A professor at Hunter College at City University of new york. Her last book was the young lions one that i have not read but is of interest to me so i need to get on that next howl jewish authors reinvented the american war model. It was shortlisted for major literary awards. Shes here to talk about her latest book the secret x troop jewish comandos of world war ii which has received wide and high praise. The reviews are great. Cnn the daily mail in the uk stars and stripes and i think leah told me they were other publications that would have willing review soon so without further ado lets get into the program and welcome dr. Leah garrett. Thank you for joining us and please tell us a little bit about the book before we get into our conversation. Thank you very much particularly because some of the women i read about in the book have archival. They were interviewed by ambrose for his book as well so speak briefly about the extroops. They were created in 1942 when the war was going poorly for the brits and they knew they needed to do something extreme. They decided to create the allied command unit which would be the size of a Commando Unit of people had been displaced and traumatized by the the polish commander unit of british commander unit but they decided they would create a germanspeaking unit and what ended up happening was this germanspeaking unit would end up being comprised almost entirely of jewish and austrian jewish refugees from europe. These were people who came to United Kingdom in their transports where their parents sent them over to get them save and they made their way alone as teenagers by themselves in absolute desperate situation of giving more detail of different aspects of it but eventually this group was selected to be part of this command unit and the reason the unit was so extraordinary was that it was quickly recognized that these were the best and the brightest in the head training and they were trained both as commandos and Intelligence Officer so in contrast to the United States who were German Jewish exiles and Intelligence Officers these guys would capture and kill but interrogate them on the battlefield and make the decisions that were necessary for the battle to continue. What ended up happening was they quickly realize how extraordinary they were and the British Military made a very unique decision that rather than having them they would parcel them out. They would have them be the tip of the spear so when we talk about that in my book its not only extraordinary because these guys were a bunch of german and austrian jewish who fought back against the but also because they were so effective and they ended up in multiple battles playing absolute crucial roles in the war effort and after the war was over they were also used for the de baathification efforts of not only were they killing capturing and interrogating nazis during the war but after the war as well. Each of the stories of the men is extraordinary because they all came from a place of trauma and tragedy to i would say a great deal of redemption. Thank you. Thats one of the areas that the museum has been neither one is a sensitive to put aware of and certainly from an american if and probably locally. Whenever we discuss the jewish experience of world war ii its almost always the holocaust and there was a gentleman whose parents were survivors that spoke to me one day and he said we bought two and its good to share these stories. Yes the suffering was awful and we were victims that we were part of our own liberation. Zach absolutely. Your book does a great job of that and we will get into some of those battles you referenced but your vote does a great job of getting very microwith these individuals and following them as people and following them as a unit but also putting it into the context of a broader war. Talk a little bit about them and their backgrounds. You mentioned austrian and german primarily. Give us a couple of samples of some of these young men that you followed and researched and included. Thats a great question and ill talk about two of them in particular. I will talk briefly about it. I really focused on the entire unit. One of them would be Peter Masters from a middleclass austrian jewish family very cultured. He was a sensitive artistic kid and youd like to ride his bike around and played football. When the germans invaded austria immediately overnight his life went from very lovely to very hellish and his mom saw the writing on the wall but the problem at this point people realize it was the holocaust and they said why didnt you get out . There was nowhere to go for these people. Countries were not taking these people so he and most of the others had to make a decision that we have to leave now and in his case it was unusual because his mother was which was very unlikely but the nazis rounded up his grandfather and other family members. He made as a teenager to stay with his mom ended up getting a job, farm and ends up getting interned because the british decide that they are going to intern all the german refugees referencing the fact that 80 of them are jewish. The idea was that there might be an enemy within the ranks. The day was germans there. He was one of the unusual ones to be with his family but other ones who i talk about who grew up in a nice middleclass family in germany loved his parents very very much devoted to his dad in particular. His parents were hiding him to protect him and they also see the writing on the wall. Hes sitting with his dad at a pub one day and they came and arrested the dad who is speaking out against the rise of fascism in the nazis and his dad is murdered in dachau and his mom realizes her son is going to potentially be next. She puts them alone and i think you 16 at this point on a train at the transport and he arrives completely by himself no family utterly heartbroken. He sent to the uk to try to make a life for himself. When they get to the United Kingdom most of them its okay for the first year or so in terms of a are safe. They are desperately missing their parents and they have all lost family members brothers and sisters in the number of them lost their children and their wives have been taken and exterminated. They are physically safe for the first year or so until the war breaks out and they are all put into internment camps. You mentioned the candor transport and obviously those who did good. Their experience in the uk was not universally bad but there were prejudices is in the uk that they had to overcome her deal with. Talk about you mentioned the fifth column and its terrifically ironic that here they are fleeing persecution to cut its of their and when they get to the uk they are treated as potential enemy aliens because of their german nests. Can you talk about that please . They are all called enemy aliens during the war and after the war and that status doesnt change. What happens in internment is the British Government decides they in turn 70,000 or so german refugees not thinking a 75,000 or so are jewish and the decision that they are going to turn to single men and the ex troopers are single men because they have no family here. The internment camps are bad. One of the men talks a lot about in the book that he comes from an Orthodox Jewish family and german a wonderful family, the same story. The rise of nazis and it gets very bad very quickly and its just terrific. He makes the decision to be sent away on a train to sent to safety. He ends up getting interned in one of the worst camps in the United Kingdom where there are no beds and no tables buckets for toilets. Its pretty bad but not her thick in the uk. They made the decision that they would send a bunch of them overseas and they send them on ships to australia and the internment camps are terrible. Those who are unlucky enough to get on a ship to go to australia which is quite a number of the ex troopers unfortunately these manner with an antisemitic british crew and their german prisoners of war on the ship and they get upper decks and bunks and locked in no air and no water and not only that their ships crew decides its fun to purge of them. One that i interviewed who is still alive talked about having to walk their foods over the ship deck over broken glass. Its in all the Historical Documents especially with the courtmartials that happened. After this voyage of the to australia they get put into an internment camp in the outback. From that experience the worst thing wasnt being in the outback the worst was they were miles from home and nobody knew was happening to my wife and whats happening to my kids quick to force a terrific and eventually what happens is they british decide after pearl harbor the brits decide to stop this crazy scheme and they give the men in the internment camps especially the jewish refugees you can get out if you join the military. Unfortunately when they decide theyd put them in public of the pioneer corps which is a hard labor core and they arent allowed to fight. They build bridges and supplies and stuff like that. They started agitating their Commanding Officers please put me in and eventually a different pioneer corps sent them to volunteer for dangerous and they wanted to fight. You mentioned his special command that he had. The idea behind it, churchill was an amalgamation of various individuals to tell us about the idea behind it and lets switch to the men mend themselves and what was the criteria for them joining and volunteering with skills they had at first lets talk top down. Whos was the extrooper and what was the motivating factor . The grandfather of extrooper created the commando and this idea that they would. This allied commander unit with the french true connect polish and danish troop. People were yearning to get back to the country and the fight the people are driven them out and they said we need a germanspeaking unit as well. If we have a german speaking unit they can do something remarkable. We can train them to capture the german commandos and trained them to interrogate them right in the battle like right now. Where the mines where the units and these guys would be the tip of this beer and they would know lets keep going we know what to do next. That was the decision was made and churchill think is just terrific. Its just an unknown factor. So was never the thought ever and written documentation. It was and what they were looking for. They were looking for german speakers but when they did the interviews it was important to find out why you are german want to fight the germans and what happened of course was all the people wanted to do this and i think 84 were jewish was because they were jewish and not because they were german. Its funny but originally the french units in the polish unit x troopers were called the british unit. The person in a ends up being in charge of their Commanding Office jones who is a wonderful welsh man realized that these guys are in the most danger they are caught. They would be killed as jews and kill this germans and their families would probably be rounded up at the gestapo. They were officially called the british unit but what they will really be as german but all of them are told as part of this unit you take on a new persona. Once they are selected they take five minutes to come up with a new name and is a back story about why they still have a german accent. The dog tags showed the regiment that they were currently attached to. They are all going to pretend to be the british unit of this commando but there are german speakers or a German Jewish refugees. The story is so remarkable. Its not only that they end up being so crucial to the allies in the war but all of them have to transform through and through. The new persona element caught me, not so much that they would need to but to create these new personas. I would look at my bookshelf and think of two random names off of the spines of the books and try to come up with one. I want to get into the training but on the new persona. We can go into the broader training of how they went to the commando but were they given explicit instructions should did not hold up if they were captured by the germans . Its interesting in order to write this book book i headed to declassify a lot of files in one of the files i had to declassify were about so the first group were in that encounter and thats a whole another story but what they were trying to do was give an enigma machine. In all the history books in the last 50 years they said you guys are probably killed in action. It turned out that they were captured and put into hard labor german war camps. And my five was completely freaking out. They would give away who they really were and this jewish Commando Unit that nobody knew about but they wouldnt. They kept it close to the chest and they never said who they were. And it was one of the worst camps imaginable. They did not speak of it. They had intelligence files on the men who were captured and what happened. As far as i know and i have no Historical Information that some of the maxi did this. As far as i can tell they actually did it. More importantly if there had been any family left they would have been killed too. Impressed that i got when i talk to somebody about this subject where they advised are provided with the tools to commit suicide like a cyanide capsule . I dont know that. I dont think that they were but i do know there were a handful of them i develop my research on the National Archive and thats the Broader Research and not the family research. From what i can tell there were a handful of them had disappeared without a trace. One of them went a hind enemy lines but i dont know. I dont know if they were captured and im not sure that nothing tells me they were given suicide pills. These guys were so unique because the war was so personal that they probably wouldnt have needed a suicide pill to some extent because they would never get this information out of them. Going back a little bit you mentioned just now that it was so personal. Was that the driving force that they wanted to strike back at the regime that was causing their family so much harm or was that young men wanting to do it young men do and not peer pressure that thats what everybody else was doing and the opportunity to get out of these awful conditions in the internment camps or what was the driving force to strike back . I think it was 80 or 90 strike back. These guys were such hard and im sorry to swear. Theres this one guy read about ian harris oh my god hes at the front of every battle. He said my tommy gun was my great love. They love to battle but they were clearly looking for men who were fearless and these guys are fearless. A number of them love to fight but Peter Masters and i quote in the book he says Something Like a cant believe i went from this artistic eye in vienna to accept the colt 45 blindfolded in one minute. For a number of them it was a trial to be able to be strong and fight and they felt like wow and my cable to do this . While the number of them were these guys who just loves fighting, for a handful it was really really hard. Peter masters was an artist and i have a lot of this beautiful paintings in the book but for him he wrote in autobiography called striking back. Some of them had an edge to them but for a lot of them it was a real psychological thing for them to overcome being shy and being worried. They had to be warriors and sacrifice themselves. But they all said theyd sacrifice themselves to beat the nazis. Also they wanted to show the world that they jews were not like the nazis. The nazis were evil monsters and jews viewed things differently and we were more ethical. I promise to do when ask any gotcha questions about specific numbers or anything but being commando is not just regular infantry. He said there were about 80 or so who were in x trooper. You come across how many may have volunteered . To d. C. A number of how many people answered this call . Once they got to the commando training. They are vetted by am i5 and this whole q a physical once they are finally selected as far as i know none of them dropped out. They were good to go. I heard from the son of one of them recently who was injured during a parachute drop. They trained for a year people shooting bullets at them the most intense training. As far as i could tell one person got out because of injury but everyone else was so determined to get through that they got through it. They were given the hardest most complete training imaginable. Which is why they were such effective warriors i think. They said fighters are made of confidence. They come off as these middleclass kids from loving families but we have a historical warrior. The vetting will come on the front in rather than the specialized training. Your book covers a number of areas and individual actions. What i wanted to do was focus on three of those areas. You party mentioned the but this is extroops first phase of battle. Most of our audience members know the disaster at but can you tell us what youve alluded to but a little bit about 1942. A lot of the historical stuff ive covered in this book the first group were sent for a very specific mission in mind. To go to german headquarters. At this point they need to find out because the germans are wiping out a british ship and they are trying to find out where the germans had been attacked. Ian fleming who goes on to write the james bond model says its they werent part of it they were part of the larger Commando Units but five of them were selected to and as we all know it was an absolute slaughter and one of the x troopers is killed. I found their personal files and actually lived through the war and one of them is severely injured and one goes on to be an x trooper. Its pretty overwhelming the documentation and the after action reports and what they said about it. They are sent there is his first adoration of the x troops. Not to give away the chapter but i found the language you used it they were in search of a respirator. Which was potentially code for an enigma machine. We have a three rotor and art gallery and a four rotor as little as i understand the three rotor i have no idea but i know it was much more danced and other critical juncture in the uboat war. So the reconnaissance and df which is a lovely place but you see the big clips to your west overlooking