WEBVTT

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Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is

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Frank Kohn. Mister Cohn was born
in Germany and was forced to escape to

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the United States as the Nazis persecuted
Jews throughout the nation. Once he turned

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eighteen, mister Cohn was drafted into
the US Army. He was assigned to

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the eighty seventh Infantry Division, but
later served as an interrogator of German prisoners

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of war. And mister Cohn,
it's wonderful to see you again, sir.

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Thank you for your time today.
Thank you. Where were you born

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in Germany? I was born in
the city called Breslau, which doesn't exist

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anymore. After World War II,
it ended up being Polish and it's now

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called Ratslow. Now, at the
time you were born, your family was

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doing quite well, but it would
not be long before the anti Semitism became

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a big problem, even before the
rise of Hitler. Correct, that's right.

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We had an incident in the city
of Kemnitz where my uncle was accosted

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by some Nazi stormtroopers. When they
understood that he was Jewish, they killed

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him, and that was talked about
among the adults, not to me,

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but as a kid, you overhear
what's going on and you form your own

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opinions. And I knew right away
at that point, and I was about

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six years old, that Nazis were
our enemy. Hitler officially rose to power

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in nineteen thirty three. How quickly
did things get much worse? Well,

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it was bad right from the beginning
because our store, we had a sporting

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good store, and the Nazi stormtroopers
were demonstrating in front of the store with

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signs saying that the Jews our disaster
and don't buy from Jews. And my

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father understood right away that this was
going to be a losing proposition, and

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he sold the store immediately, and
from then on, our economic means took

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a slow dive downwards. And even
as a young boy, you saw this.

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In fact, one of your favorite
teachers really kind of broke your heart,

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right absolutely. I started the first
grade in nineteen thirty two or so,

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and I don't remember my first grade
teacher. He was old, he

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was about fifty years old. Anyway, my second grade teacher was a young

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energetic fellow by mister Schubert. Harris
Schubert was his name, And when I

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understood that he was coming back in
the third grade to us. I was

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all excited because I really loved that
teacher. But when he entered, he

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came in full Nazi uniform, and
my heart just sank to the floor because

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I thought my friend, and all
of a sudden he was no longer my

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friend. And then the other kids, they came into school with Hitler Youth

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paraphernalia, wearing belts or shirts or
whatever that identified him as a member of

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the Hitler Youth, and they all
stood up and sang the Hitler songs,

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and I was instructed to stay seated. And of course, the kid who

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stay seated while everybody else stands is
never going to be a popular fella in

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that class, and I was sort
of outcast. You have also shared a

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story that you never even told your
parents about how your babysitter took you to

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see Hitler. Well, she was
actually our sleeping maid. As a family

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of medium Goods and such, we
used to have our maids sleep in the

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apartment that we were living in and
be in a sense was my second mother.

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She had me in tow most of
the time while my parents did other

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things. They were working delivering various
bales of cloths to tailors and other people

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who needed cloth. Anyway, Beta
had me in tow and when she heard

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Thatitler was coming to Breslau, she
said she absolutely had to see him,

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and she of course took me along
with her and instructed me that when Hitler

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came, I was to give the
Hitler salute. And I said, I'm

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not allowed to. Hi, I'm
Jewish, I'm not allowed to give a

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Hitler salute. She said, you
just do exactly what I tell you to

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do. And I was scared that
some of the kids who had been in

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the German public school by now I
had been transferred to a Jewish private school.

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But I was scared that one of
the kids in the public school might

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see me and turn me in.
But it was lucky that nobody did,

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because when Hitler came and is convertible, we were right there in the front,

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and I did exactly what I was
told. I made the Hitler salute.

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Made Berta. She went wild,
yelling Zee Kyle zek Kyles, Ze

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Kyle Victory Hale. And I couldn't
understand why she was so ensused at somebody

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who was actually my enemy. And
this in a sense made it easier when

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a few months later, in nineteen
thirty five, the Nurnberg laws required us

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to discharge the maid because Arians were
not allowed to work for Jews anymore,

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so she had to leave. And
because of that incident, my heart wasn't

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completely broken, although I still had
yearned for Berta to stay, but that

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was an impossibility, and that was
the last we saw Berta. What do

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you remember seeing about Hitler as he
drove by? Oh, I really didn't

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pay that much attention to Hitler.
I was too scared that somebody might see

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me as I was rendering the Hitler
salute. But the people around me were

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going wild. All of them,
just like Bartler, were yelling zeke heile,

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zeke heile. And you could see
the enthusiasm among that population. They

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just loved him and whatever he was
doing. I was fine, and me,

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I was just scared, and I
did what I had been told,

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and I withdrew my hand as soon
as I could and waited for us to

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leave the scene. And I was
still shaking when we started go home.

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What finally convinced your father that there
was no future for him and the rest

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of the family in Germany? Well, he lost all the customers because all

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he was allowed to sell to Jews, and Jews were leaving right and left

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or abandoning their business because there wasn't
that much business because Arians weren't allowed to

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buy from Jews either, so as
he was losing his way of income.

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I had my bar mitzvah when I
was thirteen, and I had all kinds

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of presents, and I got a
BMW bicycle. And then he went right

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after that occasion, he pulled me
aside and he said that he's going to

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go overseas to see if he can
find his distant relatives who were in the

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States. As a matter of fact, he first took me to his birthplace

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in a very small town called Vrounke, which was in Paul, but it

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was the same as Breslau. Before
the First World War he lived in Varonke,

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which was German, and as the
First World War finished, he had

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to leave because it became Polish.
So we visited the people who were still

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in Poland. These were all Jewish
friends of the family that had lived there

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before and they had stayed in Poland, and I was introduced to them,

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and all these people, just about
all of them perished in the Holocaust because

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when the Germans moved into Poland,
they immediately placed all the Jews into Halleck,

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into concentration camps, and eventually they
were killed. Well, anyway,

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my father decided to go overseas on
a visitors visa, and that meant he

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could only take one suitcase and ten
marks, and with that he took off

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for the United States. And he
was at the mercy of the Jewish relief

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organizations because the ten marks aren't going
to take him very far. They're worth

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less than ten dollars. Well,
anyway, he found his relatives. Because

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of the problems, the economic problems
in the States, they were in a

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recession, these relatives were not able
to give him an affidavit. Now,

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an affidavit is needed for immigration to
the United States, and it also signifies

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that the person who receives the affidavit
will never become a burden to the government,

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which means that the person who issues
it has to have an enough money

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to support the people that he's giving
the fi David too, that's Frank Cohne,

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a US Army veteran who was born
in Germany, fled to the US

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as his Jewish family was persecuted by
the Nazis, joined the military, and

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ended up interrogating German prisoners of war. Still to come. In this first

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installment of mister Cohn's story, we'll
learn how getting permission to come into the

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US was easier said than done.
Mister Cohn also tells us about the challenges

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of getting out of Germany without telling
anyone, trying to adjust to life in

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the United States, and then finding
his new country at war with his homeland.

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That and much more is still ahead. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is

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Veterans Chronicles sixty Seconds of Service.
This sixty Seconds of Service is presented by

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T Mobile. T Mobile offers exclusive
discounts for a veteran and military families and

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are proud supporters of the National Defense
Network. Visit t mobile dot com slash

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military learn more about how they support
our military community. Roger Jensen has a

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heart for helping others. For decades, He's been giving back to veterans and

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his community in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I think anytime someone steps up to

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help anyone at all, it makes
them feel better. Also, Jensen said,

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it's something Jensen has built his life
around since serving in the Marine Corps.

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He said he was just seventeen years
old when he got to Vietnam,

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where he spent most of his three
year tour. He said he struggled for

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years after coming back, and eventually
he found solace in a church where he

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helped local youth. That's where he
learned giving back to others also helped him

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and his recovery from PTSD. Today's
sixty seconds of Service is brought to you

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by Previgen. Prevagen is the number
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can find Prevagen in the vitamin aisle
in stores everywhere. This is Veterans Chronicles.

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I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is Frank Cohne, a

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US Army veteran of thirty five years. We now continue his story of how

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Cohne and his mother made it to
the US and how they got out of

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their town just in time. But
we pick up now with Cohan still discussing

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the criteria for the US government allowing
people to enter under the promise that people

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already here would vouch for them and
make sure the newcomers would not be a

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burden on society. Seemed simple enough, but it wasn't well. They were

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unable to do that, and although
it seemed like a catastrophe to my father,

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it was a blessing in disguise because
he had to stay longer to see

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if he could find somebody else who
might give him an effort Avid And in

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the meantime, while he was doing
that, the Gestapo. Two Gestapo agents

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came to our door and my mother
told him that my father was overseas on

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a business trip, and she was
instructed that the minute he returns, he

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has to report to Gestapo headquarters.
Well, that order really raised concerns both

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in the brain of my mother and
the brain of me as well, because

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I understood what it was to report
to Gestapo headquarters. We had a business

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acquaintance by the name of Michaelis who
had received orders to report to Gestapo headquarters,

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and a few hours later they found
him dead on his sidewalk. He

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had either been pushed or jumped out
of a third store window. And my

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mother immediately wrote my father to stay
where he is because he was facing your

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rest if he came back, and
that also motivated your mother to leave as

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well. Well. There was another
incident that came well more than one.

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Two days after the Gestapo came to
our door, a British came to our

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door with an official document that we
had to provide her with a bedroom and

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kitchen privileges in our apartment. Well, my mother pulled me aside and said,

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this is a informant for the Gestapo, So whatever we speak of importance,

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we have to do that outside of
our apartment, because she would report

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anything that she finds out to the
Gestapo. And secondly, the passports of

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Jews were confiscated to be stamped with
a big J on the front cover,

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and well we didn't know that as
to what the reason was, but the

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reason was it was at the behest
of the Swiss government because they wanted to

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know if the people who were coming
across were actual visitors or if they were

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Jews who were looking to escape from
Germany, so they could turn them back

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right at the border. And my
mother thought that the next step would be

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the confiscation of the passports. So
she went to the American consulate and she

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got herself a visitor's visa, just
like my father, and completely out of

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character, she went the next day
to put to bribe somebody in the consulate

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to put my name on that visa
as well, and that is how she

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was now in a posture to leave
Germany. What's it like to pack up

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your whole life into one suitcase after
that and leave everything you've known? Well,

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my biggest problem was I couldn't put
that BMW bicycle into my suitcase.

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And I even had a stamp collection
and I couldn't take that long as well.

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So the suitcase was was just the
normal clothes and toilet articles and whatnot.

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So it wasn't in any enthusiasm for
me. That suitcase was just the

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necessities. And oh, I had
one more soccer game to play when my

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mother told me we were leaving the
next day, and I was distracted,

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and I helped them lose the game. And besides that it had to be

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all Jewish team, of course,
and we could only play Jewish other teams.

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But anyway, I helped them lose
the game, and at the end,

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I said, well, see you
next time, but I knew,

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of course, there wasn't going to
be next time. And I never found

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out whatever happened to all my soccer
friends, and I never heard or saw

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found out anything about them anymore,
and most of them probably perished in the

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Holocaust, because if they hadn't taken
some steps at that point, it was

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pretty late in the game nineteen thirty
eight. If they didn't take any steps

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to get out of Germany, they
probably perished in the Holocaust. For example,

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I found out that the last Jews
in Breslau were taken to a camp

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rather to a field in Poland on
one week before Pearl Harbor, and they

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were shot dead in that field.
So that was the end of all the

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Jews in Breslau. Had we passed
up the ability to get out, that

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is what would have happened to us. That's Frank Cohne, born in Germany

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but forced to flee to the US
as a boy because of Nazi persecution.

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Still to come in this edition,
we'll hear about Cohne's arrival in the US

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and how the US would soon be
at war with Germany. But up next

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we continue our discussion about Cohne and
his mother escaping from Germany. That's next.

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I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans'
Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles.

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I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest this
week is Frank Cohne. A US Army

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veteran born into a Jewish family in
Germany that was persecuted by the Nazis.

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His family fled after christall Knacht in
nineteen thirty eight, and as you just

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heard, there was a massive slaughter
of Jewish residents in his town very shortly

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after they left. Still to come, we'll hear all about Cohne's arrival in

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the US, his efforts to assimilate, and the outbreak of war between the

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US and Germany. But first we
wrap up his escape from Germany, as

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Cone explains, how they left everything
behind and could not tell a soul.

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I didn't tell anybody. My mother
had instructed me keep my mouth shut,

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and for the change in things,
I really did keep my mouth shut.

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What were the most stressful moments on
your way out of Germany and onto the

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US. Well, I really didn't
know any stressful moments because my mother didn't

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tell me. She had made arrangements
ahead of time, and we could make

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all kinds of arrangements ahead of time
because we can only carry one suitcase in

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ten marks, and she had booked
us on a first class passage on the

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Holland American Line, the steamer Stattendom, and we had two weeks of first

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class hotel reservations in New York.
All that was done in advance, and

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I well, when we took off, we snuck out of the apartment at

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five in the morning, so that
missus Griffiths British spy, if you might

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call her, that I wouldn't hear
us. By the way, she gave

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me two English lessons, and I
didn't realize they were going to be as

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valuable as they turned out to be. But any event, we got on

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a train to Berlin, where she
said goodbye to her father, who ended

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up in a concentration camp, which
of course she didn't know, but he

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was killed in the camp, and
her older sister greater with her family they

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escaped. They had made arrangements already
because their sons were already in Australia,

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and then she came along with the
younger two children and escaped to Australia.

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But Australia was so far so my
mother never saw her again either. But

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in any event, I had a
wonderful trip, first class passage on the

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boat. We eventually had gotten to
Rotterdam to get on a boat, and

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I enjoyed my trip immensely. I
I almost was a ping pong champion,

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but some man beat me before the
end of the trip. Anyway, my

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mother had a horrible time on that
trip because she worried about what would happen

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when we get to Ellis Island,
because if they find out in Alice Island

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that my father was already in country, that would mean we were refugees and

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we could be placed on the next
boat back to Germany, never even meet

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my father. Well. I also
was very excited to see the port of

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New York because my gym teacher had
told me about watching for the skyscrapers and

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the Statue of Liberty. He explained
what the meaning of the statue was,

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and I was excited, and I
was up in front there watching us get

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into New York Harbor. I saw
the skyscrapers, I saw the Statue of

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Libery, and I was thrilled.
And right then and there, an announcement

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came over the speaker system that said
all first class passengers are invited to go

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through customs and immediately onto the dock, which meant we didn't have to go

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to Alis Island. Everybody else had
to go to Alice island, but money

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talks and first class passengers were invited
to avoid it, and my mother was

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greatly relieved, and of course we
had a happy reunion with my father.

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But there was still one problem because
he was at the mercy of the relief

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organizations and they told him that the
minute he had an affidavit, their support

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would stop and we would have to
return to Germany to wait immigration. Well,

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that was a real problem because we
didn't know what would happen to that

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apartment when we came back with Missus
Griffith in there, we had our hotel

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reservations, we moved into the hotel
and we had entered the United States on

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the thirtieth of October nineteen thirty eight. On the ninth of November, just

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ten days later, it was Crystal
Night. And now Crystal Knight was a

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progrome against the Jews that had been
a planned ahead of time, and they

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were just waiting for an incident to
implement this plan. And the incident was

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some Polish Jewish kid had shot a
member of the German embassy in Paris,

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and with that they implement the plan. They smashed all the windows of any

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stores that were still in Jewish hands. They burned all the synagogues, and

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they arrested every mail that Jewish mail
that they could get their hands on,

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and then they levied a big fine
on the Jewish congregation to pay for all

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the damage that they had caused from
the Nazi side. Well, anyway,

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we were in the States. We
were happily saved in that respect. It

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was even more of a savior as
you might think, because while all this

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was a terrible thing and hit the
newspapers all over the world, including in

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New York, of course, and
we were very concerned about our relatives,

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and we had no news from them
at all. But President Roosevelt issued an

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executive order that indicated that anyone in
country would not ever be forced to return

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to Germany. And this, of
course saved us because our visas are now

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extended indefinitely. How quickly did you
assimilate to the United States. Well,

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it was a little bit difficult,
with just two lessons of English that didn't

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go very far. And I had
been in the seventh grade in Germany,

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and I ended up in the seventh
grade in the States, and I was

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placed in a rapid class because my
mother told him that I was a good

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student, and I was way ahead
in mathematics and geography and things like that,

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but of course I was way behind
in English. And that was a

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dramatically demonstrated to me the first day
that I was in class. The teacher

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didn't recogn eyes my liability in English, and she turned to me and said,

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Frank, take that waste paper basket
and collect the trash. I had

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no idea what she was talking about, but she had looked at the window

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and she's and I thought, Aha, she wants me to open the window.

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So I went to the window and
opened it. Of course, everybody

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in class started to laugh, and
I certainly didn't like to be laughed at,

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and that gave me an incentive to
get English into my head as quickly

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as possible. The teachers were helpful. They gave me magazines with pictures and

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annotated what each item in the picture
had the English title for. And then

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I listened to the radio. But
the radio was difficult because I couldn't understand

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what the story was all about.
But I got the intonation and that helped

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me get away from the German accent, which I really didn't want to acquire.

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I already knew about these accents,
and I also understood that that to

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me sounded terrible. So the radio
helped in that respect, but what really

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helped was the movies. And the
movies and now they were ten cents,

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which was a lot of money for
us at that point because we were at

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a very limited budget from the Jewish
relief organizations. Anyway, there was a

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distant uncle who took me along to
the movies and had paid for it.

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And then a lucky thing happened.
Somebody had connections and married me up with

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Time magazine, and Time magazine wanted
to have a will. They had a

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newsreel which was given in front of
every movie, and in that newsreel they

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00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:12.359
wanted to have one about Germany and
the discrimination in Germany against the Jews.

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00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:21.200
And I was hired to participate in
that. And they had a blackboard which

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00:29:21.240 --> 00:29:32.839
had writing on it and crayon saying
Jews or disaster and don't associate with Jews.

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00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:37.319
And there were two kids next to
that black board with their heads hung

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down, and I was one of
those kids, and I got one hundred

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dollars for about ten minutes of work. Obviously, they wanted to help the

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refugee kid and that one hundred dollars
that paid for a lot of ten cents

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00:29:55.359 --> 00:30:02.000
movies, and so I was able
to pay for all my movie visits later

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00:30:02.079 --> 00:30:07.480
on, and that certainly helped me
learn English. Now in junior high school,

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I had a lot of trouble in
the beginning, but towards the end,

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in the ninth grade, I started
to be able to associate with the

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kids. Because I was an outcast, I couldn't communicate well with me,

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so I wasn't particularly a desired kid
to be friends with. But what changed

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was in the ninth grade a little
Irish girl with the red hair and freckles

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by the name of Mary Cavanough.
I still remember she came up to me

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and said, Frank, can you
help me with this mass problem? And

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I was thrilled to death that somebody
asked me to help them, And of

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course I did, but I was
much too shy to explore that any further.

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The I never asco for a date
or anything like that, but I

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00:31:03.359 --> 00:31:10.440
was just in heaven that she even
asked me anyway. That showed that I

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started to get over the roadblock with
the English. When I hit high school,

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I even passed a test for Stuyvesant
High School, and I went into

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Stuyvesant and I was well accepted by
the rest of the kids. I was

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no longer a complete outcast. Now, when you were sixteen years old,

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Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and within a
few days we're also at war with Germany,

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even though you were only sixteen at
the time, did you think you'd

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be going to war within a few
years. I was outside my apartment when

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somebody came running by and says,
the Jebs just bombed Pearl Harbor, and

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nobody knew what Pearl Harbor was.
And then we finally found out and the

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war started. And in a sense, I was pretty happy about being in

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the war because I knew England had
a lot of trouble, but now that

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the United States was in there,
Germany was going to get beaten. I

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00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:16.200
knew that right from the start.
But I also knew this wasn't going to

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affect me because I was only sixteen
years old. Well, it didn't take

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too long when it started to get
into my brain that oh ho ho,

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this thing is not going to be
a quick one, and this might as

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00:32:31.559 --> 00:32:38.960
well get me into it if it
lasts two years. And of course the

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00:32:39.039 --> 00:32:46.359
time went on and I was able
to volunteer as an air raid warden messenger.

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00:32:46.880 --> 00:32:51.759
I was too young to be an
air raid warden, but I was

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00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:57.119
thrilled to volunteer because I wanted to
help the war effort any which way I

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00:32:57.160 --> 00:33:05.319
could. And I did very well
because I stopped off at a street blockwarden,

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00:33:05.759 --> 00:33:08.319
and then I went to the sector
and then I went up to the

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00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:15.599
zone in the police headquarters. So
I got promoted as a messenger. I

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00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:21.880
did a good job anyway, as
soon as I became eighteen. I was

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00:33:21.960 --> 00:33:27.279
eighteen in August, and I had
taken one course, a summer course in

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00:33:27.400 --> 00:33:32.400
college, and in September I was
drafted. It didn't take long, but

340
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:38.400
I did finish my course, which
in a sense was a disaster because I

341
00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:44.279
was distracted. I thought I could
coast along, just like I did in

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00:33:44.599 --> 00:33:51.720
high school. I was very good
in high school, and I took three

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00:33:51.799 --> 00:33:54.519
courses. First of all, I
didn't know what to do with myself.

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After I grew up and all my
friends were engineers, I said, I'll

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00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:08.760
be an engineer. I took ROTC
and I took myth and I took physics.

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00:34:09.480 --> 00:34:14.519
I got a D in meth and
an f in physics. And when

347
00:34:14.519 --> 00:34:17.719
I returned from the war, I
was on probation, but I was no

348
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:27.320
longer an engineer. I switched my
degrees to psychology and education, so that

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00:34:27.480 --> 00:34:34.079
didn't I was on probation, but
I got out of that immediately anyway,

350
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I was drafted. That's Frank Cone, a US Army veteran who served for

351
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:43.800
thirty five years in uniform during World
War Two. He interrogated German prisoners of

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00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:46.880
war. In the second half of
our interview with mister Cohn, we'll hear

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00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:52.079
all about his time in the Army, why his deployment got delayed, how

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00:34:52.119 --> 00:34:57.159
he ended up interrogating German POWs,
and his work to this day telling the

355
00:34:57.199 --> 00:35:01.400
truth about the Holocaust. Please join
us for that. I'm Greg Corumbus and

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00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:16.559
this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi,
this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for

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00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:22.960
listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation
of the American Veterans Center. For more

358
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:29.000
information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot
org. You can also follow the American

359
00:35:29.039 --> 00:35:35.079
Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're at AVC update. Subscribe to

360
00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:39.639
the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for
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361
00:35:39.719 --> 00:35:45.960
of course please subscribe to the Veterans
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362
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:50.719
Thanks again for listening, and please
join us next time for Veterans Chronicles