I was not allowed to go to high school. Instead I took a job as clerk in a fabric wholesale company and was able to attend a private trade school to learn more about this business. When my Jewish employer had to turn his business over into Aryan hands, my job was terminated.
While I was in Frankfurt, a cousin of mine was arrested and sent to a camp. They hung him upside down and put a water hose up his rear end and killed him. Within two days, his body came home. Thank God my father died before all of this happened.
IN EARLY 1939, we made a serious attempt to leave Germany. We applied for visas and were told there was a long waiting list. Luckily, my brother Gunther had been able to leave Germany for Anadarko, Oklahoma, in 1936 due to the affidavits issued by our cousins who had resided in Oklahoma since the late 1800s. Due to the efforts of some friends in England, an arrangement was made for me to leave Germany through Holland to Harwich, England, via a Kindertransport on June 6, 1939. My mother was left behind in Germany.
In England, I was privileged to live with a wonderful Jewish family in the East London suburb of Forest Lane. This family had three retail stores, and I was fortunate to find employment in one of them until leaving for the United States. During my stay in London, systematic bombing on the part of the Germans started, and we were all in bomb shelters when this happened.
In May 1940, I left from Liverpool on a Kindertransport for New York. I arrived on May 16, 1940, and was greeted by a cousin who already lived on Long Island. As I recall, I had three English pounds when I arrived (which amounted to approximately ten dollars at that time). Another distant cousin sent me off to Oklahoma on a Greyhound bus with a twenty dollar bill, which I thought was a fortune at that time. I stopped briefly in St. Louis to visit my father’s brother and his family who had arrived there shortly before I did. I then went on to Anadarko, Oklahoma, where I was greeted by my brother and my mother, who had finally gotten out of Germany by fleeing into Holland and had arrived in Anadarko shortly before me.
I loved the United States immediately and assimilated myself really fast. The American kids were so accommodating. They were so very curious about my background and would ask me all sorts of questions. I would go from high school to high school explaining what I had gone through and how I came to the United States. I used to fill auditoriums even though I wasn’t much of a speaker. I even lectured at the teacher’s institute in Weatherford, Oklahoma. People hadn’t seen too many Jewish refugees in that area of Oklahoma. Our high school principal (a good friend of ours) was pushing it also, and I was glad to oblige.
After high school graduation, I attended the University of Oklahoma at Norman, Oklahoma, for approximately one and a half years until I was drafted into the army on November 12, 1943. I was quite pleased because it offered me a chance to do something for the country that adopted me. Naturally, what I had experienced in Germany made a serious impact on me and gave me the extra incentive to be a good soldier.
Initially, I was inducted at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and subsequently transferred to the combat engineering training camp at Camp Abbott near Bend, Oregon, for basic training for demolition and building of bridges. We were shifted as a replacement company to Camp Beale, California; we thought we were going to be in the Air Corps because it was an Air Corps base, but they took us to Camp Reynolds, Pennsylvania. Then we thought that we were going to fight Japan, but we were sent east to Camp Shanks, New York. Thereafter, we boarded the original Queen Mary (now docked in Long Beach) for a four-day trip across the Atlantic to Greenock, Scotland. We were all transferred to Oulton Park near Chester, Wales. Before crossing the English Channel, we spent some time in the Salisbury barracks in southern England for more training. Since there was no need for combat engineers, I was sent to the infantry. Not being completely trained as an infantryman, I was a little afraid but I adapted quite easily.
We crossed the English Channel at night in a transport boat on June 22, 1944, and arrived north of Utah Beach near Le Havre, France. Our assignment was to guard the costal guns, which were aimed toward England, around Le Havre, a town recently liberated from the Germans. I remember all of the coastal batteries had already been blown up. That was at the end of June 1944, and yet there were still some snipers shooting at us. After La Havre, we slowly went south to Paris (already liberated), and then joined the 100th Infantry Division, 397th Infantry Regiment, in Nancy, east of Paris.
We subsequently went through little towns and then went up into the Vosges Mountains to our first combat assignment at Raon l’Etape. Within a few hours of being there, we were hit by a tremendous German artillery barrage by the terrifying German 88 guns, which after awhile seemed to be around us most of the time. This was my first time in combat, so I was terrified to hear and see all of the shells landing around us and had this sickly feeling in my stomach.
When that stopped, we moved toward the east and took part in capturing the fortress of Bitche. The 399th Regiment took the brunt of the fighting, and both our regiments had some casualties. We continued east toward the town of Rimling in the Alsace region of France. I am an honorary member of the “Sons of Bitche” (100th Infantry Division). We dug in and held a defensive position.
In the infantry I was a scout, right up front, and in some cases, I was a platoon guide, but under most circumstances I was on the line. My primary function was to kill Germans, plain and simple. For some reason I got very used to seeing dead Germans and GIs. I was young and foolish and didn’t think about these things. It’s a terrible sight, but you get hardened to it.
AFTER WE CROSSED THE RHINE and the Saar rivers, we went into a city called Heilbronn, where we had a hell of a fight. My glasses were blown off my face. I didn’t have glasses for a day or two, even though they replaced them as soon as they could. I couldn’t see very well, but I did my job anyhow.
On Christmas Day 1944, the weather was dreadful, sleeting, snowing, ice all of the time, and it was freezing out. We were eating turkey on paper plates when our officers suddenly told us to pack it up and get out of there. The Germans were shooting at us from our left flank, and a bullet grazed my helmet, taking off a chunk of it. There was artillery and German infantry trying to encircle us from behind, so we ran for our lives. Then they put us on trucks, and after twenty-four to forty-eight hours we were back on the front. We were on the southern edge of the bulge when we heard that nearly 50 percent of the 106th Division (a “virgin” division) had been wiped out—that scared us.
We regrouped and Patton’s tanks came up around Bastogne—twenty to thirty kilometers due north of us—and rescued us. The worst day was when we were dug in near the Rhine and some American planes came over—and started bombing and strafing us. They were actually captured planes being manned by German pilots.
I would say the majority of us were trained in such a way that we were able to take it, but there were one or two in every platoon who couldn’t. Some would roll around and cry under fire. They could be in the back as support, but they shouldn’t have been up front, because they weren’t temperamentally suited to be combat soldiers. The army didn’t make a distinction in those days. I was a combat engineer, but I never built a single bridge. When the Bulge happened, we were all in the infantry: medical people, surplus, drivers. Some of the GIs didn’t want to take prisoners back, so they shot them. Some of the prisoners were never heard from again. In the passions of war, these things come up and no one can help that. We didn’t ask any questions.
We were always advancing, so that’s what I did. If I didn’t get home, then so be it. Being disabled was the only thing that really scared me.
THERE WAS ANOTHER CITY called Wiesloch in Baden, near Stuttgart, where we had terrible problems and lost a lot of people there. One instance in the Vosges, some Germans were hiding in the bushes. We went after them with bayonets, but ended up shooting them, and captured a lieutenant. I took off his ribbons and his pistol.
The gratification was that there was retribution being heaped upon the Germans and it made me gla
d, but on the other hand, I didn’t particularly cherish this too much, because I was restrained from taking individual action. It had to be a group action. If we saw a German soldier, we were supposed to shoot him and often we did, but generally there was no individual gratification so to speak. It was something we trained to do and we did it. We would shoot first and ask questions later.
On January 7, 1945, early in the morning I was in a foxhole with another soldier, Nick Herres from Chicago. While observing the area, a German sniper sent a bullet through upper fleshy part of my right shoulder, barely missing the jugular vein. Luckily, I had a first aid kit with me and could apply a bandage immediately. Our lieutenant witnessed this and had the first aid medic take me to a medical facility approximately one mile behind our front. The wound required a few stitches, and within four hours I was sent back to the front.
I had a feeling of elation the first time I stepped on German soil when we crossed the Rhine to Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. I was not a victim but a captor and the feeling was unbelievable.
Within a few days, we were sent to the Neckar River in Germany. We went across in an assault boat under sporadic German artillery fire and advanced toward the city of Heilbronn, Germany, where we encountered stiff resistance from the Nazi SS. We lost several men and the battalion was demoralized.
Once we advanced through Heilbronn, we encountered our first German jet fighter plane. We all took cover and had no casualties. We then advanced toward the city of Stuttgart, which had been evacuated by the German army that had been patrolling the city and the surrounding areas for a month or so. Some of us were transferred to Ulm on the Danube, where we encountered some Russian soldiers who had escaped from German prisons. While in Ulm, I was walking with an Italian friend and a British friend when a woman came out of a house and said, “Sind doch alle Juden” (They’re all Jews). I guess we all looked Jewish. I ran up to her and said in German, “Don’t ever say that again, otherwise we’ll make it very rough on you.” I added, “Nicht alle Juden (They’re not all Jewish). We’re conducting a war here against the Nazis.” This incident upset me quite a bit.
While in the Stuttgart area, we had found and liberated two displaced persons camps.
Around that time, I was able to requisition a jeep and a Polish lieutenant from the labor supervision company (a Polish company) went with me for protection while I visited my birthplace, Marburg on the River Lahn. I also went to Battenberg, my mother’s birthplace, and Gilserberg, where my parents lived before moving to Frankfurt. In most places, the Germans had innumerable requests for cigarettes and cigars, but I wouldn’t give them any. In Gilserberg, I met some of my earlier acquaintances who went to school with me before 1933 and it was interesting because quite a few people welcomed me. My grandfather’s name was Gutkind—they used to call me Gutkind’s Hans.
It was clear that they were astounded that I was an American soldier and back there. Some woman said, “You never looked like a Jew. You were always so nice.” All of the others were stoic. They thought we were going to take all of their property back.
I looked for family in Marburg. I had two cousins who were deported with their mother to Theresianstadt. Nobody wanted to tell me anything. We know an uncle, aunt, cousin, and a baby cousin were transported to Theresianstadt and ultimately perished there. During the Holocaust, the Stern family lost twenty-six close and distant family relatives.
This, in itself, dampened my spirit at homecoming. We stayed there overnight with a family that was close to my father; one of the sons was killed in Russia.
After returning to Stuttgart, the 397th Infantry became part of the army of occupation in Stuttgart and the surrounding area for several months. We had been on the line 192 days, with small breaks in between.
The captain and lieutenant of our unit had arranged that I act as an interpreter when questioning of German officials, such as mayors of towns, police chiefs, and German military people, took place. I interpreted for several months. I also taught a forty-hour German course to about fifty of our soldiers. I was promoted to sergeant before all this occurred.
I liked the fact that members of the Wehrmacht were being captured. I interrogated many Germans, and there were plenty to interrogate. If we asked them if they were members of the Nazi party, they were scared because they knew we were after them. Whenever the burgermeisters (mayors) were pulled into the headquarters and asked a lot of questions, I was involved. On different occasions, they often said to me, “I think you were already in Germany,” but I didn’t answer them. Whenever we captured SS, we stripped them (to see tattoos) and put them in a different camp than the Wehrmacht. There was little German pride left when we were through with Germany. I think the general populace was glad it was all over.
We were assigned to an artillery regiment for return to the United States. On March 10, 1946, we were transferred to Bremerhaven to board the Lehigh Victory Ship. After we arrived in the United States, we were trucked to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, and then boarded a train to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, for discharge, which took place on March 26, 1946.
I returned to Chicago by train to join my mother and various other relatives. My mother had moved to Chicago once I had left for the army. My brother Gunther had been inducted in early 1942 and served in the U.S. Air Corps as first sergeant at Warner Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia.
Fortunately, due the enactment of the GI Bill, I was able to go to Illinois Institute of Technology from June 1946 through June 1948 to study industrial and mechanical engineering. This helped me find employment in the plastic industry and eventually led to the establishment of my own business, Jomar Industries, Inc., in Gardena, California.
In early 1947, I met my wonderful future wife, Margaret. We tied the knot on June 19, 1949, and moved to California in 1954, where we raised our two sons, Larry and Jeffrey. We now have five grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
John Stern started Jomar Industries, a plastics packaging business, in 1959. This year the company will celebrate its fiftieth year in operations. He and his wife live in Orange County, California.
Julius Hamberg, father of Eric Hamberg, and his brothers serving in the German Army in World War I. Eric Hamberg
Jews forced to scrub anti–Nazi Party slogans off the sidewalks of Vienna after the Anschluss. United States Holocaust Museum
SA men block the doorway of a Jewish business in Berlin, April 1, 1933. The signs read: “Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!” and “Germans, defend yourselves, don’t buy from Jews!” United States Holocaust Museum
Karl Goldsmith’s German passport, stamped with a red J for Juden. Karl Goldsmith
Siegmund Spiegel’s passport, issued in Poland because his parents were born in Galicia, a province of the Austrian Empire that became part of Poland after World War I. In 1938 his parents were among thousands of Polish Jews the Nazis deported. Siegmund Spiegel
A German Jew at the Mutual Aid Society for German Jews desperately seeks help for his family. Mara Vishniac Kohn
Jewish refugees, London, 1940. Eric Hamberg
Jewish refugees gather below deck on the SS St. Louis, 1939. United States Holocaust Museum
Karl Goldsmith (top row, middle) with an interrogator prisoner of war (IPW) team; John Slade (Hans Schlessinger) first row far left. Karl Goldsmith
Bernard Fridberg (standing fourth from left) and flight crew. Bernard Fridberg
A Jewish chaplain conducts services for Jewish soldiers in the “dragon’s teeth” of the Siegfried Line, 1945. Author’s Collection
Kurt Klein on a mountaintop near Oberammergau, Bavaria, in 1933;
Kurt Klein sits in the same spot twelve years later as an American soldier during the occupation. Kurt Klein
German refugee newspaper Aufbau regularly posted the names and photos of refugee men and women serving in the military.
Manfred Gans standing in front of his family’s home in Borken, Germany; during the war, it
was Gestapo headquarters and ultimately Headquarters for British Occupational Forces. Manfred Gans
Siegmund Spiegel (at podium) speaks on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Long Island, New York, May 1993. Siegmund Spiegel
Ralph Baer is awarded the National Medal of Technology, February 13, 2006, by President George W. Bush in recognition of his pioneering work in the field of interactive video games. White House photo by Eric Draper
Chapter 12
RALPH BAER
PIRMASENS, GERMANY
Military Intelligence
Rudolph “Ralph” Baer was born in 1922 in the town of Pirmasens, Germany, a small city in the Rhine-Palatinate region of southwestern Germany, near Strasbourg on the French Alsace-Lorraine border. After arriving in New York, he taught himself electronics through a National Radio Institute correspondence course and then took over two radio repair shops on the East Side of New York City. Three years later, he was drafted into the army and trained as an order of battle specialist at Camp Ritchie before shipping out to France. He became an expert on both Allied and German weaponry and lectured to thousands of GIs. He is pictured above in Tidworth, England.
I was beginning to wonder whether I would ever get that letter from President Roosevelt telling me to make an appearance at the local draft board or at some induction center. It was early 1943 and I was certainly overdue. While I waited, I continued to work at Parkay Radio, the idea of getting out of the rut of servicing radios and TVs being uppermost in my mind.
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