Voices of the Past
A: So, during this time then did your sense of nation identity, did it change at all?
V: Well, ah, there was maybe when I was in seventh and eighth grades, and we studied European countries and things and talked about the war, people would, the teacher would ask you know, what’s your national heritage?
A: Mhm.
V: And you were ashamed to stand up and say you were German.
A: OK, yeah.
V: Used to bother me,
A: Yeah.
V: Because you didn’t want people to know because really I was but I wasn’t you know, I didn’t even know my grandparents. I never knew a grandparent or any of my relatives at that time.
A: Right.
V: See, my mother and my father were the only members of their family here.
A: Oh ok, right, so you felt as though you were American.
V: Oh yeah, totally, definitely.
A: But do you think other people probably because you were German, looked at you differently?
V: They could have, they could have, you know.
A: Right.
V: But my father was very careful during the war to he did have, now some of his friends who were, that kept the German and belonged to the mennor choir and different German activities that my father didn’t belong to,
A: Right,
V: But and stuff they were called down to Washington to appear before the German American activity, what was that called, subversive activities or something you know they were investigated by the FBI.
A: Right ok.
V: By these, you know uh to make sure they uh weren’t spies, you know they were looking for spies, people and my father, we didn’t really visit with them too much anymore. We used to get together on New Year’s. Father kinda stayed away from them because he didn’t want to be identified with the
A: Right, right.
V: Because we were never investigated or anything.
A: Oh, ok.
V: But, I think now this is later on. At one time my brother wanted to join the FBI or something and he was investigated and he didn’t go through because of his German -
A: Oh ok really?
V; Oh this is later on. This is not during the war time because he was only a kid then.
A: Right, right.
V: He was only a kid.
A: So do you know kinda the result of those people going to Washington, did they all come back?
V: Yeah, yeah, the all, they all came back and they were cleared.
A: Oh ok, right.
V: But they were watched.
A: Right, ok.
V: I don’t know how much but ah there were a group of people that ah
A: So then how, how did it kind of feel to have, I mean you never met them but to have relatives in Germany, that were kind of viewed as the enemy and then,
V: Yeah, ah I just I never knew them.
A: Right,
V: I never, they were only people that wrote letters and during the war they didn’t write letters,
A: Oh ok,
V: Because the letters had to be censored to, some of them too, I must have some of those.
A: Yeah, ok.
V: I think I do but ah you had to be very careful in what you wrote.
A: Right, right.
V: Because they were open and read, uh you know.
A: Hm, um. So, do you remember kind of how did school change like during the war?
V: Well, uh we had air raid drills, we had to get under our desks,
A: Yeah.
V: We had to get under our desks and uh uh we couldn’t take our senior trip to Washington D.C. because the buses could not get gas, uh.
A: Because it was rationed?
V: It was rationed. And it was not an essential trip. It was pleasure trip.
A: Oh, ok.
V: And uh when uh I was 10 uh 11 I was, my piano teacher uh had two daughters who I had met in this Episcopal church had a summer cottage up in Cannon, Connecticut and uh her father, the father, the piano teacher went from house to house to teach. And so he had gas and he got extra gas to take us up and back but the second year we went he couldn’t get the gas and we had to go by train so we had to go East Stamford, East, East Norwalk and change and go up to Cannon, and the station wagon from the camp met us and brought us to camp and we went back that way too.
