And andy. He was one of the most important film directors in the late 1930s. Sunday night at 8 00 on the presidency, john meacham and ron about the process of writing a president ial biography. For our complete American History tv schedule, go to cspan. Com. Tv,ext on American History holocaust survivor julius menn describes his experiences growing up in poland and palestine to the 1930s and 1940s. 10yearold julius menn and his family were on extendedstay when the german army invaded in september of 1939. He described how his family narrowly escaped by traveling to force and feels, dodging hunger. After a year in lithuania, the family returned to palestine in october 1940. This event as part of the holocaust museums firstperson series. It is just over an hour. Good morning and welcome come to the United StatesHolocaust Memorial museum. My name is bill benson, the host of firstperson. Thank you for joining us today. We are in our 17th year of the first person program. Our first person today is mr. Julius menn whom we shall meet shortly. Season of firstperson is made possible by the generation of the loos frequent Smith Foundation with additional funding from the arlene and Daniel Fisher foundation. Firstperson is a series of conversations with survivors of the holocaust who share with us their firsthand accounts of their experiences during the holocaust. Each of our firstperson guests serve as volunteers here at this museum. Our program will continue twiceweekly through midaugust. T these himh the louisiana eums website provides information about each of our desperate the website address is www. Ushmm. Org. Anyone interested in keeping in touch with the museum and its programs can complete the stay connected card you will find in your program or speak with a museum representative at the back of the theater. In doing so, you will receive an electronic copy of julius menns biography so you can remember and share his testimony after you leave here today. Julius will share his firstperson account of his experience during the holocaust and a survivor for 45 minutes. End ofave time at the our program for you to add some questions, we will do so. The life stories of Holocaust Survivors transcend the decades. What you are about to hear from julius is one individuals account of the holocaust and we have prepared a brief slide presentation to help with his introduction and we begin with his photo of julius menn as a boy. He was born in 1929 in danzig now gdasnk, poland. In 1935, julius and his parents and his younger sister emigrated to palestine. In the summer of 1938, the family traveled back to poland to visit relatives over the summer. At the end of the summer, the family did not return to palestine. Pictured here are julius, his sister and their german governess in warsaw, poland, in 1938. Germany invaded poland on september 1, 1939. Shortly after the invasion, the menn family fled eastward. On thi map, the error shows the route the arrow shows the route they took. They traveled for two weeks and the force of eastern poland eventually making it to a Major Railroad junction. The arrow and at that location. From there, a young soviet officer helped the menn family niuset a train to vil where they lived in a ghetto for a year. In the fall 1940, david managed to get four the men family traveled to odessa and from there took a ship to turkey and eventually to palestine arriving in tel aviv in october of 1940. The men family is pictured here in tel aviv in 1945 and julius is on the right. Julius served in the hagana, the Jewish Defense force in poland in palestine, sorry, as a teenager and later as a junior officer. In 1947, julius moved to the United States to attend university. But he returned to israel in 1948 to serve in the army in the war of independence. Mere we see julius as an officer in the israeli army. We close with this photo of the dication of julius fathers shimshan Cement Factory in hartuve. Speakinging is Menachem Menn and seated at the table is golda mai elft r, former Prime Minister of israel n 1950 julius emigrated to the United States and continued his education. Julius and his wife, diane sanger, live in havel elft y, massachusetts, having moved there from manufactured in 2011. He earned his ph. D. From the university of california at berkeley and had a long career as a toxicologist, specializing in a number of areas including Crop Protection and the biochemistry of pesticides. We had an interesting conversation earlier today about the zika virus. After spending 27 years in private industry, he became a associate director of the Plant Sciences institute of the United States department of agricultures Research Service in beltsville, maryland. He published over 125 scientific papers throughout his career and traveled internationally extensively including making 30 trips to the soviet union as a member of the u. S. A. Ussr Research Team on pefment sides and the environment. Julius won Numerous Research awards during his research career. While julius retired from the usda in the mid 1990s he continued work in his field for 10 years as an International Consultant including with the usdas Foreign Agricultural service. In his capacity he spent considerable time in hanoi, vietnam, and turkmenistan. Together, julius and diane have four children and nine grandchildren. Julius volunteers with the museums archives where he has been actively translating documents for researchers for the past 10 years. He has translated from hebrew, handwritten newspapers from atria where the british imprisoned jewish freedom fighters. And he helped to compile the now completed masef encyclopedia of the holocaust. Julius translated and edited memorial books which remember and honor jewish residents of towns and cities who were martyred during the holocaust. He did this for over 120 towns and villages. Most of his translation is from hebrew but he also translates polish and yiddish. Julius also speaks frequently about his holocaust experience in various locations such as schools and synagogues. Now that he is in massachusetts, he is part of the Speakers Bureau of the Boston Branch of this museum. He has lectured at the university of massachusetts. And the pie noor volley area where he now lives he is leading seminars in philosophy. He has also auditing courses at amherst college. Julius has public lshed his memoir titled waves, a memoir which chronicles his first 21 years from 1929 to 1950. After todays program, julius will be available to sign copies of his book which is also available in the Museum Bookstore and through amazon and other book outlets. And with that id like to ask you to join me in welcoming our first person, mr. Julius menn. [applause] julius, thank you so much for joining us. And your willingness to spend this hour with us which is not nearly enough time. But well make the most of it. And i know youre ready to start. So well do that. You described to me your very early years as a wonderful life. Tell us about your family and about you in the years before your family moved to palestine. Mr. Menn first of all, thank you, bill, for the introduction, which was very good. And i would like to welcome especially i would like to talk to high school students. So i see most of you are in high school so welcome. And also, i want to thank the sponsors of this program. This program is very valuable. And im really happy to participate in it. I want to say one thing before i start. My story is the story of an accidental survivor of the holocaust and youll see why. And also you must project yourself protect yourself when youre about 10 years old because most of those events happened to me when i was like 10 going on 11. Starting at age 9. So anyhow, you asked me about bill your early years before you moved to palestine. Julius i was as bill mentioned, i was born in danzig. The reason that my father was a oldier in the czarrist army in world war i. He fought on the austrian front. During that, people of the communist revolution, danzig was declared by the league of nations which was sort of the forerunner of the united a ions as a very it was very liberal constitution. Im jewish. And my parents were jewish. And it was a very good constitution. In fact, it was very similar to the american constitution. It gave it emancipated the jewish people. O many of them went to danzig. I lived there until i was 6 years old. And i was born in danzig itself, but we moved to a small which is opot danzig was a city that also had several villages around it. And it was on the baltic sea. Its opposite sweden. It was wonderful. I learned to ice skate. And i was pretty good at it when i was a kid. At age 6, my father who believed in establishing a jewish state in israel, he wanted us to move there and we finally moved in 1935 when i was 6 years old. Bill and julius, before you tell us about the move to palestine, your father was a successful businessman. Tell us a little bit about him. Julius my father only had a sixth grade education. But he was a very intelligent man. When we lived in danzig, he tarted to trade in lumber. A lot of lumber was imported from sweden for paper and thats how he met my grandfather who had a large forest in northeastern poland in match factory galistag. He had several daughters. They got married in the great synagogue. It was in warsaw before the holocaust. And they settled at danzig until 1935. Bill and thats when they emigrated to palestine. Julius thats when they emigrated to palestine. Bill tell us about that. Julius what was interesting about it, i had a german governness. You saw the picture. She was catholic. And she she loved my sister and she loved me. And i loved her very much. She really was like a mother to us. Bill and a governness in todays language would be like a nanny, right . Julius yes. Bill yeah. Julius today, you dont find this kind of devotion of a governness going with us to palestine. And unfortunately, later on, she was she returned to germany. She was from berlin. And she was killed in the allied bombings in berlin. And i learned about this after the war. And naturally, i was very, very sad and very upset. Bill but she was there with you in palestine when you first went there . Julius she lived with us in palestine. Bill your father, what was his business once he got to palestine . Julius well, my father was a sense. In the positive he and his brother now established a Cement Factory in he foothills of jerusalem. So he was an industrialist. Bill uhhuh. Start now shall i about 1938 . Bill not quite yet. So here you are, 6 years old. And now youre going to school. What was school like . Julius this is very important now. I was going to first grade. I didnt know any hebrew. The school was all the teaching was in hebrew. And its very interesting. The teacher was reading to the class Robinson Caruso which im read. Ost of you had and of course it was in hebrew. And i only spoke german. So at the recess, i would come to the teacher and i say, i would tell her, mrs. Soandso, please tell me the story in german. Because she knew german. And she would. Its a really remarkable story. I must say that life in tel aviv, which was on the mediterranean sea, was wonderful for children. For one thing, you after class, in the first and second grade, third grade, i just would go to the beach by myself and swim. You didnt need any anybody to protect you. It was people didnt lock their houses. There was no crime. I would say it was a wonderful life. Bill so you lived there for several years. And then in 1938 julius 1938. My mother wanted to visit her their in poland with house and my grandfather was already died. But my mother had three sisters. One of them drowned. But two sisters who lived there and two brothers. And my father had still property near danzig that he wanted to sell to the government. So reluctantly we were going to go only for the summer. And believe me, i was in third grade. I finished third grade. The prospect of leaving my friends, my culture, my new culture, my hebrew culture, imagine yourself as americans going lets say to mexico where u have to go and learn a new language. Most of the people are catholic. And the same thing happened to me in a sense. I went to poland as a 9yearold. And i had to learn polish because hebrew, of course, was unknown. And that was also the place for the first time where i experienced indirectly discrimination. The poles were about 95 catholic. And the there was no separation of religion from the state as we have in the United States. So the first hour in the school was devoted to catholic catechism. Bill and this was a public school. Julius public school. And there were a few of us who were jewish students. We had to leave the class and o stand in the hall since we were not part of the we were not coreligionists. And i thought this was very strange. Bill and julius, you went there. Your family went there expecting to be there for the summer. So you had originally expected you would be back in tel aviv for the school year. Julius yes. Bill but instead youre continuing in poland. Why was that . Julius until the fourth grade, yeah. For many reasons, we didnt go back. And i was enrolled in the polish squool as i was telling you about. The catechism class. So i studied for a year, polish. And actually, im pretty good still in polish. After so many years. Excuse me. The year went by. And again, another summer. Now its 1939. My grandmother had a summer cottage near the town of vilna. You saw it before the map of poland. Maybe we can get the map back. Ill we cant unfortunately. Julius and i remember i went with my grandmother to the summer cottage. And she taught me how to pick mushrooms in the forest and berry. And how to separate the mushrooms from the poisonous to the edible. And this was wonderful. Also i would prance around in e forest in a bathing suit and a little knife. And i carved a pine tree that had very nice bark. And i would carve the bark into boats. And it just was and i played tarzan. Tarzan was very popular in those days. Bill so julius, while youre doing that, the year stretches out. You remain in poland through the summer of 1939. Youre still in poland. And war is becoming imminent. Do you think your parents at that time by extending their stay there, do you think they were aware of the threat of naziism by that time . Julius as i mentioned before, my governness went back to germany. And she would write letters to my father. She would say, im writing this letter. Theres great danger to myself because of the censors, the nazi censors open it, i will be sent to a concentration camp. But she said mr. Menn go back because war is coming. And the whole world knew that the war is coming. And yet we stayed. O in the summer of 1939 school was finished. We went, my father went to danzig to sell his business. And my mother and my sister and i went to this resort that was closed to east close to east prussia on that map and a piece of germany that was very close to poland. Summer, e end of the september 1, the germans invaded poland. We were very close to east prussia. D fortunately we came with and not ho had a car terribly far and i would estimate about maybe 60 to 100 miles. As soon as we came, my father was in danzig. S soon as we came to the bakenstock the german dive bombers were bombing the population. Bill and you remember that, dont you . Julius yes, i do. And i was mobilized to help dig ditches so that because as the dive bombers would come down, they would machine gun the civilians. And also the windows were taped ecause we were afraid of gas warfare. My mother went back to warsaw. The germans were surrounding warsaw. But the poles actually fought very valiantly and warsaw was one of the last cities to fall. My father and they came back to bakenstock and how she managed to find my father is a miracle to me. And my father immediately said we have to leave this town because the germans will invade any day. So he found my my late grandfathers old coachman. And the coachman agreed to take s to vilna, to the forest. And this was very unusual. Because he didnt want any samoan. People were very in those days were very devoted to each other. And because of his devotion to my grandfather he wanted to do something nice for us. So for about two weeks, we t that was this car driven by a horse covered with straw with a tent over it. It was just like the pioneers 150 years ago going from the east bill like a canastoga wagon. Julius yes. In a wagon. And this is for two weeks, we wandered in the forest of poland. This is really my experience about the mole cost. The germans would dive bomb the refugees. And we would jump into the wheat fields. Why the wheat fields, it was late september. Or middle september. It was time to harvest the wheat. But there was nobody to harvest it because the polish farmers were in the army. And so we would jump into the field while the german bombers would dive bomb. And also made this terrible noise to scare the people. And they would machine gun everybody. How we survived in i dont now. But these events lasted several times during the day. And they would last maybe 20 minutes or so and the planes would go away. Maybe nelled they would reemerge and the road was strewn with pieces of humans, of bloodshed, animals, cows. Dead cows. Cars that were burning. It was horrible. I still remember this. War is a terrible thing. I know for americans, its very difficult to visualize war because the only people who really experienced war in this country were the g. I. s who fought in wars. But imagine that you lived in the south and saw on television the terrible tornadoes. You go into in the morning to school, you come home. And theres no home. Because the tornado destroyed it. This is what war is. War destroys your life. And the war and the nazis destroyed the holocaust destroyed the jewish people of europe. When i give many talks in massachusetts, and i talk to seventh graders, i always tell them, i say, its hard to visualize what how terrible the holocaust was. But six million people, six million jews were killed by the nazis at concentration camps. The population of massachusetts is about six million. So i said suppose you wake up in the morning, and the whole state, the people are dead