Narrative, but it definitely adds layers to it. Interviewer leslie swift , thank you very much. Kurt klein my name is kurt klein , and i was born in a town called waldorf which is very close to heidelberg in germany. Interviewer tell me about your parents and your family . Kurt klein i grew up in the postworld war i era, and of course, those were very difficult times. My parents were struggling to get along during this economic chaos that existed during those times. You may remember, there was this very serious inflation, i mean ludicrous in a sense, such as s has never been seen before and that made it very difficult to carry on. My father had a business that was made extremely difficult because of the Economic Conditions that existed after world war i. He was a broker for hops and tobacco and grain that he would buy from the farmers in the town that we lived in, and my mother helped him all she could. Of course, they, along with so many others, were struggling to exist in those days. But still, you might say that i grew up in a middleclass family , and of course, after going to Elementary School in this town it was expected that i would go to high school in heidelberg. Really it it was the school that was a higher level than high school. But also, of course, already quite eventful times, and i grew up in mid all this chaos of the different parties of the republic fighting each other and from my earliest childhood on, so the formation of the not to party nazi party, and how they gradually gained strength. Early on, there were perhaps times when one didnt take them all that seriously, but it soon became apparent that they were a force to be reckoned with. Interviewer in your life, tell me, tell me about this affected you about how this affected you. Kurt klein it affected me, later on especially, when people were won over by the nazis, they were no longer our friends or our neighbors as we had been used to it. And it also represented an ominous threat because from early on, hitler and all of the others made it quite clear how they felt about the jews and what they would be doing to the jews. But it also meant that sometimes, you would see all of these slogans on the walls, many of them directed against jews, and so you had a so you had a feeling even early on that you were truly being singled out. You hardly knew for what reason but you knew that all this propaganda was directed against you, and it made it difficult at times to carry on because you obviously in my fathers case, i dont know the details but you could not do business with people who felt that way. Nevertheless, things were still more or less all right until hitler actually came to power. But i could see that the nazi party was gaining strength, and so could the others. Actually, nobody believed that they were capable of doing the things which in fact it turned out they later did. Linda kuzmack did you lose friends because of this atmosphere . Kurt klein once hitler was in power. I dont remember losing any earlier, but once hitler was in power, there was a gradual alienation from the rest of my schoolmates. Some of them were better than others, but many of them initially apologized for some of the things that hitler said he was going to do, assuring us that of course, he did not mean People Like Us my parents or our friends. Gradually, you could almost see their indoctrination in the hitler youth and how much more hostile they became until in the end, they stopped talking altogether, or they might perhaps taunt you. Even then, it was well known that there were concentration camps, and they would say things to the effect of if you people behave, you might be all right but if you dont, watch out you might all wind up in concentration camps. Long before then, they had stopped to associate with you. At first, these people had been in my house constantly, and i had been in their homes, and they had eaten in our home and i in theres theirs. I grew up considering myself part of that scene, never thinking that i would be singled out for Something Like this, and i saw the gradual evolution of how all this changed. It was bewildering to someone growing up with the turmoil of that period. Linda kuzmack what was high school tell me about what kind of things you did. Kurt klein actually, i did all the things that any young man does or likes. I engaged in sports, just as the others did. I liked soccer. I like looks quite a bit. That helped me later, also. I liked books quite a bit. That helped me later, also, when i was sort of shot off from the world. Even earlier, i liked books. I belonged to an organization of jewish young people. We went on hikes very often when mountain climbing swimming, skiing. We did all the things that young people are apt to do. I liked movies a great deal. American movies in those days were quite popular. I read books also by american authors. I remember such things as jack london and mark twain, of course. Huck finn. I did all those things. In that sense, i had a normal upbringing. Later on, when all the other boys turned away from the from me, and there were very few jewish friends in the town i lived in nobody exactly my age, but there were some other boys close to me, but no more than two or three. The rest of my jewish friends i found in heidelberg, which was of coarse, large enough to have a large jewish population. That to some extent, made up for my not being able to associate with anybody in the town in which i lived. I have very fond memories, for instance, of this organization i mention, of going off into the mountains and going hiking sometimes for a few day trips, staying in Youth Hostels overnight. Those were all things that sort of made my formative years quite interesting and to some extent, enjoyable. That went on even after the not cease the nazis came to power. It stopped when i was approximately 14. At that point, my father was no longer able to send me to high school, which required tuition. It was thought that for jewish young people at the time, it was quite common to learn a trade. So i thought about what i would like to be. Since i had all these books, since i had always liked books i chose printing as my vocation. I did in fact, get a job in printing in the town where i lived. In fact, it was on the same street where i lived. This man was quite willing to take me on, and i worked there for a number of months. The authorities heard about it and made it impossible for him to keep me on. So then i had to stop that. I later on worksed for a jewish firm that was still in existence at that time, which was a tobacco factory where they actually made cigars. I found some sort of a job until the time that i in fact left germany, but it was becoming more and more evident that jews should leave if anybody at all would have them, and not very many countries would have them. It was not quite that easy, but especially young people it was suggested for young people to leave because there was obviously no future or them in germany for them in germany. We, too, came to that conclusion, and since we had some relatives in the states that seemed to be the natural place to go. I was fortunate, and now in retrospect, i know that it must have saved my life. My sister, who was older than i was in nurses training in germany, but she also decided, of course, that it was time to leave. As someone about for her someone vouched for her, so she came here a year ahead of me, and had she not been here, i would not have gotten out because she was able to go after people and ask for the necessary papers that one needed in those days an affidavit of support. So she did that for me so that by 1937, i was able to leave also and come to buffalo also, where at that time my sister lived, and so did various other relatives. Among them and uncle an uncle and a man and their daughter, and i stayed within the first few years with them the first few years when i came to buffalo. I also was able after a couple of weeks to find a job in printing again so that i could continue that training, and that is in fact what i made my career. When i was still in germany, you could see the gradual more and more repressive measures that were being directed at jews. The thing that i remember so well is being in school and having to attend it was mandatory attend these propaganda films that were done in those days. I still remember that vividly because i could firsthand i could see it firsthand how films like that affected especially the young and how they swung them over to unquestioned obedience to the nazi cause. But everybody was affected by them the older people too. You could see that the more this propaganda works on them, the more they believed it. I remember attending such films or listening to these speeches on the radio, and i was a teenager then, and wondering how i ever got into this position. I personally do not know any such people as they described. How is this possible, and how is it possible to have all this venom directed at you when you have not done a thing and you have just lived a peaceful life and my parents were lawabiding citizens who were struggling to get along in a very difficult economy . That, of course, was very puzzling to me. The point i was trying to make was that the nazis knew almost like no one else how to use the power of the media to sway peoples opinions. The radiohead come to its own in my childhood and they used that for propaganda purposes as no one had before or since, and thats how they were able to sway people and get them to do the things they did. Linda kuzmack lets move forward now. You have been talking about you and buffalo. Kurt klein right. In buffalo, i was in printing, and i graduated and improved myself a little. I found some other jobs in printing. Of course, at that point, from then on, both my sister and i were trying to make it possible for our parents to follow us. I should mention that i also had an older brother who came to the states about a year after i did although he initially settled down. I forget the exact sequence. First in new york and then in boston and then back in new york i believe is how it was. We, of course tried very hard to get our parents to follow us but those were difficult times here also. It was not easy to get the necessary papers for my parents. At least it was difficult to convince anybody that there was any immediate urgency about getting them out, and the answer usually was, yes, in due time after you have established yourselves, you will see them follow you. While we continuously worked on it, really, nothing that happened, really until november 1938 when kristallnacht came. Then, people began to take some notice, and, of course, there was absolute panic among the jews in germany about getting out. Unfortunately, my parents hesitated a little too long about registering at the american consulate in stuttgart so they had a system of priority numbers in those days. So they got a very high number which made it impossible for them to contemplate leaving immediately. There were many attempts that we made at the time to have them leave on the basis that the children were asking for the that we, their children, were asking for them, but as we found out, you needed to be a citizen in order for i believe it was called form 575 or Something Like that, which meant that some people were allowed but basically, they had adhered to the quota system and the high priority system, which, of course, everybody wanted to get out at the time. This went on and on, but in each letter, it so happens that i have every letter that my parents ever wrote to me during that time from the time i left them. Each letter would be full of some news of more repressive measures that were taking place so that before kristallnacht for example, they had written to us that now they had been forced to my father had been forced to sell his business, and the nazis had throttled jewish businesses anyway and had through their boycott pointed out to the german population that they ought not to live for jews or associate with them. Those measures were felt in pretty short order, so that there came a point when my father was forced to sell his business, and a very short time later, also the house that they were in because they simply could not keep that up. After they had already made the arrangements for selling the house, the man who bought it was not going to move in until the following spring because he was going to do some renovating. So it became an agonizing decision for them too, should they stay in that house throughout the winter, largely without heat or income, or should they avail themselves of whatever was offered to them in a very run down, dilapidated part of the town also, and should they take that while the taking was still good . This is what they were agonizing over at the point when kristallnacht happened. After that, they were under orders to move, and all these decisions were taken from their hands. As they moved in with an acquaintance, a jewish lady, the wife of the owner of that Cigar Factory for which i had worked and where my father had subsequently worked for a little bit in the office when he could no longer have his own business she had an old house somewhere in another part of the town, and they were ordered to move to what was really above a stable what had been a stable. It was not then anymore. Just one room. Of course, during kristallnacht we were to find out that some of the some of my schoolmates, one in particular, had become the leader of this gang of put limbs, who had invaded my parents house and lined them up against the wall and proceeded to smash all their furniture and everything they could lay their hands on the leader of this gang of hoodlums. They took my father with them that night, and he had to spend some time in the local jail. What was at least a few days later, probably, because of his age but it was by far the better part of what happened in kristallnacht because most men were simply sent to concentration camps. What i was going to say about the gang that invaded my parents house this was then a boy who had been in and out of our home, had eaten at our table, and he led this gang in really making threats toward these elderly people defenseless people and treated them in the most abominable manner and vandalized the whole place. Linda kuzmack you were hearing all of this, as it were, through the letters you receive . Kurt klein yes. Some of it was through veiled references my parents were able to make, but we could usually we learned to read between the lines, and we knew what they meant when they made references. For instance, they let us know that their furniture had been smashed because i still remember my mothers use of the phrase that they now were possessors of mini furniture. All of this was actually confirmed to us by an uncle of mine who was fortunate enough to leave after those times, and because he had a daughter in england and a very influential soninlaw who got them out, and they eventually wound up also coming to buffalo where i lived and where they had a son, so they were able to fill me in on some of the details of what happened. Linda kuzmack what did you do . This is after kristallnacht. Tell us about what led to the war experience for you. Kurt klein i should however also mentioned that we kept on trying by every means to get them out, but at every turn, Something Else happened. The next thing that happened was in 1940 when in the fall of 1940, we received a letter from a relative in switzerland who informed us that he said you will, of course, have read the reports in the newspapers of what has happened to your parents along with all the jews and at the whim of the local authorities, they were told within 20 minutes to two hours to pack up a few things and take along with them, and they were in fact deported to the south of france. To what was then the unoccupied zone of france to a camp that had at one time served as a refugee camp for the civil war refugees that came from spain because it was near the pyrenees and the spanish border. They were simply dumped there without blankets without adequate food, without anything and the germans told the french to take over. Of course, it took a long time until we then established some direct contact with my parents because they at first they could not right, and when they did, those things took weeks and weeks in those days. Also because there was already a war going on in europe by that time, of course. In 1939, it also added to our complications. When the war started, we were sent incredibly far back. Normal escape routes were out of the question. You could only find certain ones, and then only if you had quite a bit of money just for the passage and everything else. At any rate, being in the unoccupied zone of france was at the same time, they were, of course segregated. They were a not allowed to live together. Men were in a different camps and women, but they were usually once a week allowed to visit each other. Of course, we got their letters, and we wrote to them. We were able to do that and this is quite a record of what went on in those caps camps but whereas it was a catastrophe that this had happened, at the same time, it still made it possible for them to perhaps get out easier than if they had remained in germany because they could go to the american consulate in marseille if they were summoned. They were allowed out if they were summoned. Somehow or other, there was always a flaw, always a new complication, and this went on in an absolutely can desk kafkaesque way. At every corner, there was another obstacle. We had passage for them many times, and they had to let the terms expire because their papers were not ready, and they were moved my father was sent to another cap closer to marseille another camp closer to marseille, and so it went on and on. They could, in fact, with the right papers have left by way of spain and portugal. We had a portuguese ship again passage for them several times, and each time, something they could never get clearance on time. This went on and on. In the meantime this was now running into 1942. By the summer of 1942, actually perhaps 5, 6 weeks later one of my letters was returned address unknown, left no forwarding address. As we found out through a tracing bureau after the war they were in fact, deported to auschwitz along with all the thousands and thousands who were there. This also this time was the time when i was inducted in the army, so that it all happened together. I recently found a notice from the state department that reached us in november of 1942, a time when i was already in the army, that said that they were now pleased to let us know that our parents had gotten clearance. This was three months after they had been deported to auschwitz but at any rate, i was inducted in the army. To me, it was a great relief and also, perhaps a source of pride that i was able to finally do something about this. We had been literally paralyzed for years at the whim of whatever authorities were in charge. Now i was finally able to fight this big evil. I was in the army and actually never finished basic training before they found out that i had a language capability. In those days, of course, they were looking for germanspeaking personnel and germanspeaking personnel that no doubt they could trust, so that i was pulled out of away