Nov. 12, 2025

A Jew Who Stood Guard for Hitler

A Jew Who Stood Guard for Hitler
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We discuss the experiences of Edward Adler, a Jewish man in 1930's Germany, as he describes growing anti-semitism, being forced to build one of the first extermination camps, and his narrow escape after Kristallnacht. And that one time he was a kid and joined the Nazis - before they found out he was a Jew.

Image
Germany - a sign on a Jewish store: Protect Yourselves, Germans, Do Not Buy From Jews.
Yad Vashem Archives
Archival Signature: 3116/50

Sources
RG Number: RG-50.042.0003 Interview with Edward Adler.  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn505557



WEBVTT

00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:04.160
But he had the backing of the big industrialists in Germany.

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They were very much in favor of power and conquest of other countries.

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Germany, you know.

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Today Germany.

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Tomorrow the world.

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That was the philosophy.

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That was their their big phrase.

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We all thought it was a joke.

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Ah, it won't amount to nothing.

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Just another political party.

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So months ago, I remember you running into my office.

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Super excited.

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And you said, Thad, I'm reading a story about this guy who is a Jew who stood guard for Adolf Hitler.

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Today, this is that story.

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So who is this guy?

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Well, first of all, I take offense at your reading the story about, because it was not about him.

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There's no story written anywhere about him.

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I was reading his transcript from an actual oral history.

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So you're not going to find this in like a published book or something.

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So that's right.

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That's right.

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He is this is a this is a guy whose oral history is on record at the Holocaust Museum.

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Yeah, the um United States, one in Washington.

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Um the collections are um at the Shapell Center, but it's, you know, the one in Washington, do we?

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And and you can look you can, in fact, so we're going to talk about it, but if you want to, you could go and listen to this guy's story online.

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Right.

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Right.

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It got uh he talks at length about the thing.

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You can see the interview.

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Oh wow.

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And I know, and and hear him.

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Um, but you can look it up.

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It's Edward Adler, um, E-D W A-R-D A-D-L-E-R.

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Um, and I mean there's actually thousands of oral histories there that um are really good there.

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Awesome.

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All right, so so tell me about Edward.

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Okay, well, he was an interesting guy.

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He was born in 1910.

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But before we talk about his role in everything, we need to talk about where Germany was in life.

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And he actually he actually says it too, that in order for us to understand anything that he tells us, that uh well this is what he said, quote, we have to put this in proper context.

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Things were very bad in Germany.

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Unemployment was perhaps, I'm not sure of this now, but I would say perhaps 20% people weren't working, and there was no jobs to be had, and as time went on, they became more and more sympathetic to the Nazi movement.

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First, I would imagine, for economic reasons, and secondly, it became very popular to be anti-Semitic because it was the easiest thing in the world.

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If you want to hate somebody, the Jews are always around, they can be hated.

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End quote.

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So we're setting it in Germany in the twenties, which was after World War One.

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And and I want to read a quote from a a book called Appeasement, which you know is nothing about Nazi Germany, but just to put it in wor the world perspective of what the world was like after the first world war.

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And in the book, it was by uh Tim Bovary, and I'm basically reading this just to get all the statistics uh right, okay?

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So the desire to avoid a second world war was perhaps the most understandable and universal wish in history.

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More than 16.5 million people died during the First World War.

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The British lost 723,000, the French 1.7 million, the Russians 1.8 million, the British Empire 230,000, the Germans over 2 million.

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20,000 British soldiers died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, while the ossuary at Daumot contains the bones of some 130,000 French and German soldiers, a mere sixth of those killed during the 302-day Battle of Verdun.

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Among the survivors, there was scarcely a soul that was not affected.

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Almost everyone had a father, husband, son, brother, cousin, fiance, or friend killed or maimed.

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When it was over, not even the victors could feel victorious.

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End quote.

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So that's where the world was at this point.

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At the end of the war, they had the Treaty of Versailles, which gave Germany horrible reparations.

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I'm sure at length in another podcast, I'll be talking about the Treaty of Versailles and the war guilt clause, which required Germany to pay, you know, massive reparations for the war, which of course they they didn't really have money to, which created another problem we'll talk about in a minute.

00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:29.199
But uh they uh but it was France that really struggled with it.

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And I mean, it's a fun story that uh after the Franco-Prussian War, the German war, like in 1871, the uh the Germans made the French sign their uh the treaty that they lost, the war, in the actual Versailles uh Hall of Mirrors.

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And I have the diary of a guy who was actually one of the German soldiers there in, you know, this is 1871.

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His name is Otto Bertram, but you know, it's this di it's a diary that he wrote, and so it's just fascinating because, you know, they went into France, which Versailles is essentially Paris, it's about 20 miles out, and so went into the capital of France and forced them to sign this treaty, and it was humiliating and horrible for the French.

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So they just were ready to get back at Germany about this, and the treaty uh, you know, of Versailles was kind of like their opportunity to.

00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:32.000
So it's kind of like, hey guys, we remember what you did a few years back, and uh now we're back, except the tables are turned.

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Yes, how the turn tables turn.

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All right.

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So uh so so Germany was uh was under some pressure after the Treaty of Versailles.

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Uh World War I was over.

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Um and so the world is like, well, we didn't want to go back into that, and that's that's where we enter this story.

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Well, as he talks about, there was massive unemployment in the early 1920s.

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The Weimar Republic, which was the fledgling republic that they created after the first world war, that really, you know, never really got good grounding, uh, but it had massive hyperinflation because they like printed more money so they could pay off the reparations and and that created lots of problems.

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And then of course in 1929, with the stock market crash around that time, the whole world suffered, you know, around the time of the US stock market crash.

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That was the Great Depression.

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Yeah, that for America.

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Yeah, that would be um and so so that was the Great Depression for America, and Germany was already depressed.

00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:48.480
Well, Ger Germany, well, here's the thing: America had offered to help the Germans pay for some of the reparations they were with with the the tech guys.

00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:54.560
So, like in the initial quote that I read, he talks about the industrialists being um behind Hitler.

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These are like the tech guys that we would think of today, those the billionaires we have supporting this um this regime.

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And so they had investments and stuff, and you know, through complicated, convoluted economic reasons, um that started to fall.

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The um the German economy did, but the industrialists decided to back the National Socialist Party against the communists, who were the other the other main group.

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So you had the National Socialists, and then you had the communists, and then everybody else kind of just caught in the middle.

00:08:32.320 --> 00:08:33.919
Yes, yes, pretty much.

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And of course, we look at Germany at the time and the politics that were going on, but uh it's like countryside Germany was very different than city Germany.

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The cities, mainly Berlin and Hamburg, the mainly the northern ones, like Munich was a hotbed of national socialism, it's southern Bavarian part.

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But Berlin, Hamburg, to an extent Dresden, like it northern cities mainly.

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I mean, this is Germany, so north and south is like nothing in relation to Texas.

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Um but yeah, but still, they had the massive working class neighborhoods.

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I think Berlin, like 35% of the vote or something in one of the elections was um communist.

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They so they had working class neighborhoods and Edward Adler lived in Hamburg.

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Okay, and in Hamburg there was what they called the German October that happened in 1923, which really was was nothing really, but it they had hoped to have like a communist revolution in like the 18, 19, eight, 1918, 1919 time period, caught there was a communist uprising, you know.

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So communists had been trying to get power.

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They had hoped that this would be a thing across the country, and one took place in Hamburg.

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And so he's gonna say he's gonna talk about it, so I'm gonna just talk about it through his eyes.

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Okay.

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Um, okay.

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Quote I remember that they, the Nazi Party, were then a party um number 26.

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We had many, many political parties in Germany at that time, and they were party number 26.

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They had the advantage over other political parties, such as communists and democrats, because they had a lot of money backing them, and when they marched into a certain neighborhood, they had beautiful shiny boots and beautiful uniforms, and they marched in military formation, whereas Democrats and communists at the time, they were organized, but they were like a bunch of people running down the street, as compared to the well-organized march of the Nazis.

00:10:41.919 --> 00:10:47.519
At that time we lived in an area of Hamburg, Germany, which was a working class neighborhood.

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I would say very largely communist, but not necessarily party members, but certainly sympathizers.

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There was one particular day I remember quite vividly when the Nazis decided they wanted to march down the main street in our neighborhood, by the thousands, incidentally.

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And we we didn't exactly like this idea.

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It was our neighborhood, our turf.

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There was a lot of shooting.

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Machine guns had been mounted on roofs, would shoot into the air, groups and so forth, and it became a very bloody affair.

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This was only one time.

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I guess I'm not quite sure about the date, but it was 1930, a very early 1930.

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I was involved in many of the anti-Nazi street fights, and well, I was never a member of the party really, but certainly a sympathizer, end quote.

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So that's an example of the type things that were going on between uh communists and Nazis that like I said, so the Nazis would come up and basically be like, hey guys, here's a gun.

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Like it you can have clothes and boots and a gun and occasionally shoot someone and and here's something to do.

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And you know, Adler was he said 20 or 21 when this was happening, and you know, he's just like, Yeah, we my friends and I basically we had nothing else to do.

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I mean, why not?

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You get good clothes and something to do, and so so he joined the the the Nancy's?

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Well, let me let me tell you, in his own words.

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All right.

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Okay.

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So he says, quote, a group of young men, friends of mine, we used to hang around together.

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We were quite active in dancing and all this kind of thing.

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We decided we're gonna join the army.

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It was it was not an army.

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It was called the the Arbeites, Arbutan.

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It this was Hitler's force that I talked about in uh in another episode where Hitler brought in and then National Socialists came in on top of the police force.

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It was like a it it was a different thing.

00:12:49.919 --> 00:12:53.840
So he said, I don't recall exactly the name of it.

00:12:53.840 --> 00:12:59.279
It was a labor camp in which we had regular military training, except for weapons.

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That was against the Treaty of Versailles at the time, which had been still obeyed then.

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We had no weapons, but we w marched in military formation and we used spades, shovels as rifles while marching and all this kind of thing.

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We had regular military training.

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And at that time that I went there, it was nobody asked me if I was Jewish, and I didn't mention it.

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So we all got accepted into this camp.

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Somehow or other, I I don't recall how, they found out I was Jewish.

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And I was stationed in East Prussia, which was um near Elbin, and which was German, but it had been independent earlier.

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It's an area that's been kicked back and forth between Poland and Germany for many years.

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We marched from Marienburg to Elding, which I'd say was about thirty kilometers and stood guard for Hitler.

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And I claimed to have the very distinct um I don't know what I should call it.

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I was probably the only Jew in the world that ever stood guard for Hitler.

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I saw him as close as I see you in front of me right now.

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He was making a speech at the city of Elding, and he walked by us, reviewing the troops.

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He was a little man.

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Everyone knows the mustache and his hairdo, and he looked perfectly calm, and we stood out there waiting for him to finish, which took about three hours.

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When he came out and he marched by us again towards his car, the man looked and I remember this very vividly.

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He looked like a maniac.

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He talked himself into a total frenzy.

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I don't believe that he even knew what he was speaking about anymore, because he was he looked he looked a person who has not control over his emotions anymore.

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I was found out somehow or other, as I said before, that I was Jewish, and I was discharged from the camp.

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I must have been in there, I don't I don't remember exactly, I'd say close to a year.

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This was 1932.

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So before Hitler came to power in Germany.

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Nothing much happened between 1932 and 1935, except the regular political marches through neighborhoods, and and they weren't wanted and so forth.

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But in the meantime, the Nazi Party grew and grew in popularity.

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A lot of the German fellows, young fellows, that weren't really anti-Semitic or anti-anything, but they had nothing to do.

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They had no jobs, and here came around, gave them a beautiful pair of boots, gave them a nice shirt and pair of breeches, have a gun in your hip, you know, you can go out and shoot anybody.

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It's okay, you'll get away with it.

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Now that became very popular.

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End quote.

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He said that, you know, things were pretty calm until 1935, when the Nuremberg Laws came out.

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And I think I think it's really interesting that he says this because he says 32 to 35.

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Hitler came to power in 33 in January and, you know, passed the enabling law.

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There was a Reichstag fire, which of course they blamed on the communists, and a slew of laws and persecution started.

00:16:05.919 --> 00:16:20.080
Adler actually says at one point, he thinks the start of everything was the boycott in April 1st, 1933, where uh the Nazis were basically boycotting Jewish doors for a day.

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It didn't really work very well, but it was like he's he says he thinks it was the first time it was their attack on the Jewish economy at all.

00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:59.440
But I also find it interesting, many people that I talked to, read transcripts of say that uh German people say that they placed the beginning of the war and like when things got really bad in 1942, which of course was after the US was in the war, after um Germany had invaded Poland, and because that's when the ghettos started and the death camps opened en masse.

00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:06.640
So it's just it's interesting because he says that he points he puts it at 1933 in April.

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So we can see that the Nazis have a prejudice against the Jews right from the very start.

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But it's not it's not barefaced and horrible right at the beginning.

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It's it's small things.

00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:25.119
So they start off by by having it, like you said, this boycott.

00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:31.440
And then slowly ratchet things up over time.

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Here's what you have to remember about German people in general is uh after World War One, going back to like, you know, 19, 18, 19, 19, there was a legend in Germany called the stab in the back legend.

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So basically, the generals that were fighting in the Eastern Front in World War One, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, they came back from the war and was just like, yeah, Germany was winning.

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We were stabbed in the back by the people that signed the treaty, which some of them were Jewish.

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So that was like the starting of blaming the Jews.

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Adler says everyone knew that Hitler was anti-Semitic because of Mein Kampf and the things he said, but no one ever thought he'd actually, you know, do something about that.

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:24.319
Um, so everyone just thought, oh yeah, Hitler doesn't like the Jews, but I mean, you know, that's that's just the way it is.

00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:25.759
No big no big deal.

00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:26.480
Right.

00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:33.759
You know, someone comes in power and doesn't like a specific group of people, you don't think, oh, they're gonna do anything about that.

00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.000
So it took everyone by surprise.

00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:36.720
Gotcha.

00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.519
Even even knowing that he was anti-Semitic.

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Right.

00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:48.079
So Adler says in 1935, so at this point he would have been about 25, the Nuremberg laws were passed.

00:18:48.079 --> 00:19:01.279
And he says, quote, September 15th, a new law came into being that a German family could not have a Gentile maid, and there were many Jewish families quite wealthy, too, and they had a maid and a live-in maid.

00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:06.720
They could not have a live-in maid at the age of under 55 for apparently obvious reasons.

00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:16.799
They also at this time took a law into effect that did not allow a Jewish person, male or female, to go with a gentile person, male or female.

00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:22.960
At that time I was going with a nice young lady I had gone out with for some time, and we were camping.

00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:24.640
I remember very well.

00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:32.720
I had a kayak, and we went out camping near Hamburg, and there was a fellow next to us, near us, in another little camp with a tent.

00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:34.160
We slept in tents.

00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:39.440
He wanted to make a date with this young lady that I was going with, and she didn't want any part of it.

00:19:39.440 --> 00:19:44.640
He reported me to the Gestapo, and I was arrested for going with a Gentile girl.

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I got six months in prison, solitary confinement in 1935.

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When I was released, I became known as a habitual criminal in the eyes of the Nazi Party.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:58.000
I was a habitual criminal.

00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:00.799
I never did anything criminal in my life.

00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:08.720
But as far as they're concerned, being doing something against the law was enough to make me a habitual criminal.

00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:13.200
So, you know, he so that happened.

00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:14.799
Do you have to be careful who you're dating?

00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:15.839
1935.

00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:16.880
1935.

00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:17.279
All right.

00:20:17.279 --> 00:20:19.119
Yeah, that'd have him checked out.

00:20:19.119 --> 00:20:21.839
Um but it it gets worse.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:22.400
It does.

00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:22.960
It does.

00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:26.880
From six from six months of solitary confinement, uh, it's hard to beat that.

00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:27.200
Right.

00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:41.440
Um, but so three years later, three years, on June 14th, 1938, he was married at the time, had a baby, and his wife was pregnant again.

00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:48.319
And he says, quote, we had gone to a birthday party on June 14th.

00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:56.720
So some of so some friends of ours who had come home, must have been about midnight, somewhere around midnight, four o'clock in the morning.

00:20:56.720 --> 00:20:58.480
We had a banging on the door.

00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:02.559
And I thought those were our friends coming back to continue the celebration.

00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:05.359
I said, Come on, go on home.

00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:06.799
It's enough already.

00:21:06.799 --> 00:21:10.640
You know, four o'clock AM, I got work tomorrow.

00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:12.400
The knocking persisted.

00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:17.200
I opened the door and two plainclothes men with guns came into the room.

00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:18.960
You're under arrest.

00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:20.559
Under arrest?

00:21:20.559 --> 00:21:21.759
What for?

00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:23.759
I didn't do anything.

00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:25.519
No questions asked.

00:21:25.519 --> 00:21:28.160
They didn't push us around at that point.

00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:34.319
I was I got I got dressed and they took us to a police station in the neighborhood where we were.

00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:38.319
I got into a room perhaps as large as this one here.

00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:43.920
There must have been two or three hundred people in there, and we didn't know what was going on.

00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:46.079
What what are you here for?

00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:46.960
I don't know.

00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:48.319
I didn't do anything.

00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:50.000
We didn't know anything.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:50.960
Nothing.

00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:54.240
We had absolutely no idea what was going to happen.

00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:56.799
All we knew is we were under arrest.

00:21:56.799 --> 00:22:07.920
Around seven o'clock or six o'clock in the morning, they loaded us all into trucks and it took took us to a remote train station in a place called Fulsburg.

00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:09.920
It's a it's a name.

00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:11.359
It's a suburb of Hamburg.

00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:14.640
The trucks were supported by police.

00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:18.559
Well, the storm troop the stormtrooper cars, not really police cars.

00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:20.720
The private police had nothing to do with this.

00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:26.640
They had a car in front of the truck and a car in back of the truck, and one on each side with bloodhounds.

00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:30.960
To be facetious, they wanted us to make sure nobody got lost.

00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:32.480
You know what I mean?

00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:36.319
They took us to the train station and we were loaded.

00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:41.599
We were loaded into regular trains, not boxcars, as what would happen later.

00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:43.039
We were not in boxcars.

00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:44.559
We went in a regular train.

00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:48.559
And then, several hours of train ride, we didn't know where we were.

00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:50.480
We had no idea what was happening.

00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:57.039
And you can imagine some older people, I mean I was just a young fellow, but there were some older people started crying.

00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:00.079
What did what did we do?

00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:03.920
When we got to Berlin, they loaded us back on trucks again.

00:23:03.920 --> 00:23:05.839
No, no, no, that's not correct.

00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:10.400
We went to a town called Oranienburg, which is a suburb of Berlin.

00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:13.279
How far outside of Berlin, I do not know.

00:23:13.279 --> 00:23:14.960
The train stopped.

00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:19.279
They shoved us all out of the train, and we began to march towards the camp.

00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:23.119
We didn't know what was going to ha to be, we had no idea.

00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:26.000
Along the train ride, some, we had to run.

00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:27.279
There was no walking.

00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:32.079
One particular incident I recall, like it was yesterday.

00:23:32.079 --> 00:23:34.640
An old man with the name of Solomon.

00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:36.000
I'll never forget.

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:38.160
He must have been well into his seventies.

00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:40.000
He simply couldn't run.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:41.279
He couldn't run.

00:23:41.279 --> 00:23:42.640
He had to walk.

00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:46.799
He couldn't run and he collapsed and he laid in the road.

00:23:46.799 --> 00:23:54.880
And one of the stormtroopers, a tall, young fellow, very slender, very tall, stepped on his throat.

00:23:54.880 --> 00:23:56.400
This is true.

00:23:56.400 --> 00:23:58.960
Unbelievable, but true.

00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:00.720
Till the man was dead.

00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:04.960
We had to pick up the body and throw him to the side of the road.

00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:09.359
And we continued on into the camp, where we assembled in a courtyard.

00:24:09.359 --> 00:24:12.400
And a strange incident happened at that time.

00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:18.000
We faced a barrack, a door on the right, a door on the left.

00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:23.279
People went in the left door, came out the right door, entirely different people.

00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:25.599
Their hair had been shaven off.

00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:30.559
They had on a prisoner's uniform, the very white striped uniform.

00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:33.680
My number was 6199.

00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:37.279
And a strange thing happened, as I mentioned before.

00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:39.359
My parents were separated.

00:24:39.359 --> 00:24:40.960
I hadn't seen my father.

00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:47.279
He was my stepfather, I must say, in perhaps eight or nine years, right after I was barmit barmit.

00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:52.960
My parents separated for a specific reason, and I hadn't seen him in all these years.

00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:55.680
And I met him, I saw him in that camp.

00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:57.759
It was it was hard to describe.

00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:00.240
My father was a very, very big man.

00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:02.559
He weighed 350 pounds.

00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:06.400
I introduced myself and he didn't recognize me, of course.

00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:08.400
We became a family again.

00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:12.400
While we were in the camp, I tried to take care of him as much as I could.

00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:21.440
There wasn't much that I could do at the time, but I just have to mention all this because it relates to a very traumatic experiences in my life.

00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:24.960
We worked ten hours a day, if I remember correctly.

00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:27.839
We slept on straw, on straw backs.

00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:30.799
It was it was just a stack filled with straw.

00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:33.920
I guess that's common, you know, under certain circumstances.

00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:35.759
Many people sleep that way.

00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:43.039
We worked ten hours a day on a field that was approximately a square kilometer, somewhere around that area.

00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:45.680
One area of this field was quite high.

00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:47.440
The other was quite low.

00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:53.759
The area that had to be leveled, and what was done was they had tracks running from one end to the other.

00:25:53.759 --> 00:25:56.319
On those tracks were mining cars.

00:25:56.319 --> 00:25:59.599
Now, in this country, a mining car is square.

00:25:59.599 --> 00:26:06.240
There's over is a mining car is a triangular shape, steel mining cars, and each train had about ten of those on it.

00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:14.880
On each one of those mining cars, stormtroopers stood, and we had to run from one end to the other, shoveling the mining car, filling it with dirt.

00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:21.200
If anyone would have told me at that time I can run 40 kilometers a day, I'd say, you're crazy.

00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:26.640
But I did, day after day after day, for 10 hours.

00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:31.279
The food was barely edible, and I remember one particular incident.

00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:36.240
It so happens, I hate broccoli, and they had broccoli soup for three days in a row.

00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:40.160
And for three days in a row, I didn't eat anything, just dry bread.

00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:42.400
The other prisoners gave me some of their bread.

00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:44.480
They ate the soup, I got bread.

00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:48.160
I just couldn't eat it because if I would have, I'd gotten sick.

00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:53.200
Psychological, certainly, but at that point, I'm entitled.

00:26:53.200 --> 00:27:01.200
I'm gonna stop here because I just I know I was talking about mining cars, you may have gotten lost some.

00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:12.000
The significance of this is that they were using his group of people to build the first death camp, which was Iranianburg outside of Berlin.

00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:21.920
So all this that he's talking about with the mining cars and running and how it's you know high on one side and low on the other, they did not know it at the time.

00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:28.319
But this was Jews being used as slave labor to build their own first concentration camp.

00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:29.680
Holy cow.

00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:30.799
Yeah.

00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:44.079
And I mean, so yeah, eventually we'll we'll get to a podcast where we talk about a man who went in the middle of the night, escaped Ronienburg to go to a doctor who then fixed him up in the middle of the night.

00:27:44.079 --> 00:27:49.119
It's just interesting that you know you you hear that with the different stories, different people you interview.

00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:49.599
Right.

00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:52.640
So that's what they were using him for.

00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:54.640
So I'm gonna continue.

00:27:54.640 --> 00:27:56.319
I just needed to explain that.

00:27:56.480 --> 00:27:56.720
Yeah.

00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:01.200
Quote At one time they assembled us in a courtyard.

00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:08.400
They had machine gun towers all the way around, and they were shooting machine gun bullets over our head, maybe a foot over our head.

00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:12.079
And they said they made a a commander made a speech.

00:28:12.079 --> 00:28:18.559
They said that if Germany this this was the time Germany was taking over the Czechoslovakia, it was like 1938.

00:28:18.559 --> 00:28:26.240
They said that if Germany gets involved in the war, the machine guns will be lowered and we're and we're going to kill you all.

00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:28.880
We were hoping this wasn't gonna happen.

00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:35.839
Perhaps um perhaps many people recall a Christian pastor by the name of Niemoller.

00:28:35.839 --> 00:28:49.119
Niemoler had been arrested from the pulpit in a little church somewhere in Midwestern Germany because he simply did not believe the Nazi doctrine, and he was preaching openly against it, and he was arrested and put in camp.

00:28:49.119 --> 00:28:52.240
And it became like an international incident at the time.

00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:54.400
I met him in Sachenhausen.

00:28:54.400 --> 00:29:00.559
What they did to this man, one human being doing this to another, is beyond description.

00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:06.160
This man is perhaps he was in our camp perhaps six months, aged twenty-five years old.

00:29:06.160 --> 00:29:10.960
Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but they literally made him eat his own waste.

00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:14.400
But he lived through it because he had strong faith.

00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:19.119
I just mentioned this to convey what one human being can do to another.

00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:22.480
When you read this in a book, it's one thing.

00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:26.960
When you see it and it actually happens, it's quite another.

00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:28.160
I assure you.

00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:57.119
He was in concentration camps, including Sachenhausen and later Dachau, where in a future podcast I'll talk about how he used to meet with the commandant and well, the future commandant that he was, you know, a soldier, it's fine, but what they would meet and talk.

00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:59.839
They actually had high level Nazis come and try.

00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:02.720
To get Niemuler to change his mind.

00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:15.119
And he, if you go, I think, I mean, his quote's one of the most famous ones you see around, you know, they came for the communists, and then there was no one left when they came for me.

00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:16.799
That that's Pastor Niemuler.

00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:28.400
He spent the re the rest of his life talking about how he felt he felt bad that the the Germans hadn't done more when they saw what was happening, and and he himself had guilt for it.

00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:32.640
That he was in concentration camps from 1937 to 45.

00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:37.519
What made him what made him turn against the Nazis was when they started oppressing the Christians.

00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:38.160
Right.

00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:44.319
I mean, uh didn't he originally in the early 30s, and he supported he supported the Nazis, right?

00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:50.559
So he thought he, like many Germans, thought that and good that Germany needed a strong leader.

00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:51.279
Right.

00:30:51.599 --> 00:30:54.720
Because chaos had ensued in the twenties.

00:30:54.720 --> 00:31:01.359
I mean, you know, like we talked about politics were everywhere, the inflation, inflation was going crazy.

00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:11.920
It was also in Germany, kind of like in the United States, we had the Roaring Twenties flapper era, where people were just like, woo-hoo! Okay, well, that was kind of going on in Germany um too.

00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:16.400
If you've ever um seen cabaret, that uh it's it's that kind of setting.

00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:17.119
It was wild.

00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:20.960
And the the Nazis were a they they were they were the conservatives.

00:31:20.960 --> 00:31:48.559
You had you had the the Nazis that were the the right wing conservatives, you had the the communists that were the the left-wing liberals, and uh and uh you know looking at the political system in the area, Russia was was falling to the communists, and so you know it was kind of like well we can either we can either go back to go back to our traditions or you have to keep in mind they saw the whole Russian revolution happen, not not very many years before that.

00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:57.200
I mean, it was in 1917, so you know, that was fresh in everyone's mind, and many people were just like, Oh my gosh, we do not want the communists come in here.

00:31:57.200 --> 00:31:57.680
Right.

00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:00.079
Um, you know, anything but that.

00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:04.640
Um and so they had that kind of mentality too.

00:32:04.640 --> 00:32:08.640
But also Germany, they were accustomed to a strong leader.

00:32:08.640 --> 00:32:15.599
There was ever since the concert of Europe in Vienna with Metternich in 1848, I won't bore you with that.

00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:19.279
But what came out was then Germany had a strong leader.

00:32:19.279 --> 00:32:36.079
Well, Kaiser Wilhelm II was a super special case, but you know, they they were under one leader, so they were accustomed to having, you know, they w they had a constitutional monarchy and they were accustomed to having a leader at the top, and so they thought Hitler would be a strong one.

00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:37.119
And he was.

00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:37.759
Right.

00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:41.680
So I'm gonna talk some more about his time in the camp.

00:32:41.839 --> 00:32:42.160
All right.

00:32:42.319 --> 00:32:45.680
Uh quote, while in the camp I had pneumonia.

00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:50.000
The commander used to come into the barracks and expect the sleeping sleeping quarters.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:52.400
Well, there were no living quarters.

00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:54.079
We only had beds in a barrack.

00:32:54.079 --> 00:32:56.480
Other than that, we stayed outside.

00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:59.920
There was nowhere that we could relax or assemble.

00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:00.880
No way.

00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:02.960
He used to hold his nose.

00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:04.960
Ugh, these juice stink.

00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:06.480
I can't stand it.

00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:08.640
This of course was all in German.

00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:15.039
One time we were assembled, and I always tried to make it my business to stay in the back row.

00:33:15.039 --> 00:33:17.920
We always had three or four rows of soldiers.

00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:22.160
I tried to stay in the back row, not to be conspicuous in any way.

00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:25.039
One time it it just didn't happen.

00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:30.720
I was standing on the front row, and as the guards walked by, they stopped in front of me.

00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:33.680
And I dreaded that because I knew this might happen.

00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:36.799
And he said to me, Why are you laughing?

00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:39.759
I was in no mood to laugh, I assure you.

00:33:39.759 --> 00:33:42.640
But as far as he was concerned, I laughed.

00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:44.799
He said, You're gonna hang.

00:33:44.799 --> 00:33:48.000
In two weeks from today, you're gonna hang.

00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:53.119
Hanging means, and this is continuing his quote, so this is him explaining it.

00:33:53.119 --> 00:34:03.599
Hanging means they tie your hands, your hands are tied behind your back, and they hang you to tie on a pole, a perfectly plain pole for 24 hours.

00:34:03.599 --> 00:34:06.799
After that, you can never use your arms again.

00:34:06.799 --> 00:34:11.440
This was supposed to be done sixteenth of September 1938.

00:34:11.440 --> 00:34:15.440
Now, I was released on the fifteenth of September.

00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:19.760
My father was released first, and I was released about two weeks afterwards.

00:34:19.760 --> 00:34:27.440
The release came about because at that time the Nazi government was satisfied if a Jewish person could leave the country, they let you go.

00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:29.599
They had no death camps at the time.

00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:33.039
So my wife had been very active trying to get me out.

00:34:33.039 --> 00:34:42.079
The first six weeks she didn't know where I was, if I was alive or anything, and of course she was pregnant and had a baby at this time.

00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:46.559
There was no communication, but she kept on working to get us out of Germany.

00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:50.239
She had family in this country in Providence, Rhode Island.

00:34:50.239 --> 00:34:58.639
The papers were all set and ready and everything, and she went and she got me released on the fifteenth of September, one day before I was supposed to hang.

00:34:58.639 --> 00:35:03.039
How I got from the camp back home, I don't really know.

00:35:03.039 --> 00:35:07.119
I don't even know what I had on or anything.

00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:12.719
All I know is that when I came home, she didn't recognize me from ten feet away.

00:35:12.719 --> 00:35:16.880
She was pushing a baby carriage down the street, but I was home.

00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:30.719
There were in many incidents that I really have to go back to recall, whether many people were shot during the day when we worked and worked among others I many times because you can't run much and they would they wouldn't let you walk.

00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:32.000
They whipped you.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:37.679
So I recall one time they got us out of bed at four o'clock in the morning with water hoses.

00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:39.199
The guys had a ball.

00:35:39.199 --> 00:35:40.639
They had a wonderful time.

00:35:40.639 --> 00:35:45.039
They got us all out with fire hoses and water, just for no reason at all.

00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:56.079
And then they wanted some fun, so they got us all out and standing in the yard, and after an hour or so we all had to get back and continue to sleep if we could on that wet straw.

00:35:56.079 --> 00:36:03.920
I will say that during the time when the Austrian guards were on duty, they had German guards and Austrian guards.

00:36:03.920 --> 00:36:06.800
When the Austrian guards were on duty, it was horrible.

00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:12.960
They were the most brutal of anyone you can imagine, but they did with us and we had no choice.

00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:16.880
Many people will say, Why didn't you fight back?

00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:25.840
I equate it with the situation in Ethiopia when Mussolini went into Ethiopia with tanks and they were shooting slingshots against the tanks.

00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:28.320
We were in the same position somewhat.

00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:30.000
How can you fight back?

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:31.280
You had nothing.

00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:32.880
You had to take it.

00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:36.320
Fortunately, I was there for only three months.

00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:43.599
I know people who left whether from well they had no family left anywhere, or they could not get out.

00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:46.159
And some were all killed, of course.

00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:47.440
End quote.

00:36:47.440 --> 00:36:57.199
So that was his time um in a concentration camp, which was before the death camps, and and he was released.

00:36:57.199 --> 00:37:06.960
So I talked some in another episode about Kristallnacht, which was just a couple months after he was released in 1938.

00:37:06.960 --> 00:37:16.719
Which is when the Germans came in and well, a group of them that had been partying came and broke into a bunch of Jewish doors.

00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:18.559
It was the night of the broken glass.

00:37:18.880 --> 00:37:19.280
Oh, right.

00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:23.920
Yeah, we talked about that um a couple of episodes back on the the kinder transport.

00:37:24.159 --> 00:37:24.400
Yes.

00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:28.480
And we read an account of uh a German guy who had lived through it.

00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:29.280
Right.

00:37:29.519 --> 00:37:31.519
But so this is this is Adler though.

00:37:31.519 --> 00:37:32.400
We're we're back to Adler.

00:37:32.400 --> 00:37:33.199
Back to Adler.

00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:43.199
He says, quote, when I came out of the concentration camp, I had to report to the Gestapo ten o'clock every morning, except Sundays.

00:37:43.199 --> 00:37:49.599
You had to go downtown, report every morning at ten o'clock, a sort of sign in ceremony.

00:37:49.599 --> 00:37:54.320
They wanted to be sure I was still all right, that I wasn't sick, you know.

00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:57.119
They wanted to take good care of me.

00:37:57.119 --> 00:38:00.320
Kristonloft happened November ninth.

00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:06.239
November tenth in the morning we stayed at my mother's, and my wife said, I'll go downtown with you.

00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:09.280
We went downtown, we got on a streetcar.

00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:11.440
There was all kinds of commotion.

00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:13.920
What was going on we didn't know.

00:38:13.920 --> 00:38:17.199
We hadn't no radio or put it on or anything.

00:38:17.199 --> 00:38:19.440
There was no television in those days.

00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:24.320
Didn't put a radio, didn't know, and everybody was whispering and pointing.

00:38:24.320 --> 00:38:26.000
We didn't have any idea.

00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.119
We got downtown, and there were a million people.

00:38:29.119 --> 00:38:31.760
The city of Hamburg had three million people.

00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:33.519
It was a very large city.

00:38:33.519 --> 00:38:43.920
And in the finest stores, the finest Jewish stores, the windows were smashed, and the mannequins were laying in the street, people were burning books, dancing around it.

00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:46.400
We had no idea what was going on.

00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:53.119
I turned up my collar, I'll never forget, and put my head down and said, God, somebody should recognize me.

00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:54.559
I'll be torn to pieces.

00:38:54.559 --> 00:38:59.679
We went to the Gestapo building and there were lots of people loitering outside on the first floor.

00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:05.360
I said to my to my wife, I'll tell you what, run upstairs and see what's going on.

00:39:05.360 --> 00:39:06.719
We had no idea.

00:39:06.719 --> 00:39:07.920
She ran upstairs.

00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:12.400
I don't think she ever ran as fast, a flight of stairs so fast in her entire life.

00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:19.119
She came down, she says, and I was hiding, incidentally, in a building, in the basement of a building across the street.

00:39:19.119 --> 00:39:23.119
She came over and she said, They're all going to be arrested again.

00:39:23.119 --> 00:39:26.000
This was November 10th, 1938.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:29.199
She said, You have to get out of here.

00:39:29.199 --> 00:39:30.880
How can I get out of here?

00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:31.840
We're not ready.

00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:34.239
I don't have we went back.

00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:46.719
Um, no, we went to the Holland, America line, where we already had made res remade reservations to come to this country, America, because my wife took care of all of that while I was still in the camp.

00:39:46.719 --> 00:39:51.360
But we didn't have the money to pay for tickets anymore because it was all confiscated.

00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:56.159
My father-in-law, who was well established in business, they had nothing left.

00:39:56.159 --> 00:39:58.000
Everything had been taken away.

00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:02.559
And at that time, they'd already been in this country and we had nowhere to go.

00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:08.880
My wife called a very famous banker with the name of Wahlberg, W-A-L-B-E-R-G.

00:40:08.880 --> 00:40:12.000
He was a very famous banker in Germany.

00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:14.320
He called Holland America Line.

00:40:14.320 --> 00:40:18.800
He guaranteed payments for the tickets on November 10, 1938.

00:40:18.800 --> 00:40:24.719
I took my wife back home to my mother's and at three o'clock in the afternoon I got on the train.

00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:26.320
I left for Holland.

00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:30.000
My wife had a sister and brother that lived in Holland at that time.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:35.360
She was married to a Dutch fellow, and they moved to Holland probably three or four years before.

00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:37.280
I don't know exactly when.

00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:39.840
My wife my wife could verify the date.

00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:47.760
The train where I was on, this is kind of interesting, the train that I was on stopped in the city and at the last German station.

00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:49.599
It stopped for five minutes.

00:40:49.599 --> 00:40:51.599
They changed train personnel.

00:40:51.599 --> 00:40:56.480
The Dutch person now would come on and then we would go further into Holland.

00:40:56.480 --> 00:40:59.360
And as we were riding along, customs came.

00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:07.199
They came into my car, and every everyone there had their own room, which I think seated about six people.

00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:09.360
But it's not the way it is in America.

00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:10.480
It's one long train.

00:41:10.480 --> 00:41:13.519
The customs came in and they asked me for my passport.

00:41:13.519 --> 00:41:28.480
I showed him the passport, and I must say that on the German passport, the fort first page has a big, great big J on it, a red J, so that anyone who opens up your passport knows instantly that you are Jewish.

00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:31.119
He looked at it, there was no problem.

00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:32.800
Where are you going?

00:41:32.800 --> 00:41:35.360
I said, I'm going to Amsterdam.

00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:36.320
No problem.

00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:37.199
Okay.

00:41:37.199 --> 00:41:40.719
He gave me back my passport and I was very relieved.

00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:44.719
I had, you know, really didn't expect it to be that easy.

00:41:44.719 --> 00:41:49.519
Well, a few minutes later, I went walking through the train towards the dining car.

00:41:49.519 --> 00:41:54.719
I wanted to get a cup of coffee or something, and there came a black uniformed SS.

00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:56.400
Where are you going?

00:41:56.400 --> 00:41:59.920
I'm just going to get a cup of coffee or some tea or something.

00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:01.679
Go back to your car.

00:42:01.679 --> 00:42:03.679
So you have no choice.

00:42:03.679 --> 00:42:04.880
You have to go back.

00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:07.280
And mine was a young American couple.

00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:10.320
I know it was an American couple by the passports.

00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:13.760
They came and they asked this young couple for the passports.

00:42:13.760 --> 00:42:15.599
He says, Americans?

00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:17.119
The fellow says, Yes.

00:42:17.119 --> 00:42:18.639
We're on our honeymoon.

00:42:18.639 --> 00:42:21.199
Okay, and give them back their passports.

00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:22.400
He came to me.

00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:24.000
Passport, please.

00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.119
I showed him.

00:42:25.119 --> 00:42:28.079
He says, Oh, you're a Jew.

00:42:28.079 --> 00:42:29.760
You're running away.

00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:31.760
Where do you come from?

00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:34.159
I said, I come from Hamburg.

00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:36.800
He said, You're running away.

00:42:36.800 --> 00:42:39.599
You didn't report to the Gestapo this morning.

00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:40.800
Get off.

00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:43.840
I said, I'm not gonna get off.

00:42:43.840 --> 00:42:47.679
If they kill me, they kill me, but I'm not gonna get off.

00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:52.719
The train stopped and one minute was like an eternity.

00:42:52.719 --> 00:42:54.400
A minute went by.

00:42:54.400 --> 00:42:56.480
Two minutes went by.

00:42:56.480 --> 00:42:58.559
No, those watches.

00:42:58.559 --> 00:43:03.519
I had a watch, you know, in my vest pocket, those days long ago that ticked.

00:43:03.519 --> 00:43:05.199
A minute went by.

00:43:05.199 --> 00:43:07.519
Two minutes went by.

00:43:07.519 --> 00:43:09.519
Three minutes.

00:43:09.519 --> 00:43:10.800
It's endless.

00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:14.800
When you wait for one minute to go by, it's an awful long time.

00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:18.320
This the train started rolling to a stop.

00:43:18.320 --> 00:43:20.000
I was not out.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:23.599
They came back and I thought, I'm all set.

00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:30.719
But they opened the window and they threw me out the window, out onto the platform of the train.

00:43:30.719 --> 00:43:32.000
They held me.

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:33.119
I was searched.

00:43:33.119 --> 00:43:34.800
I mean totally searched.

00:43:34.800 --> 00:43:36.239
Nude searched.

00:43:36.239 --> 00:43:38.239
They said, something's wrong here.

00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:40.559
You didn't report to the Gestapo this morning.

00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:41.920
You're running away from something.

00:43:41.920 --> 00:43:43.519
We're calling Hamburg.

00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:46.880
Whether they did or not, I don't know.

00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:52.000
At midnight they let me out and I was allowed to go to another train that went to Amsterdam.

00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:55.280
I stayed in Amsterdam and waited for my wife.

00:43:55.280 --> 00:43:56.960
She was not allowed to come.

00:43:56.960 --> 00:44:06.719
The American consul wouldn't give her the visa at that time because she had just had a baby and she had veins in her legs that were very prominent, and he wanted to wait till that cleared up.

00:44:06.719 --> 00:44:09.119
And then he gave her her passport.

00:44:09.119 --> 00:44:13.440
I waited in Holland for six weeks until we came to America.

00:44:13.440 --> 00:44:15.119
End quote.

00:44:15.119 --> 00:44:25.280
So Adler came to America and really he didn't leave at all to go back to Germany in 1938.

00:44:25.280 --> 00:44:29.599
So he wasn't there for the con concentration camps to get us.

00:44:29.599 --> 00:44:31.280
He was already here.

00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:33.039
But he did go back.

00:44:33.039 --> 00:44:40.719
Years later, some organization was having the Jews come back, the Jewish people who had been persecuted during the war.

00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:43.360
And so he hadn't returned.

00:44:43.360 --> 00:44:47.679
His mother had been shot and killed by the Nazis in Treblinka.

00:44:47.679 --> 00:44:54.079
And his sister, who was married with two children, was killed by the Allied bomb planes.

00:44:54.079 --> 00:44:58.960
They found her body the next morning with her husband and her young son.

00:44:58.960 --> 00:45:01.119
That was a quote from him.

00:45:01.119 --> 00:45:08.400
He uh we will talk in another podcast about the bombings, the Allied bombings over Dresden and Berlin and Hamburg.

00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:12.880
But that's what happened to his family that stayed in Germany.

00:45:12.880 --> 00:45:21.280
But he went back many years later and he said that, quote, the lady in charge was a very, very nice lady.

00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:24.400
You could really see that she felt what we went through.

00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:32.880
And that, I mean, the city of Ham Hamburg had at one time, I don't know, I think 60,000 Jews or something like that.

00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:35.440
It was a big city, three million people.

00:45:35.440 --> 00:45:37.679
We had 60,000 Jews.

00:45:37.679 --> 00:45:39.599
There was nothing left.

00:45:39.599 --> 00:45:53.760
And all the big stores that used to be owned by Jewish people are now have now been taken over by the Nazi Party in those days, and eventually probably went through generations of their father and grandfather and now they own it or whatever.

00:45:53.760 --> 00:45:56.079
And this lady felt sorry for us.

00:45:56.079 --> 00:45:59.679
I asked her, what's the purpose of inviting us?

00:45:59.679 --> 00:46:06.559
Do you expect anyone that to change his mind and come back and live here after living in America for fifty years?

00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:10.960
She said no, no, that's not really the purpose.

00:46:10.960 --> 00:46:14.480
It is perhaps to ease our conscience a bit.

00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:16.320
That was her statement.

00:46:16.320 --> 00:46:18.719
We stayed there for, I think, ten days.

00:46:18.719 --> 00:46:20.559
It was really nice, very nice.

00:46:20.559 --> 00:46:23.039
The city of Hamburg is a beautiful city.

00:46:23.039 --> 00:46:34.800
It was seventy-five percent destroyed by the Allies, and after the war, through the Marshall Plan, naturally American money, we built it up again into a beautiful city.

00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:37.679
It really is a beautiful city.

00:46:37.679 --> 00:46:38.719
End quote.

00:46:38.719 --> 00:46:43.440
So that was Adler's experience going back to Germany years later.

00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:49.119
As I said, I was reading this in an interview from the Holocaust Museum.

00:46:49.119 --> 00:46:55.760
So he gave his whole story, told everything, and the interviewer had a follow-up question.

00:46:55.760 --> 00:47:02.480
Well, she had several, but I would just I'd like to read to you um the follow-up question that she asked in his response.

00:47:02.480 --> 00:47:08.480
She asked him, yeah, so how did the Jewish people not realize this was happening?

00:47:08.480 --> 00:47:12.079
He said, Well, I was among them.

00:47:12.079 --> 00:47:18.159
When Hitler was party number 26, and we all said, ah, he's never going to amount to anything.

00:47:18.159 --> 00:47:19.519
It's a great big joke.

00:47:19.519 --> 00:47:21.039
Doesn't mean anything.

00:47:21.039 --> 00:47:28.960
What we did not realize, I don't think many of the German people didn't realize, that that's not the right phrase really.

00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:30.320
We're all German.

00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:32.239
I was German at that time.

00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:39.519
What many people didn't realize, let's just generalize it, is that they had the backing of the most powerful people in Germany.

00:47:39.519 --> 00:47:44.239
He had the backing, what how he sold them, I have no idea.

00:47:44.239 --> 00:47:52.400
I think maybe the background was money or power, perhaps more than anything else, power, and they financed his whole campaign.

00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:54.400
But there was friction as well.

00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:59.840
The so called aristocratic Germans, they were not in favor of Hitler.

00:47:59.840 --> 00:48:07.119
And to prove a point, they made attempts to kill him after he was the big man, and they all got killed in the process.

00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:10.159
But he had the backing of the big industrialists.

00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:15.280
They were very much in favor of him, and power and conquest of other countries.

00:48:15.280 --> 00:48:23.440
As far as the Jews were concerned, they said, Well, maybe it's not so wrong after all, because there was no killing at the point.

00:48:23.440 --> 00:48:36.480
When I left, we all knew from the book Meinkampf that he was extremely anti Semitic, but we never thought, nobody thought in his wildest dreams, that you can really imagine that anything could come to such extremes.

00:48:36.480 --> 00:48:38.320
Nobody can imagine.

00:48:38.320 --> 00:48:45.920
I don't believe that anyone in the world can visualize six million people assembled in one place.

00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:48.639
And he killed six million people.

00:48:48.639 --> 00:48:51.760
Six million It's an incredible figure.

00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:59.760
Along with five million non-Jews, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, or anyone who didn't believe his philosophy.

00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:01.760
Life meant nothing.

00:49:01.760 --> 00:49:04.960
It's the most expendable thing in the world.

00:49:04.960 --> 00:49:07.679
Life is the cheapest thing you can get.

00:49:07.679 --> 00:49:10.880
Nobody paid much attention to it at that time.

00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:11.920
Nobody.

00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:17.599
You can't in your wildest dreams imagine that anything could go to such extremes.

00:49:17.599 --> 00:49:32.719
And actually, the extreme started in 1940 at the Von Sea conference in Berlin, outside of Berlin, where Reinhardt Heydrich was appointed to be in charge of the quote unquote final solution.

00:49:32.719 --> 00:49:37.360
Of course, Reinhard Heydrich was killed in Ledisky, Czechoslovakia.

00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:45.599
He was assassinated, and as a result of the assassination in Ledisky, Czechoslovakia, the whole town was obliterated.

00:49:45.599 --> 00:49:57.280
Today every living thing, totally, every living thing, every man, woman, and child was killed in that town in revenge for Reinhard Heydrich's death.

00:49:57.280 --> 00:50:01.599
When Heydrich was killed out, Eichmann took over the final solution.

00:50:01.599 --> 00:50:05.199
At that time, of course, I was already in this country.

00:50:05.199 --> 00:50:06.639
End quote.

00:50:06.639 --> 00:50:18.960
So the only the only other thing that Adler, well, Adler has a lot of other things to say that we'll get to in other podcasts, I'm sure.

00:50:18.960 --> 00:50:36.480
But one of the things that he talks about that many of the other transcripts, um, many of the other things I've read, watched, talk about is being Jewish, being Jewish as a religion versus being Jewish as a nationality.

00:50:36.480 --> 00:50:45.519
And I would say a majority of Jewish people in Germany saw themselves as Germans first.

00:50:45.519 --> 00:50:53.280
So it was like, yes, they went to a Jewish school, yes, they went to a synagogue, but but they saw themselves as Germans.

00:50:53.280 --> 00:51:01.119
And that's part of the reason why it was so hard for them to accept that, you know, they were getting all of this backlash.

00:51:01.119 --> 00:51:05.280
Everyone hated the Jews because they they felt German.

00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:17.199
And and he talks about that a lot, but it's it's just something to keep I mean, that I think is interesting and to keep in mind when you're looking at what was going on in Germany at the time.

00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:21.360
They didn't see themselves as a completely different people.

00:51:21.360 --> 00:51:24.559
They saw themselves as just being one of the one of the folk.

00:51:24.960 --> 00:51:25.920
I exactly.

00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:31.039
And you read a lot of the stories, um, the Hitler Youth, which I'm sure we'll get to.

00:51:31.039 --> 00:51:36.400
There were a lot of Jewish kids that wanted to join the Hitler Youth because their friends were in it.

00:51:36.400 --> 00:51:44.880
That kind of kind of like Adler, you know, he joined the because yeah, he didn't care it was a Jew.

00:51:45.039 --> 00:51:46.159
It's the end thing, right?

00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:53.360
And you know, there's one point where Adler's like, yeah, I went home to my mom and told her that I joined the army, and she was like, What are you thinking?

00:51:53.360 --> 00:51:56.880
And he was just like, Yeah, well, my friends did it.

00:51:56.880 --> 00:51:57.519
Of course.

00:51:57.519 --> 00:52:00.880
And of course, he was a teenager, like 20 at that time.

00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:08.079
Um, but but yeah, most of them saw themselves just very much ingrained with regular culture.

00:52:08.079 --> 00:52:16.880
They a lot of them went to regular schools, um, you know, what would essentially be public schools before Hitler came to power.

00:52:16.880 --> 00:52:24.960
So it it really was shocking for a lot of them that they would be taken out and discriminated against so much.

00:52:24.960 --> 00:52:37.679
Um Adler even talks about his uh he did uh like a genealogy thing through the Red Cross at some point, and you know, he was like, Yeah, my family went back in Germany at least 200 years.

00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:47.440
It's like we're Germans, we're not Jews, we're Germans, which just made it so much more messy, very messy and complicated.

00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:49.760
That's it's an amazing story.

00:52:50.159 --> 00:53:03.360
I think I think it's very interesting, and I think when we look at any time in history, I mean, for me, it's like obviously this time because I literally spent years of my life studying modern German history.

00:53:03.360 --> 00:53:15.119
But, you know, you could talk about you could spend hours just talking about one of the acts, the enabling act, or the Reichstag fire, or anything, you know, that happened in Germany.

00:53:15.119 --> 00:53:17.440
You could spend hours on that one thing.

00:53:17.440 --> 00:53:38.400
But the way to really feel and understand what was going on is to, you know, take a person like Adler and look at his life, see what actually went on with him, instead of you know, just going through, I could go with you through with you all through all the laws and all the everything that happened structurally in Germany, you know.

00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:41.760
It's kind of like when you learn all the Civil War battles and names or something.

00:53:41.760 --> 00:53:44.719
You know, you learn all of the upper level stuff.

00:53:44.719 --> 00:53:54.960
I can go over all of that with you, but you don't, people I think, don't really understand until you're able to walk in another person's shoes and and see where they're coming from.

00:53:54.960 --> 00:54:01.519
So, you know, that's I think that's the best way to approach really history in general is by looking at the person.