
    So I continued to represent the firm on the outside.
    And nobody knew that I was Jewish,
    so I could work until August, when it became too hot.
    As a matter of fact, my last case
    were the two Nazi leaders of Mainz who came to meet,
    to whom I said, well, you are Jewish officer.
    That's why we came here.
    And I said, I'm sorry.
    I cannot accept this mandate.
    They said, well, you have no choice.
    I have to have any protection.
    Said, we give you any protection you desire.
    And they did it.
    So this was my last job at it over there.
    This is only on the side.
    How identified were you with the Jewish community,
    either during your growing up or later?
    Dillingen was a, as the whole Saar territory, very industrial.
    Heavy industry-- coal, iron, and so on.
    Dillingen itself had a ironworks,
    where they made iron or steel plates in any size.
    For instance, the German battleships
    were equipped with Panzer from Dillingen. Were 10,000,
    over 12,000 workers, and about 10,000 inhabitants at this time.
    They came from the outside every morning.
    It was, by the way, today, now, according
    to our standards, very unhealthy,
    because we had all the bad air.
    Pollution.
    Pollution very strongly.
    And we lived 500 yards from the ironworks.
    In school, we were, in my class, two Jews.
    And even in public school, they called
    us "Jew boy," the equivalent of Jew boy, and so on.
    And I was not very timid, and I came very often
    home with a bloody nose or something, because I hit.
    In high school, it was more hidden.
    And as it turned out later, many of my former classmates,
    with whom I went nine years through schools,
    who were my best friends, the few who were my good friends,
    they became the greatest Nazis.
    And with one, who was almost the best one,
    I had an account that he studied in Cologne and became, in a--
    I wouldn't say a antisemitic fraternity,
    but in a fraternity who became, very early, Nazis.
    And he wanted to--
    he didn't want to meet with me.
    I was in a Jewish-- pardon me.
    I forgot.
    I belonged to a Jewish fraternity.
    And we all wore our colors.
    And he didn't want to meet me with my colors.
    So I said to him, if you don't want to meet me
    with my my colors, I'm sorry.
    Let's put both them down and go private.
    No, I cannot, no, he said.
    I cannot mine either.
    And that was the end of it, of a long, long friendship.
    The education, Jewish education in school consisted
    of Wednesday afternoons, came from the outside
    a Jewish teacher.
    We learned how to read, to read.
    But we didn't understand what we read.
    It was a very primitive Jewish education.
    Until 1940, my father, who came from a very religious house,
    kept this.
    And I was obliged to do the same.
    There came bar mitzvah.
    And up to my bar mitzvah, or up till 1940--
    not up to, by the way.
    Excuse me.
    Excuse me.
    Does that matter if I--
    No, that's all right.
    Because I thought it was.
    At the beginning of the war, in 1914,
    I was eight years old, and born in 1906.
    I was eight years old.
    My father was called to the army.
    Fortunately, he was not sent to the front.
    But the distribution of food became very difficult.
    And since we had a department store, we had a better position.
    We sold or gave shoes for beef or butter.
    But we couldn't be particular.
    Is it kosher meat and so on.
    So we always had to eat, but slowly we
    came down from the standard, from the kosher standard.
    And then Papa came back after the war.
    He himself was a religious man.
    He was not only one who went on Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur
    to shul.
    He was not only sustaining, but one
    of the main members of the community, which consisted,
    I would say, 12 to 14 families.
    It was a very small Jewish community, then.
    Very small.
    And we had hired a cantor to conduct the service.
    We built a little synagogue.
    And I became very friendly with this cantor.
    I never felt a deep religious commitment, especially later on,
    when I came to university.
    I was a little bit on the left, slide on the left.
    There was what they called the Sozialdemokraten, the Social
    Democrats, which were left of the center.
    But these were the years where the students became aware
    of politics, and they took part in it.
    So we did.
    And I was liberal.
    Mostly, my political position was rather liberal
    than anything else, any denomination of a party.
    My friends within my fraternity, we
    are all from the same milieu from home--
    higher middle class, I'd say.
    And we had a common background.
    We had common interests.
    And the irony was--
    our motto was we were German citizens, German citizens
    of the Jewish faith.
    We were not Jews, German Jews.
    We were German citizens of the Jewish faith.
    In other words, our nationality, the German,
    the Germanic came first.
    It was tragic or tragic comic that most of us,
    when we immigrated, went to Israel
    and became very good Zionists.
    Our competition were the Zionist organization at the university.
    But they were worse than the Nazis.
    Worse.
    [LAUGHS]
    So far, for my Jewish--
    oh, one thing more.
    I didn't feel the need to go to shul.
    I felt in myself my beliefs are my own religion,
    and whether I am standing there and read what I cannot
    understand doesn't make any difference.
    Why lose my time?
    And when later on my parents were deported to the east,
    and my mother died in Theresienstadt,
    and my father was killed in Auschwitz,
    I felt that there is nobody.
    who had the chosen people.
    We were not the chosen people.
    Otherwise, he wouldn't have permitted that 6 million
    of "chosen people" were killed.
    So I didn't believe in that whole thing.
    I made my own theory--
    religion for me is a means to keep masses in line--
    in college.
    And as such I consider it still today.
    My wife was brought up in a little town in Germany,
    in Sobernheim.
    Not at all religious parents.
    But she had this feeling of belonging to religion,
    and she still has.
    And she wanted to be a member of a community.
    I refused in New York.
    First of all, I hadn't the time.
    Here, I said, if you want to, go.
    So we became members here of the temple of-- the Temple Emanuel.
    And it was, for me, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    It was [NON-ENGLISH] is what--
    I was standing there.
    I enjoyed the sermons of Dr. Ofer, Rabbi Ofer.
    But from then on, it was, for me, so bothersome,
    I couldn't read.
    I couldn't follow the songs.
    I'm very musical, and I couldn't even follow the songs,
    as [INAUDIBLE] before me.
    But the service didn't say anything to me.
    And I told my wife.
    And then came different things.
    My wife had open heart surgery.
    The rabbi came twice as a matter of course, I would say.
    And the sisterhood, nobody came.
    Nobody was there.
    And we decided that's not the right thing, both.
    Even my wife.
    Now she tries.
    She wants to persuade me to belong
    to the [INAUDIBLE] community, which we
    might go there once in a while.
    I don't know whether we at here.
    So far, about my Jewish education, my Jewish feelings.
    How did you meet your wife?
    Were you married when you were in Cologne, working in Cologne?
    No.
    In Cologne I was only at the university.
    Ah, in Mainz.
    In Mainz.
    My wife, her parents, my father-in-law
    was with her-- his brother, the owner
    of an important manufacturer.
    How do you call that?
    Where they manufacture things.
    A factory.
    Factory.
    Excuse me.
    Sometimes I'm looking for the word.
    An important factory.
    And in '29 he left the firm and moved to Wiesbaden.
    Wiesbaden and Mainz are just across the Rhine River.
    And I was in Wiesbaden, established,
    and my wife, who was then the--
    she is a licensed sports and gymnastic teacher.
    And we went over to Wiesbaden, and I met her through a friend.
    And there we got engaged in 1934, the year I left for Paris.
    That comes the other period.
    And we were engaged for three years
    because I didn't want to marry, to get married before I had an--
    could make a good living.
    I was partner for 18 months in Mainz,
    and I could make enough money that I
    could afford to offer my wife the life she was used to.
    And it took quite a while.
    But she didn't want to wait longer than 1937, when I finally
    had a very good job, worked very hard,
    and she came over to Paris.
    And we got married in January 1937 in Paris.
    Now you say you left Mainz around 19-- to the end of 1934.
    The 10th of October 1934, when it
    became impossible to exercise my profession.
    And then you went to Paris.
    Then, for me, the given thing was to go to Paris.
    Unfortunately, if I had not this facility,
    I would probably have gone to America in 1934,
    because I saw that thing coming.
    What do you mean you saw it coming?
    What evidence did you have?
    And you must have had--
    As a student, in 1928, we went to our--
    see, we had a meeting place.
    And when we came home, always with our little cappie on,
    we were attacked by Nazis.
    The fraternity men were--
    The fraternity of men.
    We were attacked by Nazis.
    Not by students, by SA people.
    And we had one battle after the other.
    And then, every morning, in the intermission of the university,
    we met outside, smoke cigarette, and we had little groups.
    All the different fraternities had little groups.
    And one day we were attacked by Nazis also.
    And I was, I wouldn't say wounded,
    but I went to the hospital.
    Had to go to the hospital.
    And so I felt, when Hitler came to power,
    this is not a six-month episode.
    This is an episode which takes long and long, long.
    And I tried to persuade my parents to immigrate too,
    but my parents were very not flexible.
    Not at all flexible.
    They made their money there, and they wanted
    to be where their money is.
    They were used to the surroundings.
    And in '35 we had a plebiscite in the Saar territory.
    So then I was already in Paris and worked
    for the Saar territory to be annexed to France.
    And we lost so badly, so badly.
    All the work we did, all the work in the Saar territory
    was done.
    Must have been some fraud, because we
    got only 2,000 voices.
    And the Saar territory became German.
    And my parents sold their house under pressure
    and moved to Luxembourg, where her daughter lived.
    So, for the time being, they were in the security.
    But they were the first victim.
    Then the Germans moved on the 10th of May 1940.
    Into Luxembourg.
    Yeah.
    Well, they moved-- oh, yes.
    Directly to Luxembourg, Belgium around the Maginot Line
    from the back.
    In 19-- what is to be said in the meantime?
    Yes, in the meantime, I worked hard in France.
    I wanted to succeed in order to get married.
    I had several jobs, and I didn't hesitate
    to take jobs, which I never thought I would do.
    Clean bottles in a beer brewery.
    And I worked in a factory who made cartons.
    And I forgot one thing.
    In order to make the connection.
    May I go back a little?
    Please.
    I did all this until 1936, these different jobs.
    Then I became secretary of a brewer, who exploited me.
    And my French was terrible.
    I spoke half-- wrote French correctly,
    as good as any good Frenchman.
    But I couldn't speak it.
    In 1936, in June, I had two jobs.
    During the evening, I went to a laundry, big laundry,
    where I made the books.
    And I worked sometimes 12, 1 o'clock, and went home on foot.
    I left at [INAUDIBLE]
    And one evening I went home on foot to save the subway.
    And there came four persons.
    And one, I knew, a man I knew from Cologne, privately.
    So I put up my Cologne.
    I had in my face, and I said, Mr. Adler.
    No, whatever-- guides to the nightlife of Paris,
    please, in German.
    And he said, I know the nightlife of Paris
    better than you.
    But I said, not as good as guided by Eric.
    And he lifted my head, and said, what are you doing here?
    And I told him, not much.
    I opened an office yesterday, yeah?
    Come to visit me tomorrow morning.
    So I visited him on the 6th-- no, on the 10th of June 1936,
    and came out, and I was a bookkeeper in a cocoa import
    and export business.
    By the end of the year, I had power of attorney,
    and I moved up.
    And that allowed me to get married.
    My boss was my witness.
    The marriage, and so on.
    In 1938, Chamberlain and Daladier went to Munich,
    and they came back.
    And I said to my friend--
    I had a very good friend, very close friend--
    it starts smelling here.
    This, they surrendered.
    And Hitler will do what he wants to do, and we go against--
    towards a war.
    And he agreed with me.
    So we went to the military authorities
    and said, in case of war, we both would
    like to volunteer for the French army.
    Very nice.
    Will you please confirm our engagement?
    They gave us confirmation of that.
    In case of for Mr. [PERSONAL NAME],,
    Mr. Multin came here to engage in the French army in case
    of war.
    So I got this paper.
    And on the 1st of September 1939,
    the war broke out, without hostilities
    between France and Germany.
    We were called.
    Now we were-- on the 1st of September,
    we were called, all German issues.
    German-- people born in Germany.
    German nationals.
    Nationals.
    They are called to the start the [NON-ENGLISH]??
    That is a sports place.
    And then they are given the possibility
    either to engage in the French Legion
    or to engage in working units, so-called prestataire.
    Some did this and some did that, and I showed my friend,
    and I, we were together.
    I showed my paper.
    Go home.
    My wife got sick in '38, was sick for a few years.
    He was operated on, a hysterectomy.
    And was in bed for a few years.
    When she was operated a second time, while I was already
    in the army.
    And she was called.
    I cannot build it in.
    I have to tell that separately.
    She was operated in Luxembourg.
    And under a bombardment.
    So-called bombardment.
    And the surgeons left her on the table.
    And the ice pack which they had put on bursted.
    And everything-- water-- went into the cavity.
    So she became very, very sick.
    And later on, a few months later,
    she was arrested as a German national,
    and brought before the authorities.
    And I had sent her, from the regiment, [NON-ENGLISH],,
    which means certificate--
    certificate that I am in the army in this unit.
    And finally, they released her.
    And on the 10th of May, when the hot war broke out,
    I just was on furlough in Paris.
    I was called directly back to my unit.
    They got new equipment, and they have thrown directly
    to the front.
    Now I told you before, there is an international law,
    an international convention, that France was not
    allowed to throw the Foreign Legion on the European front.
    What did they do?
    They created three regiments consisting of people who,
    under pressure--
    not we under pressure, [INAUDIBLE] 38th under pressure
    in the state of Colombes, signed up to the French Legion
    of people which were nationals of--
    nations friendly to France.
    So there were Turks, Greeks, and Poles,
    and a few Saarlanders like me.
    And in my little military book, they put in the stamp,
    engagée a titre de légion étrangere pour la [FRENCH]..
    As if I had engaged myself to the Foreign Legion
    for the duration of the war, which I didn't.
    I said, I want to serve in the French army.
    And over my protests, that happened.
    And they throw me in one of these units, which
    were completely simulated after the Foreign Legion,
    had officers from the Foreign Legion,
    wore the uniforms of the Foreign Legion,
    had the songs of the Foreign Legion,
    had the signs of the Foreign Legion, and everything.
    We were Legionnaires in France.
    And when the war broke out, they throw us directly to the front.
    And the three regiments were almost decimated.
    I was wounded on the 6th of June, fortunately.
    And was brought, my friend who brought me,
    saved me from in between the lines.
    Brought me to the first hospital, which was a school.
    I don't know whether this-- could you
    stop that for a moment?
    Certainly.
    And was brought from hospital to hospital
    before the advance of the Germans.
    And finally I landed in the extreme corner of France,
    in I think the northwest corner, in Biarritz,
    where they had confiscated the hotels as hospitals.
    And there I was treated.
    Oh, pardon.
    Pardon.
    No.
    I was came to Bordeaux, March 1 before I came there to Bordeaux,
    in the hands of one of the greatest
    orthopedic surgeons in France.
    And he arranged my arm that I still can use it.
    So that due to that fact, I have still my arm.
    And then the Germans advanced to Bordeaux.
    And they came to Perpignan-- to Biarritz.
    And in Biarritz, I said to myself, my sister in Luxembourg
    with her husband, they certainly fled before the Germans.
    And if they fled, they came up the coast,
    and they have to come up to Biarritz.
    And I went every morning.
    I limped out the main street, back to the beach,
    made that twice in the morning, twice in the afternoon.
    The third day I met the best-- their best friend.
    Francois.
    Where do you come from?
    We are in Ondres, 20 minutes from Biarritz.
    Your sister is there, your brother-in-law,
    and the two children.
    I went directly to Ondres, you imagine.
    And they gave me the first handkerchief, pocket money,
    and said, tomorrow morning we'll come to visit you in Biarritz.
    Next morning, we were told, you all are prisoners of war.
    The Germans are here.
    Confined to the hospital.
    And I only hope that they had escaped
    in Ondres, which they did.
    They had 28 Luxembourgians, 20 or--
    I don't remember the number.
    Some friends had a bus, a little bus.
    And they went up the coast, and they had fled further.
    And later on, I met my brother-in-law
    on the bridge of Perpignan.
    We were prisoners of war.
    Now the situation became dangerous, because my name--
    forgot something very important, from the beginning.
    I am born Eric Siegfried Mulstein.
    So your name had been changed.
    And in France, we changed my name.
    We took out three letters.
    And it remained Multin, which was a very good French name,
    and became a very good English name, too.
    I was born Mulstein.
    Eric Siegfried Mulstein.
    Eric Siegfried Mulstein.
    So these were my military papers.
    So I went to the commanding officer of the hospital
    and said, colonel, I am born in Germany.
    And if the Germans find out, they put me in the next war.
    You must help me.
    He said, what can I do?
    I don't know how, but you have to help me, as a Frenchman.
    Half an hour later, he came down with a livre militaire,
    a military book, which everybody had,
    of a soldier who had just died in the hospital.
    He said, the only thing I can do for you, George David.
    I've got to livre militaire of George David.
    And read in that the data where I was born and so on and so on.
    From then on, I was George David.
    And a few days later, I went to Ondres.
    Biarritz had no station, no railway station.
    I went to Ondres in the uniform.
    I had no color anymore, no nothing, only
    a bloody, bloody uniform, my arm in the cast from here to here,
    and limping.
    And I went to the station of Ondres.
    There were two SS men on each side, and I went through them.
    They didn't feel endangered by me.
    They way I looked.
    And I went to the--
    where the trains were and looked around.
    There was a train of merchandise.
    And I walked a few times up and down.
    And I went to the engineer and said, well, where are you going?
    To Tarbes.
    Where's Tarbes?
    Tarbes is in the free zone.
    You know they divided France in two zones.
    What are you carrying?
    Tomatoes.
    Are you a good Frenchman?
    They ask me, are you?
    Well, you'll see what I am.
    Are you a good Frenchman?
    I must say, at this time I spoke French like a Frenchman.
    Much better than before.
    No, much better than today also, but without any accent.
    And I said, well, you were the First World War.
    He said, yes.
    Good Frenchman.
    This is what happened to me.
    I was born in Alsace-Lorraine.
    If they find me, they put me [? in the war.
    ?] You have to save me.
    Give me a break.
    And this man put me in one of these cars,
    opened a car, full of tomatoes.
    And I was in that car.
    I don't know how long.
    Two days.
    And the car, after a few hours, moved.
    And after, I don't know how long.
    I didn't have a watch.
    It stopped.
    It was about two and a half days later.
    And he came and said, you can get out.
    You're in Tarbes.
    4 o'clock in the morning, I went to the station chief.
    They woke him up.
    And said, I'm hungry, and gave me to eat.
    Where I came, people fought for buy me
    food, drink, or something.
    So from there, I went to Toulouse.
    In Toulouse, my wounds were infected, because they were not
    taken care of.
    And they sent me to Marseilles.
    In Marseilles, I was-- they opened that and poked my arm,
    three times again.
    So finally I landed in the hospital in Perpignan.
    And-- [AUDIO OUT]
    When the tape ended, you said you were in Perpignan.
    And that's--
    It's about 10, 15 miles from the place
    where I received my basic training, called Baccarisse.
    Baccarisse was a place consisting
    of wooden huts, wooden barracks, which
    were constructed for the Spanish socialist fighters who
    came over the border when Franco beat them.
    And they were interned in these barracks.
    So actually, you were fairly close to the Spanish border.
    Just under the Spanish border.
    And full of flea, full of--
    this was very good enough for the foreigners.
    In the meantime, I didn't know.
    In the meantime, 11 months had passed.
    And I didn't know where my wife is,
    and my wife didn't know where I am.
    It turned out my wife went on the road
    on foot, fleeing from the Germans
    towards the French coast.
    And she landed in the neighborhood of [FRENCH]..
    And was there with a girlfriend, and waited.
    Never spoke a word of German, of course.
    And we-- my mother comes from, is from French extraction.
    So she has a brother and a sister in France,
    living in Paris.
    But one I knew was moved to Bordeaux
    at the beginning of the war.
    And I had her address, I wrote to my aunt,
    did you hear anything from Charlotte?
    Sender, George David, with the address.
    And my aunt, who had just received a message from my wife
    by chance, sent the card to my wife.
    So my wife recognized my handwriting.
    And she managed--
    I don't go never into details.
    She managed to cross illegally the two zones
    and found me in the hospital of Perpignan.
    There are so many tragic, comic, and humorous
    scenes which, if I would write my memoirs, I would give them.
    They are of no interest here.
    She found me in that hospital, and eventually we are reunited.
    I had difficulties.
    Pardon me.
    I told you before, I met my brother-in-law
    on the bridge of Perpignan.
    And he kept in touch with me.
    And he settled in Aix-en-Provence.
    And then I asked for being discharged in Aix-en-Provence.
    There some difficult, big difficulties,
    which I will not mention.
    And finally, I went to my brother-in-law,
    to Aix-en-Provence.
    Sick.
    I couldn't move.
    Had operations and so on.
    Had-- oh, I had a complicated appendix operation
    in the meantime, which almost cost me my life,
    because they had no penicillin, or nothing.
    And when I-- after three months, I couldn't walk anymore.
    So after my discharge, a doctor friend of mine
    said, you take your discharge and go home.
    It goes away as it came.
    And indeed, after three or four weeks, I tested every morning.
    Finally, I found a little bit firm ground, and it went away.
    So I lived with my brother-in-law
    until they went to Portugal and to America.
    They arrived here, I think, in '41.
    Yeah.
    So then we lived, my wife and I, we lived in Aix-en-Provence.
    And we had to live.
    So we looked for jobs.
    My wife, it was easy.
    She found a job.
    She had learned to make orthopedic--
    orthopedic-- what do you call that,
    what you put in your shoes?
    Arches.
    Arch supports.
    Arch supports.
    And she, we had a friend at the--
    one of the directors of the OSE, Oeuvre de secours aux enfants.
    You heard about that.
    Children's--
    The children's rescue.
    Rescue.
    He was in Marseilles.
    And she worked with him on this, on the feet of the refugees.
    And he had made her a examination
    in Zurich as a social worker.
    And she got her diploma in Zurich as a social worker.
    So she worked for this OSE.
    And I made my application to Saint-Cyr.
    Saint-Cyr is the French West Point,
    which was retired from the center of France
    to Aix-en-Provence.
    And I underwent the two-days' examination
    in spelling, composition, algebra, everything.
    And there are 61.
    And after four weeks, I was called
    before the commanding officer.
    And he said, congratulations, you were the first.
    However, I cannot hire you because first, you are Jewish,
    and second, you are not French.
    So we were 61, one, me, and 60 Frenchmen.
    And I said, you could have told me that before, un commandant.
    He said, well, I'm very sorry, but you found it out later.
    Was then I became first insurance inspector,
    what they called insurance inspector,
    in the adjoining department [NON-ENGLISH]..
    They were the famous bauxite mines.
    The bauxite mines.
    Bauxite mines.
    And there was a diminution of, or an increase of absentees.
    And the insurance company wanted to know what it was.
    So I was sent there.
    There was nothing to eat.
    Nothing to eat.
    Rutabagas.
    How do you call it?
    Rutabagas.
    Fortunately, you understand what I want to say.
    That in the morning.
    We ate at noon.
    We ate in the evening.
    And I found out the reason for that.
    I made my report.
    And I sent.
    I worked for a few weeks, and they found out I'm Jewish.
    And here.
    Then you were fired.
    Of course.
    And then, I don't know whether it was before or then,
    but we had to fill out a declaration.
    The Jews had to fill out a declaration.
    And they have to apply for a form and fill it out.
    I applied for the forms.
    I'm a Yekke, if you know what that is.
    No?
    A [NON-ENGLISH].
    That's a typical German at that time.
    See, law and order--
    In forms.
    Authority and so on.
    I applied at it.
    And I was wounded.
    Had the highest decoration of Petain,
    not of the other government, of Petain,
    the highest military operation.
    And I filled out my forms and send it in to Marseilles.
    And one day I came to Marseilles.
    One of my former friends was a [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And he became commissaire [FRENCH],,
    Commissar of the Jewish Question.
    Jewish Question.
    And I came in.
    And they said, come with me.
    And they brought me in a big room.
    And on tables were large boxes filled with indexes and cards.
    And he went to M, and took out two cards, Mulstein, Eric,
    Mulstein, Charlotte.
    Took them out of that [NON-ENGLISH]..
    I said, don't you dare.
    Don't you dare tear them.
    Don't you dare tearing them, because I am a veteran,
    I'm a wounded veteran, a decorated veteran.
    Nothing can happen to me--
    naive as I was.
    Then I became secrétaire--
    la [FRENCH].
    Of the Jewish community.
    Yeah, but it has another denomination.
    Under Professor Ulmer.
    Ulmer.
    [FRENCH], something like that.
    I don't remember exactly the name.
    I have still my certificate here.
    And I became secretary there.
    And then, from there, Dr. Weill, who was the director of OSE,
    one of the directors of OSE--
    Which is the group to save the children.
    --took me over to OSE, and I became financial secretaire
    of OSE.
    And I might a little bit--
    Digress.
    Yes, the events.
    But then, one day, in '42, we were arrested in the streets
    by the French militia.
    Asked for our papers.
    I was still in my--
    left arm was still in a leather brace, not in a--
    and I give my military papers, and Charlotte gave him
    her falsified French papers.
    And we were brought before a agent official, young fellow,
    alone.
    And he asked for our papers.
    And I told Charlotte, had trained Charlotte,
    I cannot take out the papers.
    You take out the papers here.
    I could have put them here and take off myself.
    But I had them here, and Charlotte took them out,
    and I gave it to him.
    Said you are Jewish.
    Yes.
    And in the meantime, he heard in the court of the building
    that they had assembled Jews, Jewish women, Jewish children,
    took the children away, and the mothers crying.
    Never will forget this.
    That never left me, this terrible crying in the court.
    And he said, well, I have to send you.
    I said, where?
    I don't know myself.
    And he wore the same decoration that I did.
    And I made the speech of my life.
    And I said, you are born Frenchman,
    and you were called under [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And you did your duty, as everybody had to do.
    I am a foreigner, and I engaged myself in 1948.
    '38.
    '38, to serve in the French army, and I volunteered.
    And here is what I--
    in French they say, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    Pay your--
    Your country.
    No.
    Pay your taxes of blood.
    And I paid my taxes of blood.
    And that I did my duty proves that I have the same decoration
    that you do.
    If you can take it on your conscience to deport me,
    cannot do otherwise, God help you,
    very dramatically and very elaborated, as the French do.
    And he thought it a moment over and said, I let you go.
    But the next one will not let you go.
    Get out.
    So we went out, took a few things together,
    put the other things we had in the care of our neighbors,
    took the next train to Grenoble.
    In the meantime, the following happened.
    I received-- I couldn't reach my parents in Luxembourg.
    And one day I got a letter from Geneva, and opened.
    The letter had [NON-ENGLISH].
    Never heard about it.
    We our cousins of your father in Geneva, and your father
    wrote us a letter which we transmit here.
    In any case, we would advise you,
    if you wish to come to Switzerland and live with us.
    So a correspondence between my parents and myself
    developed over the family.
    And one day a doctor from Annemasse, the Swiss border,
    came and said, your family sent me.
    It's time that you come over.
    I said, but decorated, so nothing can happen.
    Nothing can happen because you were decorated.
    He came a second time.
    No.
    You still wouldn't go.
    Then we went.
    Grenoble.
    And my wife spoke very well French, but had an accent.
    And I didn't.
    So I said, if the control in the train takes place,
    give your papers, and I--
    We had in the--
    [NON-ENGLISH] was the title of the--
    The organization.
    We had a department there who made for its papers.
    Everybody, every refugee who wanted French papers,
    he came to us.
    Everybody wanted to go.
    Foreign countries came to us.
    So we made as an--
    a factory, real factory.
    So my wife had a paper like this.
    And we were examined.
    But I had my decoration, and still
    my arm in my leather thing.
    No questions.
    And we came to Annemasse.
    And an Annemasse I had the address of a passeur.
    Someone who will help you over the border.
    Help you over the border.
    So we went over the [NON-ENGLISH] during the night,
    and landed over there.
    Details don't matter.
    My family took us up like was their own children.
    And made-- and we came home to us early in the morning.
    We were almost murdered during this night.
    He said, it's not my [INAUDIBLE] night that we kept everything.
    Not your fault that you lost everything.
    What ours is yours.
    And I'm not a man of many words.
    But I have to go tomorrow with you to the authorities.
    And I, we were both interned in a camp.
    And the first morning after that camp, we slept on straw,
    in the former [NON-ENGLISH] for young girls in Champel.
    We had a German, a Swiss-German captain, [INAUDIBLE]..
    He assembled us in the snow, in the court,
    and started his speech by saying in Schweizerdeutsch,
    we Swiss, we didn't save our butter and eggs to feed
    you pregnant Jewish women.
    That was the beginning.
    And they're all lying down.
    I was six months in the camp, in two camps.
    My wife was liberated after two months.
    I was liberated after six months.
    And I worked for the OSE.
    How were you liberated?
    Who brought you out of the camps?
    My family.
    They were very substantial citizens of Geneva,
    and they gave all moral and financial guarantees.
    But for many, it lasted longer.
    And then came the guarantee of our friend,
    Dr. Weill, who in the meantime were in Switzerland--
    was in Switzerland, too, and who gave the guarantee too.
    And they formed a committee, committee, [INAUDIBLE],,
    interconfessional committee, Caritas, Catholics, Protestants,
    Dr. Freudenberg, whom I'd had heard
    from him, the Jewish community, and the OSE.
    And the OSE is the group to save the children.
    Yes.
    And they rented or got from the city of Geneva,
    I don't remember that, a hotel, Hotel Beauséjour in Champel
    to install as a hotel for refugees,
    of refugees who were in labor camps.
    Men and women were separated in the labor
    camps, which was not a labor camp you know from the Germans.
    No, these were the French labor camps.
    Well, in French-- in the French Swiss, French Switzerland.
    They had to work.
    That's why they're called labor camps.
    And the families were reunited every six weeks in our hotel.
    So we became the direction-- the management of this hotel.
    So I became a hotelier.
    I made the administration and my wife
    made the interior, supervised the kitchen, and the rooms.
    Had 65 rooms.
    And we got 12 refugees as helper.
    And we installed the whole thing, and started out in--
    we came over in November, on the 8th of November '42,
    when the Allies landed from Africa in Southern France.
    That was the time for us to scram.
    Excuse me.
    I shouldn't have--
    That's all right.
    "Scram" is fine.
    We did this.
    And we started it beginning of '43.
    And our first guests were about 62, 63.
    Poles.
    They didn't speak French or German, only Yiddish.
    So we learned Yiddish.
    We conducted that until December 1944.
    In the meantime, it changed a lot, because later on, slowly,
    these people became more liberty.
    And we took in six Russian prisoners
    of war, which had evaded the camps from Germany.
    Later on, we took in young people from the--
    young fellows from the camps to study in Geneva.
    So the hotel got a completely different character later.
    Very interesting is we met--
    have you ever heard of Noel--
    Noel Fields, who became an international figure
    at that time, who was then the director
    of the Unitarian service in Europe, who was a communist.
    Nobody knew about it.
    And fled to Czechoslovakia and disappeared.
    There are books about him.
    I have a book about him.
    Who was very close to Jews, and did a lot for the Jews.
    This is the period--
    I left something out in France.
    In France, I said, we went to Grenoble.
    We went to Grenoble not as everybody else does.
    Partly by train and partly we joined
    a group of the underground.
    And after Grenoble, they directed us to Annemasse.
    We went with them to Annemasse.
    We didn't see any action.
    At this time not.
    And we lived in the woods for the most of the time.
    And one thing is to [INAUDIBLE].
    Most of the leaders of the underground were Jews.
    There is an little memorial plaque in Vance in France.
    There is a number of names of people killed by the Germans.
    If you read it through, there's one name,
    Jewish name after the other.
    My best friend who saved me Mauthausen,
    he was one of the five great leaders,
    regional leaders in France, who directed the attacks
    on the Germans, known under the name of Sentinelle.
    Everybody had a nom de guerre.
    His friend, his name was Levi.
    And his nom de guerre was--
    forgot.
    Everyone had a name.
    And they communicated with each other
    and didn't know each other.
    Only under their nom de guerre.
    So many of the leaders of the underground,
    they are Jewish, Jews.
    Many were Alsatians and Lorraines,
    because Lorraine is known, even while it
    was under German occupation, to be a very patriotic country.
    Now we were in '44.
    December 44, Dr. Weill told me we placed children
    in Catholic families in France.
    I think we have to look after them and recuperate them.
    They sent us in December in '44, while the Germans were still
    in the closer surroundings of Paris, to Paris.
    Who was "us."
    Charlotte and me.
    We had not one success.
    The children, in two or three years, parents were deported.
    They're small.
    Many didn't remember their parents.
    Children didn't want to be separated
    from their so-called parents, and they attached to them
    and they didn't listen either.
    So this was a fiasco.
    And then I worked from '44 until '47 for OSE in Paris.
    Then we organized from Paris, after the victory,
    after '45, direct missions to Buchenwald,
    and brought home the famous--
    or infamous-- 220 young people survivors,
    which only were survivors because they
    were unbelievably criminal.
    They murdered, they raped, they stole,
    and that's the way they survived.
    They ranged in age, I would say, from 12, 13, to 20, 22.
    And we had much difficulties with them.
    We brought them in the country, in a camp.
    We got complaints what they did in the neighborhood.
    And finally we brought them with that boat via Turkey.
    The Pope was involved at that time-- that is all history--
    to Israel.
    And they distinguished themselves later
    on in the first war in Israel.
    Some became very substantial citizens in Israel.
    And my friend, Mark Rosen, who I spoke, who was born in Romania,
    spoke Yiddish.
    He tried to train them, or to make them to human beings
    in there, which was very difficult task.
    Then, yes, we worked then.
    We created new homes and put up the new staff,
    and worked our regular work in France.
    I was the financial secretary.
    My wife worked there as a social worker.
    And in '46, December '46.
    In the meantime, I told you, my sister and brother-in-law
    and children arrived in France.
    My in-laws, Charlotte's parents, went to America.
    My father was in Buchenwald.
    My father-in-law was in Buchenwald.
    Was liberated from Buchenwald.
    And they got a visa too.
    They had a brother over there.
    And they got a visa to America.
    And they lived in Detroit.
    So we said, it's time to see our family.
    My only sister, Charlotte's only sister and parents lived here.
    They had nobody here in Europe.
    So we got a three-months visitor visa to see them.
    And we are still here.
    On the three-month visitor visa.
    Yes.
    Well, my father-in-law was a typical German.
    He said to, instead of visitor visa, we gave immigration visa--
    affidavit.
    I mean not visa-- affidavit.
    And it's difficult to change that.
    So I said, I cannot go.
    I don't want to immigrate.
    He said, well, you go there again.
    Re-enter visum, you can go home, can go back.
    So that's what we did.
    And that is, unless you have other questions, that is
    short, and very dry, the story.
    Well, it was not very dry at all,
    and I thank you very much, because it gives us a picture
    that we really have not had of what
    it was like for Jewish refugees, really,
    in France, when you tried to help and serve in the army,
    and then spent the rest of--
    so much of your time in France.
    Do you think it is--
    I think it's extremely important, yes,
    and I thank you very much.
    Not at all.
    Do you have any questions?
    No, do you have any questions?
    No, I think-- well, you cannot tell it from A to Z in one--
    you have to fall back and to fit it in in the chain.
    I think it gives us a very important picture,
    and we certainly appreciate it.
    Thank you.
    Not at all.
    It's been my pleasure.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Eric Multin
    Interviewer
    Muriel Nathanson
    Date
    interview:  1986 May 27

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 sound cassette (90 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Multin, Eric.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The collection was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1992 from the National Council of Jewish Women Sarasota-Manatee Section.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:17:59
    This page:
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    Also in National Council of Jewish Women, Sarasota-Manatee Section Holocaust Oral History Project

    Date: 1986

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