I was born French, [in] Colmar in Alsace. Alsace is in the eastern part of France; it borders Germany. I became a German citizen, a second-class German citizen, after the French lost the battle in the summer of 1940. As you know as far as Europe is concerned, World War II started in 1939 [in Poland], and in 1940 the Germans attacked [in the west]. Alsace was the price the French had to pay to the Germans. So, that’s why overnight I became a second-class German citizen. That changed everything. This means up to thirteen, I spoke French. After that they told me I had to speak German; so, the school was interrupted this way, you see. The Germans gave three choices to families who had kids in my situation: either go to Germany, for which I was not qualified [because] I had to change overnight -- the language you know; work in the factory, or study music. I had a music background, and so I studied music in my hometown, but too many families came to the same conclusion. So, the Germans contacted my mother in 1942, and said your boy can continue to study music, but not in their hometown [Strasbourg]. He must go to Berlin.

My education was interrupted in the fall of 1944 when things went really bad for the Germans. At sixteen and a half they forced me into their equivalence of [the] National Guard. After three months of boot training, they transferred me into the regular German Army. They knew I spoke French, so instead of sending me to the Normandy battlefront to fight the Americans and the French, they sent me to the eastern battlefront. I couldn’t speak Russian. There was no danger I would surrender to the Russians. At the time, we were fighting in western Poland. We fought the Russian Army in southern Poland. The [German] army was composed, at that point in time, mainly of young people and old people, which means you know like seventeen down and then up to sixty, sixty-two.

[When I was drafted into the German Army], I hated it. I was very unhappy about it. Actually, I wrote a letter to my mother about it; and I was naïve, I was young. I didn’t know that people opened other people’s mail, and the Army Security opened my mail. I thought I was writing to my mother you know, and I could say whatever I wanted. I wrote in the letter, "I hope these bastards are going to lose the war soon." That didn’t help. They showed me the letter, and [asked], "What did you mean?" So, I was in trouble, almost in very serious trouble. They said that they feel they should put me in a very special unit where the chance to survive are about one in one hundred; but because I came from a very good high school in Berlin they gave me a break, or so they said (ha ha), and just put me in the regular army. You know, you have to realize that all the things I’m telling you are much more complicated and involved.

My family was really typical in a way. The war broke up the family. I was fighting the Russian [‘s] in the eastern front. My sister, at the given time, was politically not correct, and she was arrested by the SS [Hitler’s army] and sent into a concentration camp. My mother was in jail until the war was over, and the Germans lost. My sister was in a concentration camp, and I was in German uniform.

When I reported for my physical for the Army, they just took anybody who could walk (laughs). They were desperate! The physical is, you know, you just strip completely, and there are dozens of people there kind of looking at each other in a funny way; and you just walk by the doctor. You hope the doctor says you know, "No. He’s no good," but he always says "Yes." (Laughs) It went very fast.

When you go to boot training, you learn one thing if it’s an army at all -- you know a dead enemy is a good enemy. So, you learn how to kill. In the German boot training we had an officer who asked, "How many Russians can you kill?" He asked different people, and I gave the best answer. Some of them would say, "One," or "Three," and I said, "I want to kill as many as I can!"

"Good boy, good boy." (Ha ha) You know when you’re young, you react to certain things in a certain way, you know. That’s not a very good answer. You learn how to survive.

I didn’t have a technical training; it was too late in the war. I was not in the Panzer or in the Air Force. Actually, some of my boot training was funny. I was in the Cavalry Unit, and we had horses. It sounds kind of funny to have horses in WWII, but they were used to control the forests. You go through the woods much better with a horse than you go through with a tank. I had to take care of the horse for six weeks. I hated it! But it was my duty to take care of the horse.

I saw battle in the southern part of Poland, S-E-L-E-S-I-A, Selesia. It’s an industrial section, it’s a coal mine industrial section of southern Poland. I never was involved in a big battle, but we had our problems. We just fought mainly Polish, and Czech guerillas. Guerillas are people who fight you, but who don’t wear a uniform. Like in Vietnam. And guerillas can be worse than any army [can] because you never know when they attack and where they are. And then we fought the Russians. I was behind the machine gun, and just did my job because if I had not done my job they would’ve killed me. Actually the first time I used the machine gun I froze, you know what I mean. So, the lieutenant just came and put the pistol to my head and counted to three, "One … two," … And guess what I did? Bang, bang, bang! I reacted!

What you think about when you are in uniform is, "How can I survive?"

I knew I was fighting for a lost cause, but there was no way out for me. Like when I froze, I had the choice to die right then, or to live and get that machine gun started. You know what I mean? So, these are choices, and I didn’t like it; but there was no way out of it unless, you know, you sacrifice yourself. That’s difficult to do.

We were retreating. We were giving up, almost every day, three to five miles. We were retreating, and so we were in contact with the enemy; but like I said, no big battle. Another time, as an example, there were about fifteen thousand of us in a little railroad station. The Russians wanted to drop bombs on us. So, the Commander ordered us, "If they come, I want everybody to shoot with whatever they have against the airplanes, and if somebody doesn’t shoot, he’ll be shot on the spot." So, when the Russians, about six airplanes, arrived and wanted to really let us have it. Fifteen thousand (laughs) men shooting. It was almost, you know, the end of the war; and they didn’t want to die either. So, when they saw that we took a stand, they just went along and left. They didn’t insist when fifteen thousand people [were] shooting at the same time. You know, all they would have [had to do] would have [been to] just drop all the bombs on the railroad stations and killed [most of] us. [But] just by-passed us and left.

The worst thing, one of the worst things I saw, was again in a small railroad station. There were about fifty badly wounded soldiers, out right along the railroad, and they couldn’t move. They were in bad shape, and we were retreating. We went by the station, and they asked us for help. We didn’t help them ‘cause we knew the Russians were just two miles [behind] us. It’s an awful sight, you know, to see people who can not help themselves, who cannot go anywhere, and who were abandoned by the nurses. The [doctors and] nurses left them. They wanted to safely escape. That is a bad sight, "Please, stop and help me," you know. We had nothing to give. We’d drop them a cigarette or so. That’s, you know, what you call bad; but we couldn’t stop there and defend the railroad station. It would help nobody ‘cause the Russians were coming with tanks right away. So, that was a bad sight. One of the worst. I think this is a bad sight when you see about fifty people who are very badly wounded. Some of them died a natural death. Every kind of war you can’t help the enemies who are badly wounded. At least the Russians took prisoners in a fair way. I mean, as Armies go, --they didn’t put out the red carpet—but believe me; as far as Armies go, they treated us [the prisoners] fairly.

Greatest fear? Was each time there was a bullet that was less than one inch from my body. (laughs) That’s about it you know. You see these bullets coming when you’re behind a machine gun, and the bullets go, "Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-" in front of you, that’s weird. Although, the worst fear I had actually from the Russian front was the "Russian Organ," that’s a multiple rocket launcher. It’s what Russians used, and the Russians are specialists of artillery, and they played that "Russian starting organ" very well. If it explodes, within twenty feet from you, it blows up your lungs. The blood comes out of your eyes, your ears, your mouth, and you die. Scared the hell out of us, you know. When you see bodies with blood coming from everywhere.

Our unit surrendered. We had the Russians three miles in front of us, and the Americans two miles in back of us. I mean, we just were sandwiched. It was the end. So, I was taken prisoner by the Russian’s elite unit that was called Stalin Corps—the equivalent of the German SS, special unit. They were army boys, [but] they were nicer than civilians. As a prisoner, we had to walk through forty villages and the civilians would come out with sticks and try to beat us up. We packed as close together, so not many would get hit. You see, I’m saying soldiers to soldier are sometimes nicer then civilians, I think. Anyway, the Russian army was a disciplined army. After all, they proved it [when] they won in the eastern front. You think the Germans are good, the Germans lost so the Russians must have been better. And in some ways they had better equipment, better tanks, better artillery, better rifles, better airplanes. So, it was a regular army. The Russians put us in a prison camp with twenty thousand prisoners.

As a veteran in a prison camp, it’s no fun. There’s barely any food, and the first thing in the morning we had to check to see how many lice we had in our hair. After three whole weeks living in the camps, we were transported to western Russia by walking. Walking at least eight hundred miles, which is not many miles, but you had to do it, you know. When you’re taken prisoner and you are [over] sixty you think differently then when you are seventeen. Some of these people had [health] problems, and they just didn’t want to get up in the morning anymore. So, the Russians gave them a cigarette and reminded them [of the alternative], and after that shot [them], because they could not permit them [not to march]. The job for the guards was to move the people, not to be nice to them. The first night I was a prisoner, in May it was still cool in the forest, and I had a nice heavy overcoat and I took it off. I stretched out in the field, and used it as a blanket. I was young and I slept so well. When I woke up in the morning, somebody stole it; an old man maybe who needed it more then I.

For a few weeks we did nothing. There were too many [of us], we had no organization. After that, we did work a little on highways, but I didn’t see much of that. I didn’t go through a winter because I was taken prisoner in May. I was back [home] in November. So, I just was lucky as far as the time element was concerned.

I was treated like a German [in the Prisoner of War camp], and so what happened is that [there were people] from different annexed parts of Europe like Alsace, Luxembourg, parts of Poland, and parts of Czechoslovakia. What they[, the Germans] did was not legal, [according to the Geneva Convention], but that’s what war’s all about. You take ‘em by force, and then you impose your own rules. So, what I’m trying to say is there were many second class Germans in the camps. When I was in the German army, everybody thought I was German. My German [military] book would say an expression, that means second class German Citizen. But, I went around in [a] German uniform; I didn’t show everybody my book. I didn’t matter. The allies, they realized this. So, they sent international committees into these prison camps. There was an American officer, a British, a Russian and a French, and they gave [us] a chance to claim that we were second class citizens. You had to prove it and that wasn’t easy. The prison camp was controlled by the German officers, not by the Russians. Theoretically, the Russians were in command but in practice it was the German officers; and claiming you weren’t German is like deserting the army. Finally, it worked out that we could claim who we actually were, and we would be interviewed by a Russian officer who could speak French. And, so he would ask two, three tricky questions in French. He would say, "The Adolph Hitler Square in your hometown -- what was the name of the square before the Germans came?" I told the Russian officer and he said, "Good boy! You passed the test." After we were recognized for not being Germans, we were then slowly transported back [home]. The Russians handed me over to the Americans in Munich; the Americans handed me over to the French in Strasbourg. I got out before I was 18. I was just a kid.

WWII showed the stupidity of mankind. That’s the best I can say about it. It’s very difficult to change human nature. In the history of the Western World, in some thousand nine hundred and eighty nine years, we had a war at least one thousand, five hundred years. War is what is more popular than peace. Let’s hope [in] the future there is more hope.

When I came back from Russia, every young French person, according to the law, had to serve two years in the [French] army. I couldn’t find a job, so in 1946,at the age of eighteen, I volunteered, for the French Army. Instead of the two years, I signed up for three years. In the French army I was a Major Sergeant which is the highest rank below an officer. The paradox of that situation was after three months I was in French uniform they sent me back to Germany.

I stayed along the Rhine River. After a few months, overnight they sent me to Vietnam, [French] Indochina. Vietnam was different than the Russian front.

When I was in Vietnam in 1947, we had a completely different situation. It was like a revolution. If you know your American history, you would find the same situation when the Americans fought the British. In Vietnam when Ho Chi Minh started, he was Sorbonne educated. When they started, they started from scratch. It was not a war right away, it was guerillas, you know. According to the Geneva Convention guerillas should not attack regular armies. It’s illegal.

It was not a war first. It was like you went to the barbershop, and you were not sure whether he would cut your hair or cut off your head. In 1947, when it started, they would poison your food, or the cigarette would blow up in your face. As time went on—it started in 1947—[and] I was there in 1950. I was there thirty months. I saw my share, but it was not a frontal attack, not when I was there. The Vietcong, they got more and more sophisticated, and they got some help from China and from Russia. So, it was a completely different type of war [than WWII].

My sister fell in love with a good-looking GI and so she moved to America. When I came back from Vietnam, she suggested I give America a try. So, I came to America in 1953, but [I was] a little disappointed in America because after a year and a half in America I was called by the American draft board. What happened is that as an immigrant—you know, the American Embassy in Paris, I had to sign document five pages in English, you know in lawyer’s English; and, I didn’t know what I was signing. Actually, what I had signed was that I would report to the draft board six months after my arrival; but I didn’t know it. I didn’t report. So, a year and a half later they finally got my name. That was the end of the Korean situation, and they needed people in the army. So, they called me and said I cheated. I said I don’t understand. And he said, "You signed this document in Paris and you have not reported." They said, "You know you should have reported but you didn’t report. You cheated. Now, since you cheated we’re going to draft you.

I said, "Hell, no." You know, enough is enough! They wanted to send me to Korea, and I said, "I refuse."

And they said, "But you can’t."

I told them, "You are forgetting something."

They said, "What?"

I told them, "I am still a French citizen. You do this, I call my ambassador, and I go back to France. I will not serve in the Korean War against my will. I mean, enough is enough! We settled the matter; I didn’t go. [I] would have returned [to France]. I would have refused to serve in the American Army. Twice was enough. Once in the German [army] and once in the French. That was enough!

I graduated from a church college in Wichita, Friends University. It’s a great institution. My German teacher there was Dr. Beerman. After I graduated there with a B.A., I went to the University of Arkansas for my Masters Degree. You have Wichita here, and Fayetteville there, and almost in the middle is Pittsburg. He [Beerman] was teaching, at that point in time, in Pittsburg. So, when I went from my sister’s to school I stopped in Pittsburg to say hello to my former teacher. When I finished my degree he said, "Do you have a job?"

I said, "I think I have one."

He said, "But there’s an opening here in Pittsburg. Why don’t you take it?"

So, that’s what I did, and I liked it. I have been in Pittsburg thirty-six years, a long time.

If I had to do it all over again? That’s a good question. I would have moved to Switzerland (laughs). Because, you see, my hometown is just forty miles from Switzerland. But, this is a philosophical question. What would you do different? Life, you know, you take it as it comes. You can’t go back. Life is what it is, and you can’t change things. Personally, I’m not in favor of looking back. I like the decision I made to come to America. [My war experiences] have influenced my life. I am not very optimistic about human nature. You see, I would not belong to the Optimist Club. I know this is un-American, but after having gone through all this I am closer to the Old Testament, than to the New Testament. The New Testament is much more optimistic, I think the Old Testament is much closer to life. Life has many challenges, and I had to take care of myself in that setting. We all have to find our own way. I guess what helped me was my youth. I think life is wonderful, but it’s just full of problems we have to solve. In the prison camp we had people who committed suicide because they couldn’t see anything to look forward to. I think you do the best you can with the situation you are in.