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ontectnetonancedjusetneey for tarher biormatoerabouttfisestecion

HARRY EBERT

October 16, 2010

Q: This is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Harry Ebert, conducted by Annie Erling on the 16" of October, 2010, at the Kindertransport Association Conference in Arlington, Virginia. Why don't we start with the basics, such as your name, your birthdate and where you were born.

A: Okay, name is Harry Ebert, as you had mentioned, and I was born in Heidelberg, Germany, and June 25", "25.

Q: Is -- was Harry your name at birth?

A: No.

Q: What was it?

A: It was Heinz.

Q: Okay.

A: And I went primarily by my middle name, by Wolfgang.

Q: Oh, okay. What -- what was it like growing up in Heidelberg? What were your -- what was your family like, your childhood?

A: Well, I sta -- lived in Heidelberg about six months. Then my f-father joined his father's law firm in Mannheim and we moved there, and until "33, things were very normal. Good middle class, did a lot of things; went skiing with my father, learned how -- learned how to swim at the age of six, and in -- it's interesting, in a s- http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert : October 16, 2010 swimming pool, a s -- pool that was donated to the city of Mannheim by a Jewish philos -- philanthropist. But then there were, later on, no Jews allowed.

Q: Yeah.

A: But it was reasonably just damaged during World War IL, but it was usable, so about four years ago, I -- I went -- I went oversea, I went -- I went swimming there again.

Q: That's wonderful. "m gonna move your -- perfect, okay.

A: Okay.

Q: Okay. Okay, so did you have any siblings?

A: Yeah. I got two sisters that are twins, and they're both living in the States now.

Q: What are their names?

A: Pardon me?

Q: What are their names?

A: One is Lisa Greenfield, and the other one is Ursula Holloway(ph).

Q: Older or younger?

A: Younger.

Q: And what did --

A: But they're the same age, they're twins.

Q: Oh, perfect. You said your father, was he -- what did he do? What was your father's profession?

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A: He was an attorney.

Q: Oh.

A: Yeah, he had a Doctor of Jurisprudence from heidel -- from Freiburg. And his father -- his father had a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Heidelberg, so it was in the family.

Q: What are your earliest childhood memories?

A: That I didn't want to eat the spinach. I don't know, I can't think of --

Q: That's funny.

A: Well, it was, my mother was great at us taking walks and hikes, and we used to go -- when -- Mannheim is located about half an hour's by train or car from Heidelberg, we used to go to the Heidelberg area, and went hiking into the mountains. And in winter I went there skiing with my father. So --

Q: So, you attended school?

A: Yes.

Q: Was it a Jewish school, or --

A: No- well, yes and no.

Q: There were both Jewish and non-Jewish students?

A: Well, I attended so many schools you got to -- if you -- if you le --

Q: I saw that -- 11 --

A: What?

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Q: 11 schools.

A: Yeah.

Q: So, what about the first -- the first schools that you went to?

A: Was a-- was a normal public school in Germany. In fact, interesting, I met a guy upstairs yesterday who went to the same school the same year. We started here the same year, or he started one year later.

Q: Did you remember each other, did you recognize him?

A: No, no. But we just recognized the town, and we found out we had some common friends.

Q: Oh. So did your family practice their religion at all?

A: No, no, not at all.

Q: Did you have re -- in your childhood, did you have both Jewish and non-Jewish friends?

A: Yes.

Q: So, did you ever experience anti-Semitism growing up?

A: Yeah. Yeah, this was -- as I di--I stayed in Germany, let's see, there were four, yeah, four grades of -- of public school, grammar school. And then I went for two years to German high school. And then there were restrictions and getting to -- and then my parents were in a position to send me to private boarding schools in Italy; one on the Riviera, near Portofino, apart -- over that area. And the second one was http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010 near Merano, in the Dolomites, in the mountain areas. So nice. Stayed there from about April "37, til--I can give you the exact date, September thirt -- 30", 1938.

That's it. September has 30 days or 31?

Q: I don't remember.

A: No, August has 31, September has 30, September 30. And then I went by train ba -- the school had to close. Somehow thar -- Mussolini got -- close it together -- and I took the train from northern Italy, over the Brenner Pass into Munich and back into Mannheim, where my parents were living. And that was -- on the train I found every town, every station had a lot flags out. Why? Because they saw me going -- no, there was somebody else who took the same train ride, the same day.

[indecipherable] You're not a history major, are you?

Q: Lam. I'm going to let you answer this. Who was it?

A: Well, check the dates. September 30".

Q: Mm-hm. Was it Hitler?

A: Iwas going to Munich.

Q: Yeah.

A: What happened on October first in Munich?

Q: Hitler was doing something.

A: The Munich Conference.

Q: Oh, okay.

ontectnetonancedjusetneey for tarher biormatoerabouttfisestecion Interview with Harry Ebert deg October 16, 2010

A: That's the one where Chamberlain was fooled by Hitler, that he's for peace.

Q: Oh, mm-hm.

A: That's when Daladier was there from France, Chamberlain from England, Mussolini and Hitler. And they met, and that was, as far as I'm concerned, the start, the prelude to World War II, because that's when the -- the British and the French said Hitler could annex Sudetenland, which is the ethnically German part of Czechoslovakia, which is the one that -- and then a couple -- not too long afterwards, Hitler annexed all of Czechoslovakia, and renamed it Birman(ph), which is the classy German name for that part of the country.

Q: How -- I'm going to back up just a little about that.

A: Yeah.

Q: How old were you when you first went to school in Italy?

A: Let's see, I went -- I was not yet 12. Was born in 30 -- I was born in "25, so -- in June, and that was in April, "37, so I was -- I was nearly 12 years old, not quite.

Q: Well, was it -- was it -- di-did your sisters go with you as well?

A: No.

Q: Was it difficult to leave -- leave your family? Were you --

A: No, at that time it was -- it was lot of good discipline. Before -- when you went to the dining hall, they checked your fingernails, so make sure they're clean. They had somebody -- some teacher there [indecipherable]. And that was a very interesting http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert deg October 16, 2010 life, we experienced people from all over the world. They were not only Germans, they were also loyalists from Spain who were fleeing after the Spanish -- during the Spanish Civil War, which was going on at that time. And the school was very good, not too many students there. The student to t-teacher ratio -- ratio was good, and we got a lot of personal attention, and a lot of sports. We didn't have that much contact with the Italians, except we played soccer against them. But then, I went swimming, I even -- that's the first time I did diving. There was har -- hard hat diving, which is hardly done any more. But in the bay, catching squids and stuff like that.

Q: What language were -- what language did you speak when you were at school in Italy? Was it German?

A: There were different things. The primary language was German [indecipherable] but everybody had to take Italian, and I was reasonably fluent, and later on I went for a while to a German -- to Italian public high school. And I had troubles with it, which I wasn't that good. Then my first language before I went to Italy was French. And my mother was a expert in -- in the French language. In fact, she used to tutor PhD students in the States, who were preparing for their language exam. You know, they had to pass a language exam if they took the thing. And the th -- interesting thing is, the school will send you right home twice a week, one postcard and one letter. And my mother insisted that the postcard be written in French. So it's -- and then at dinner, you were assigned to sit on different tables, and at different tables, there was http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010 only a certain language spoken. So if you went this week to the French table, that's -- that was it.

Q: The language you spoke.

A: Yeah.

Q: So, did you -- was it a positive experience?

A: Yes. Oh well, tha -- I mean, this is -- they were great in doing things like, we were harv -- harvesting the seeds from luk -- eucalyptus trees, and then we learned how to distill and make eucalyptus oil from it. And we were -- we -- not only academically, also had to work, we -- in the garden, we were harvesting figs and oranges and lemons and --

Q: So-

A: My favorite thing was harvesting figs, because I liked them. Fresh ones.

Q: Why did you leave?

A: Pardon me?

Q: What was the situation, why did you have to leave Italy?

A: That school?

Q: Mm-hm.

A: Well, it was -- these schools closed. First the school at the Mediterranean closed.

I don't know what the reason is they closed, I don't -- but then they moved some of the kids into a neighboring town, and a few of the teachers created their own http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010 boarding school. But we were actually staying in a pensionne. And what -- they had lessons, and we were located next to the Mediterranean, we could go -- the first kids to go swimming, and see the fisherman coming in, and see them eat little fish, bian -- biachettis. They eat them all live. And -- well, you also can cook them, but when you cook them, the fish turns white, except the eyes, and the tail stays silver.

And for beginners, you eat that with tomato sauce, but it tastes better with lemon.

But then you see the eyes as you're putting it in your mouth.

Q: That sounds gross.

A: Well, "ve eaten -- many years later I've eaten something that was even more difficult to eat, and that was called balut. I ate that in the Philippines. That is the egg of a duck, soft boiled, about four days before the egg is hatched. And you eat everything except the beak, you use that to cl -- to clean your teeth.

Q: Gross.

A: And when I was in the Philippines and working there, when -- and we went out one evening -- I mean, I'm going way back --

Q: That's okay.

A: -- way in [indecipherable] we went out with a couple of the other engineers, we went to places, and they -- the last thing on the evening, they saved for me, is a balut.

Q: Were you surprised? Did you know what it was?

ontactrefiranneGaushariarg a hither atrmedortabeattfiexaliaton Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010

A: No, I didn't know what it was. I think I heard about it lately, but I had a lot of beers with it, and just swallowed. But in the next day, when I went back to the plant, it's like having passed the initiation test. I was not -- not just a gringo, or whatever they call them there. I was initiated --

Q: Right.

A: --in their food, and I got better response from the workers.

Q: Good.

A: They all knew about it.

Q: So, when you left Italy in "38 --

A: Yeah.

Q: It was Sep-September first, you said?

A: No, September 30".

Q: 30". When --

A: The conference was October first.

Q: Oh, okay.

A: The Munich Conference.

Q: Where did you go from there?

A: Well, I went for a short time back to Mannheim, and then I went to a Jewish boarding school in Germany, in Halingen. That's near Ulm. And that was probably the biggest Jewish boarding school that was still remaining in Germany. And that http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert 8 October 16, 2010 was closed, but [indecipherable] very long, except I think they tortured us there, but that's the teachers. Because every morning, before anything else, we had to run for about half an hour through the woods, hilly and through the woods. There was a command, wald lauf, which means wood -- running through the wood. And none of the guys, and there were -- they always were may -- everybody who went there remembered, that was the worst command that was given there. But then when that school closed after Kristallnacht -- we did not experience anything at Kristallnacht, at that school, but it was closed afterwards. And the different buildings were sold to various people. And the person who bought the boys" dormitory was Field Marshal Rommel. So I lived -- I lived in -- slept in Rommel's house before he did.

Q: My goodness. So, after the school closed, where did you go to then?

A: Well, I went for a short time back to Mannheim, there was a Jewish school there, and I went there for a couple of weeks, and then I went to Kindertransport.

Q: So, where were your sisters during this time?

A: Friend of our -- that friends of ours took my sisters to Holland, couple days after the Kristallnacht.

Q: Okay.

A: And they put them into private families, and they were treated very well. The first one was manufacturers of a cheese -- of a cheese man -- at a cheese factory in a town called Budehaven(ph), which is in the -- one of the bra-branches of the Rhine, Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010

before it gets into the North Sea. And -- but then they couldn't stay there very long because it's -- the wife got very ill and they couldn't -- they couldn't do it any more.

And then they went to another family, where the father was a diamond merchant.

They lived in a tremendously big house, and they sent their kids, including m-my sisters to the best school in Holland, which is the same school that the present queen attended. Not at the same time. She's younger. But it's the kind of a reputation of the -- that time current princess was s-scheduled to go to that school and it's probably -- it's probably wa -- the best high sc -- high school or something like this in Holland.

Because of that it got that royal ey -- interjection.

Q: Right. So when you went from the boarding school in Germany, back home, was -- did your parents discuss with you that you were going to be leaving on the Kindertransport? Like did you know --

A: Yeah, when we became available, it was [indecipherable] short notice. It didn't --I think it was in about January deg39, or something like that. No, and then my father was arrested and until then he could practice because he was a wounded veteran of World War I. And then he was put in Dachau for a while. And then he was later released because he was able to get sponsorship by -- by the Bishop of Litchfield in England. A funny thing, on one of our trips, when my parents were visiting me up in Italy, there was a lady staying in the same hotel as my parents were staying, and they became friendly, and she was a secretary to the b -- to the Bishop of Litchfield, ontectnetonancedjusetneey for tarher biormatoerabouttfisestecion Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010 and somehow my mother contacted her and -- which they could do and so there was a way, people -- some adults could go there, and he spent time til -- he probably went there in January or February deg39, and he stayed there til April "40.

Q: Okay. So, how long was he in Dachau?

A: I don't know, about three or four weeks?

Q: Okay. So, when he came back, you -- were you in Mannheim? Or were you still at the school and --

A: No, I was -- I was in Holland already.

Q: Oh, okay. So what -- what kind of things did you have to do to prepare to leave?

Like what kind of things did you pack, do you remember?

A: No, it's no different than going to a boarding school.

Q: Right, I guess, yeah.

A: I mean, I had my experience, having been in four boarding schools; three -- three in Italy, and one in Germany, and so I --I pretty well knew what was needed.

Q: So you -- did you feel -- do you recall leaving your family? Was it different than the other times you had left for boarding schools?

A: No. So this was in the system.

Q: Yeah. You took a train there, to Holland?

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert 6 October 16, 2010

A: Yeah. We first -- they took it from Mannheim, then they had us stay overnight, either in Frankfurt, or in Cologne, I forgot. And they collected people from other locations, and they put them on a common train and took us into Rotterdam.

Q: Where did you go from Rotterdam?

A: Well, we first of all, I had -- at Rotterdam we stayed for a while in the quarantine station. That happened to -- every port at that time had a quarantine station. And -- cause they didn't know whether the sailors came back with tropical illnesses or stuff like that. But there was a facility, was guarded by Dutch military. We could not leave, but we could have visitors. For instance, my sisters and theirs -- and their foster parents, that cheese manufacturer, they came and visited me there. But we stayed in big barracks. There wasn't much to do, but then a short time afterwards, I was able to go do what is mispronounced in the States as gouda, what should be pronounced howda(ph). And there we were in a -- in an old orphanage, and in that orphanage we also had quite a few refugee teachers. And since the academic training some of the kids had, was quite different between them. And if you were, let's say at -- some more advanced training in languages and literature and math or science, and you had the math teacher there, and you knew you were interested in that, he really spent a lot of time. But I must give credit for being able to graduate from a U.S. high school on the week of my 16" birthday, after having been in the country about 14 months.

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Q: That's pretty impressive.

A: And I still had language problems with it, but --

Q: What language did you speak when you were in Holland?

A: I think -- well, among the kids where we were staying, there was primarily German, and the teachers, these were all German speaking teachers.

[indecipherable] it's a mass instruction, only you had literature, you had German literature. Maybe a little -- little English, or I don't know, we spo -- we learned some Dutch, we had some Dutch people coming in and --

Q: But you lived primarily with other German children?

A: Yeah.

Q: Okay. How long were you in Holland?

A: Well, from about January deg39 til April "40. And I was in -- after about -- I was for a short time in Amsterdam, which was also a quarantine station, it was a holding place. And they did a few things -- for instance, I learned glass blowing there. But very primitive, I mean, the very beginnings of it. But they kept -- they had some vocational instructors. And then I went to Wieringen. Now that is a important place.

It is what used to be known as an aliyah ca -- preparation camp. Familiar with it?

Q: Mm-mm.

A: For -- the term?

Q: Mm-mm, no.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert a October 16, 2010

A: Aliyah. That is the mo -- Zionist movement to go -- preparing you to go to Israel.

So we had academic training, and we had agricultural training, and vocational training. And this is the first time I was involved with oil and gas, because we f-- they found out the thing is, for the training, this -- that was in the place of the Zuiderzee, which had been reclaimed from the sea, that land. But you had swamp gas coming up through the water. And we collected the swamp gas and f-- and had the equipment, that it could be used productively for heating and agricultural and cooking things. And this is not in the area of -- farther east in Groningen, where they discovered afterward were two -- some very big gas fields. But this is probably not related. I never heard of this, what we found there, because it was only bubbling up.

And we had a container that collected it, and so we -- they had -- we built, and then we did agricultural things. For instance, it's interesting using that kind of a country place to prepare people for Israel, where this was too much water, as compared to Israel having lack of water. But they -- they built that particular facility there, and it was a productive fa-farm. I think they produced or -- everything was consumed that was produced. They raised all kind of big animals.

Q: Were you in contact with your family at this -- at this time?

A: Yes.

Q: Were they in England?

Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010

A: No, my mother was in Germany. She did not go to England because her parents were too old to go to England.

Q: But your father was in England?

A: Yeah.

Q: Wha-What was your -- tell me about your mother.

A: Well, my mother was born in Berlin, but her parents moved to Mannheim when they retired, when they got old enough, they needed somebody, one of their children to -- when the mother -- my mother, taking care of the thing. And then she is -- was academically trained, she never got her full degree, but she couldn't make up her mind whether to study law or medicine. She did some of each, but never finished it -- it, and after -- when the war had started, and after Paris had fallen, and the Vichy government was established, they made that province, which was Baden, which is where Mannheim, Heidelberg ar-are located, they made it Judenfrei. Free of Jews, and they de-deported all of them to a concentration camp in the Pyrenees called conda -- called Gurs, g-u-r-s. You heard about that one?

Q: Yeah, I know that one.

A: Okay. [indecipherable] Gurs. Actually the -- the S is not pronounced in -- in the French thing, and she stayed there for a while, together with her mother. Her father did not survive the transport. And -- yeah. They lived pretty well in the mud. These -- this was built for Spanish loyalists who fled across from Spain to the French border, http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert * October 16, 2010 when they were being defeated. And so it didn't have too many comfort, it was for young military people, but there was -- food was somewhat limited. But since my mother was fluent in French, she was part of the delegation that went to local farmers and try -- tried to talk them out of more food, and stuff like that. And then she and her mother were transferred to Marseilles, and my mother had a vi-visa to go to the States also. Otherwi -- in the meantime, lotsa thing; I had been -- we had been in the States. I went from Holland, picked up -- we picked up my f-- my sisters and I, we picked up my father in Southampton, and went to the States. And then we lived in New York for a while. But then my mother was in Marseilles, and she was able to catch a boat, a French boat that was going to Martinique, which is the -- one of the French states or provinces. And -- but since France, Vichy, France was at war with England, a British warship captured that ship and brought it into Trinidad. So they were interned as, I guess enemy aliens in Trinidad. But then from there we were in contact with her in the States, we were able to get arrangements to get a boat to go from Trinidad to New York. And she just got there in time to see me graduate from high school.

Q: Let's -- let's back up, back to you being in Holland. So y -- how long -- how long were you in Holland, total?

A: Let's see. deg39 to -- about 14 months.

Q: So how did you get from Holland to America? Did you have to get a visa?

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010

A: Yeah, oh yeah. That visa had been put in, and there was -- when it came, you know, number came up, and somebody was -- from the committee there, took us to the pier. We left from na -- we didn't leave from Holland, we left from Belgium.

The ship left in Antwerp. And then by that time, Germany and England were already at war. And we went to -- on the way to Southampton we spotted floating mines near Southampton, but none of them were set up. I saw them later on when I went from France to England -- from England to France with the U.S. Army. And the other G.Ls tried to shoot and set off the floating mines, but they never hit the right spot. You got a pl-place about this big, at a long distance, to -- you know, this is to set it off [indecipherable] point. If you just hit the body, the body of the floating mine is heavy steel, and the machine guns did not penetrate that.

Q: So-

A: But anyhow --

Q: Where did your sa -- where did your family settle when you emigrated to America?

A: First we were staying with the family of my father's brother, who had been there for a while. And -- in Manhattan, on 91* Street.

Q: And you -- you attended high school there?

A: Yeah.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010

Q: Was it difficult ler -- did you have to learn the language? Had you spoken English before?

A: Little bit.

Q: So was --

A: But I learned it after a while, and they -- I -- the teachers were actually excellent.

That was a -- not a particular prestigious high school. In fact, about half of them came from Harlem, and one-third c-came from Hell's Kitchen. So the teachers were very happy to have some kids who had more academic training. In fact, the interesting situation, the kids who made the honor roll, two-thirds of them were foreign born. The ones who competed for valedictorian, nearly all of them spoke with an accent. I don't -- I was competing for it, but I had a big argument with my English teacher, who was a reviewer of the thing, and an argument when we read Julius Caesar, and I argued with her when -- either, I think, either Cassius or [indecipherable] says, I forgot, because he was ambitious, I killed him. And I wrote my speech on the necessity for ambition. And the teacher recognized that argument I had with her, so I was blackballed on that. I had made the honor roll when I graduated, but I did not get the valedictorian speech. But then I did something else.

Since I had such a mixed up previous education, I went to the different departments, and in some case I took a regent examination, and I passed it and then I got credit for the course, that got me through that fast. And some of them I just talked my way, I Interview with Harry Ebert 8 October 16, 2010

think. I got some credits in art appreciation because I reviewed all the things I had seen in the -- in the Italian and the Dutch and the German museums. And I could distinguish different schools of painting and stuff like that, because my parents were very insistent when we went to these museums that I could identify what it was, or who the -- and I convinced them that I knew enough about art appreciation, I could get credit for it.

Q: Good for you.

A: And I got all these language credits, and I did all right on math. So --

Q: You have a very diverse education.

A: Yeah, then, the only thing is, I had to take fo -- you had to take eight semesters of high school English, and I-- I doubled up on them. They let me do that. And in fact, I don't know, I even got in one of the honor classes. I don't know how I ever did that, but -- and I think maybe I ever had done more reading, not only in English, but in things in the international literature.

Q: So you graduated from high school when you were 16, and then did you join --

A: 16 and a day, I was very old.

Q: Oh, right after your birthday. So --

A: I was very unhappy. Graduation -- some gi-- schools graduated on Tuesday, some Wednesday, some Thursday. My school graduated on Thursday. They only had so Interview with Harry Ebert 4 October 16, 2010

many caps and gowns to go around. If I would have been on Tuesday school, I would have made it with 15. Wednesday was my birthday.

Q: What did you do after graduation?

A: Well, I-- I was a -- that summer I was a junior con -- a swimming counselor in a camp, and then shortly thereafter, my parents moved to Ohio, and I couldn't get a decent job because of my age. Even as a draftsman, they thought I might prick myself with a pencil. But those days the labor laws were ridiculous for a 16 year old, and said, why don't you go back to high school? I said, I graduated from there. So I got some helper jobs, not very much and I started to do some vocational training, I went to a local high school and I took some evening courses in machine shop. I hadn't done much work in machine shop, but I was interested in those things. And then, shortly before we got into war, we had defense preparatory courses offered by different schools. And since I was in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State provide that course, and I took some of these courses, which were non-credit courses. But when I bec -- later on when I was able to afford to go to college, I talked to the prof who taught me the courses I had on [indecipherable] and I convinced him I didn't have to take the course, he would give me academic credit for it. So that helped me. And I had -- in fact, one of the guys was, i-in one of the fields, the number one man in the country, who happened to be the head of the department for engineering drawing at Ohio State. So, and then I went full time, from the beginning of "42 until November ontectnetonancedjusetneey for tarher biormatoerabouttfisestecion Interview with Harry Ebert 8 October 16, 2010 of 43. In the meantime, I got a letter called greetings, your neighbors want you to represent them in the armed forces. So the day -- the day before Thanksgiving "43 was my first day active duty. And on Thanksgiving day was my first day of KP. And that was a big job that time. Then I spent time in the army, I was being -- with engineering back on -- they put me into a signal corps, which, I mean, technical things, and then I went to something called ASTP, are you familiar with that term?

Q: N-No.

A: It was Army Specialized Training Program. What they had there, they didn't know how long the war would last, and since no new kids were graduating from college, or very few, they had programs to give academic training and provide people for leadership and more responsibility later on. And they had it in two different -- in several fields, one of them was linguistically, and the other one was engineering. So I went to the University of Illinois, where they tested me, and I qualified both for language and for engineering. But I f-- was looking long term, so I signed up for the engineering type, and they sent me to Rutgers University for about six months, to study engineering. And I got this -- these were academic courses, so I got credit later on at Ohio State for the work I did there. And then, as they figured the war seems to have been coming to the end, this was after D-Day, and they looked like this -- this program was sending kids to college, was terminating, so I applied -- I figured engineering and languages, I applied for military government http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert deg October 16, 2010 transfer. But somehow they didn't -- somehow they figured they needed me for military intelligence. So they sent me to Camp Ritchie, if you ever heard of that.

Q: Mm-mm.

A: The so called Ritchie boys. This was -- Camp Ritchie is in-- near Hagerstown, Maryland, and this was the military intelligence training center. In fact, there's a very good movie out, was made by a German company, called, "The Ritchie Boys," and what happened, i-it was quite -- it was very fair. They took people who had a certain high I.Q. -- I forgot what the army called the thing right now -- and they were fluent in a language that was of interest; German or Italian or French. We were not that much concerned with eastern European languages. And they had a similar thing on the west coast, in br-- in Monterey, for people who were -- were interested in Asiatic languages, and getting involved there. So I got to that camp, which they cou --on my orders I'd even -- couldn't even say where I'm going to. And that movie they made about it, I don't know whether Holocaust Museum has -- hat that, it's -- but it's -- but it's a very interesting link. And these people did all kind of jobs, interrogation of prisoners during wa -- during the fighting. And the most famous attendee of that school was Henry Kissinger. But he graduated from there before I -- I went there. And what happened? We -- when we were finished, we knew more about the German military, the civil service, the reliability, things, when people were -- were promoted on certain jobs, they had certain jobs, which ones were considered http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert mu October 16, 2010 highly -- higher the liability for the Nazi regime. Or some of them were just -- because the skill of somebody was, let's say, the county engineer. Well, that's because he si -- knew how to put in sewer systems. But -- and the -- was -- andI d--I didn't get finished with that til after V-E Day, so was lucky when I went overseas, I didn't have to do any fighting. But I was involved in a lot of interesting episodes. I was in, for instance, typically in my favorite stories, things that happened. There were -- for instance, when there was a security raid in the occupation, because U.S.

Army was invo -- [indecipherable] was concerned that the Germans might pull Operation Werwolf. That was the same thing, the name -- tag name they gave to what the French were doing with the Maquis. Resistance. So they tried to undermine it. | know -- so they, sometimes they had raids and thing, looking for weapons, and looking for people that were on the [indecipherable] list. And wa -- they had guys like me, assigned to battalion headquarter, and if they brought in something that was suspicious, I had to give it for a screening. I know one time they brought in a guy with a fancy uniform, brass buttons, and a red cap. And I looked at him and I looked his LD. and I looked at his brass button, and it said RB, which means Reichsbahn.

And said, take that guy back to the railway station, he is the station master. But the normal G.I. wouldn't know th-that guy from another guy with a German uniform.

Q: That's funny.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert 8 October 16, 2010

A: So this is a -- this was some of the funny things, but I mean, I could -- you could see they had support. I mean, people like myself, and colleagues of mine, who could thought things out. Not that they think they gotta arrest a guy because he wears a uniform. But he just -- the kind of thing that I think is a funny story.

Q: How long were you in Germany with the army? Were you -- you were stationed in Germany, right?

A: Yeah.

Q: How long were you there?

A: Oh, let's see. I got there, let's see, it was probably about from September or October deg45, til -- and the story gets complicated before it gets cleared up -- and I stayed there until December "47. And then I was also involved in war crimes trials. I was an investigator for one of the guys who got accused, got indicted for the Nuremberg trials, but he was never tried, because we could not get good evidence on him. Plus when we blew his safe and found all kind of thi -- interesting things on there, including a letter from the Kaiser, because the guy was very important in World War I. The biggest gun in World War I was named after his wife.

Q: Really?

A: Big Bertha. Did you ever hear about that? That gun?

Q: No.

Interview with Harry Ebert "deg October 16, 2010

A: It was the -- then -- the guy was Alfred Krupp, from the Krupp factory, munitions maker and steel factory. And situation, they were in the Nuremberg trials and I was at a briefing by Supreme Court Justice Jackson, who was the prosecutor for Nuremberg. And I attended one of these meetings; they said, as you investigate, you gotta look for two things. Cri -- preparing for and conducting aggressive warfare.

That we found Krupp, because he was building tanks and stuff like that, and testing them, and things of that nature -- other war material. The other one was crimes against humanity; slave labor and that kind of stuff. And this ma -- old man, Krupp --and I have a lot of his personal history, to -- was in -- retired, I think because of health reasons, about the same t -- about the time Paris fell. So that's before slave labor because a problem. And his son took over. So -- and he and his son didn't get along at all. And so he had -- the -- the old man didn't have anything to do with the operation of the factory, or their personnel, or policies. He was there collecting his retirement pay, and that's about all. In fact, it's an interesting situation, that this guy is, when he was born, was not -- his name was not Krupp, because old man Krupp, who was very big before World War I, who built up the factory a lot, Alfred Krupp, and he ha -- only had daughters, he had no sons. But he wanted to perpetuate the name and the family. So the Kaiser had an edict by which the boyfriend, who was Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, was going to marry the Krupp woman, one of the Krupp daughters, could combine the name, Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert *deg October 16, 2010 So he maintained his nobility name, but he main -- he kept his -- kept the Krupp name in the family. So there was a special edict, I don't know what year that was done, but it's an interesting situation.

Q: Yeah, it is interesting.

A: And I used to have si-- copy of his -- I used to have his passport for a while.

Q: Really?

A: Yeah.

Q: Were there any other cases, like war crime trials that you worked on? The cr -- the Krupp case and --

A: Yeah, that was the only one for Nuremberg. But then I worked for -- well, again by the pe -- if I talk about things you know, I me -- stop me. During the Yalta Conference, where they decided the war crime trial concept, said there was people who were involved on an international basis, who were supposed to be tried by the international court, which were then Nuremberg. But things had happened, like concentration camp or slave labor, in the countries whose zone of occupation was -- was war crimes against individuals of that nationality, were supposed to be tried by courts of that ka -- courts of that cor -- of that nationality. For instance, again, there's an interesting history which is -- don't know whether -- how well known that was, when the -- when the -- when -- during the fighting, U.S. troops got as far as the Elba river. That meant they went past -- through Thiiringen where the ca -- main town is http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert * October 16, 2010 Weimar, and where also Buchenwald was located there, just nearby there. And then, after the -- they rearranged the zones and -- and that area of Weimar became Russian zone. So, since we had the evidence, like lampshades made from human bl -- from human skin, and SS guards and oth -- and all kind of stuff, including the wife of the former commandant, Ilse Koch, and -- more about her later. I said I have a long history of -- [indecipherable] history. And so -- so we moved before our troops withdrew from that area, and the Russians moved in. We took all the stuff and put it into a facility in Dachau. We could intern the prisoners and had enough storage facilities to store the evidence. And there was a mission. Since -- since Buchenwald was supposed to be tried by Russia, and since this is the Russian zone, we -- we had a team of about two, three attorneys and about four linguists, who went through all that stuff that had been collected, and they -- the lawyers put it into a legal documentation, to turn over to the Russians, that they could use it as evidence. But the wi-- Russians refused to accept it. They did not want to annoy the Germans. It's in their zone, they wanted to say the communists are not doing things that Germany look bad. So they refused to do this. And so about -- that was before Churchill spoke about the Iron Curtain. That was Russia did not live up to its commitment under the Yalta Conference. So it's -- for many years later -- about two years later they would -- the Buchenwald people were tried in American war crimes trial, and I participated in that one. There were some interesting people [indecipherable] were http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert % October 16, 2010 there, and later on I got into the war crimes trials in Dachau -- in Dachau. The U.S.

trials. And one of the most in -- at times I wasn't sure I was going to do that. For a while I was either assistant to the prosecutor, assistant to the defense counselor, and was [indecipherable] court interpreter. Was sometimes assistant to the judge, because they had terms, which different people translated different ways. And they were -- the judges were confused and they said, we heard this was said to them, to them, what -- how it happened? And then I had to figure out these were the same -- translating it back into German, these were the same organization. So, and -- but there was -- there was some interesting people there. Probably the most famous -- one of the most famous person who was tried there, but he was acquitted, that was Otto Skorzeny. Did you ever heard about that name? Otto Skorzeny was the commander of the German Ranger. In fact, he became famous. After the Italian partisans had ca- captured Mussolini and kept him on top of a mountain as a prisoner, his ranger unit, with gliders and with mountain troops, stormed that place and rescued Mussolini.

The partisan got Mussolini couple months later on and they killed him, but -- but that was the guy. And this guy also became famous during the Battle of the Bulge, because he was commanding this ranger, German ranger battalion, and he put them all in German -- in American uniforms, to go behind our lines -- through our lines and disturb things, maybe destroy signal equipment and put on markers, direction signs, turn them around and to ca -- and they were trying to, during the Battle of the Bulge, http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert %8 October 16, 2010 the aim of the Rumsted(ph) offensive was to capture Antwerp. And he was an important part, but he was being tried -- tried [indecipherable] for that. But there was an interesting thing. The prosecutor was a famous lawyer from Atlanta, who had -- he was usually a defense counselor, and he lost most of the cases, as defense counselor in war crimes trials. But he was a prosecutor, and he lost that one, because there was a guy who was -- I don't even know whether he was a lawyer or not, or he had some lawyer assistance. And he found out that you cannot get anybody on espionage, or sabotage. These are ruses of war. As long as you are not -- as long as you are caught -- not caught in the other country's uniform. There were some of his men who were caught in American uniforms, and they were shot. But he was caught later on, I forgot whether in German uniform, or in civilian clothes. Therefore that stopped it and he was acquitted. And then he became other things, he was -- became the chief of security for Egypt. He was sometimes -- there was a -- were some articles written, the most dangerous man in Europe, because he had that wartime experience, and he was helping Egypt. But didn't do much good. Egyptians didn't do so well in the Six Day War. But -- so, and then there was also, during the Buchenwald trial, there was this wa -- wa -- fo -- the widow of the commandant, and she had been a widow for many years, but she was pregnant. And they tried to find out whether it was a Polish guard. There were -- a lot of the guard people were Polish DPs. And they were all right. And the Americans pretty well liked them, the only per ontactrefiranneGaushariarg a hither atrmedortabeattfiexaliaton Interview with Harry Ebert s October 16, 2010 -- only one person didn't like the Polish guards. There was th -- my dog. He always barked at them. And he was a interesting dog.

Q: What kind of dog was it?

A: It was a German Shepherd, a relatively small one. But he was very good pedigree, because the couple -- the dogs that bred him, used to belong to the German Field Marshal Mordell, who, when he lost the [indecipherable] in the -- after U.S. troops had moved east of the Rhine river, he committed suicide. Right before that, he gave his matched pair of dogs to a local farmer. And I found out about those dogs. And he bred them, and I got one of his offsprings. But then, the kind of situations that people do -- in the thing, for instance, I was stationed in Dachau that time, and we had took a barrack where we get some veterinarians who were prisoners, and we dro -- got a couple veterinarians and a couple farm boys, and we had a veterinary clinic, because some of us had to go out of town for a couple of weeks, so we left the dogs there.

But they were too -- even too dumb to make sure they had all the medicine, so they died of distemper. Dist -- the medicine was not easily available in Germany, but we could have send it, call -- contacted our parents and have it sent from the States. So the dog did not -- did not survive. But this is -- but lot of the G.L.s had these thing.

And by the way, if you keep pe -- these people busy, I was working for a while, that was before that, in an internment camp, where they had people who -- who were not accused of anything, but they were considered security risks, because they had really http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert 8 October 16, 2010 high positions in the party, or in civil service, or in the military. That's primary -- not in the general army, but in the S.S. or something like that. And they were housed in German army barracks, and they lived better than the population because they had all the heat, the hot water, they had decent food, which was short at that time, but they were bored. So we arranged with them, a craft shop. Some of them were very handy. And I have -- still have at home, four paintings which -- watercolors, about this size, which the guy did from memory, and they are very nice paintings, and I really treasure them. And they were -- didn't have much stuff, they were [indecipherable] canvas, they were the back of the ration boxes. So they improvised, and I got them home, I got them framed. And they didn't want to get paid in money. They said, if you do -- if it's -- you know, we -- well, it was good relationship between these craftsmen and the G.I.s. They said no, I would appreciate it rather, if you would send a package with some chocolates or some other candy to my wife or to my kids. And we got that at the PX. So it's, again, the people who had -- we were sorting out who was a real security risk, who was -- on the war crimes wanted list that was put down -- put out by all the countries, sorting things out, and these were primarily the guys, the Ritchie boys. And they were very young guys. I think our detachment commander, he was old, he was 21 years old. He was a second lieutenant. But this -- oh, sorry.

Q: No, you're fine. Oops, here. Okay. It's still recording, we're good.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert deg October 16, 2010

A: Yeah.

Q: That's okay.

A: Okay, nothing.

Q: Okay, okay.

A: No disconnects?

Q: Nope, nope, we're -- we're -- we're good.

A: Okay.

Q: Okay.

A: All right, I'm sti -- we're still wired. So -- interesting thing is while I was in -- investigating in that [indecipherable] team, I met a young lady who was the -- a telephone operator for the British organization, it was British zone of occupation.

And she had been a telephone operator for the German post office, the post office was running the telephone system in Germany at that time. And then she was delegated to be the private telephone operator for the state adjutant general. I mean, she was very good in it, to get that particular thing. And then when the British took over, she went -- became telephone operator for one of the British headquarters.

There was a [indecipherable] commission, they -- since this is the area where the -- which produced the most coal, and they rationed the coal allocations through all the occupation areas. And we got quite involved, to the extent that she was my wife, through the war part.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010

Q: What was her name?

A: Pardon me?

Q: What's her name?

A: Her name?

Q: Yes.

A: Hanni, h-a-double n-i.

Q: What was maiden -- her maiden last name?

A: Sessilman(ph). So, I mean, she was basically -- she was Aryan and she was involved in the BDM and competing in the contests they have for different things.

And no, we had a very good marriage of 62 years, and she died day after Christmas last year.

Q: Sorry to hear that.

A: So when we got married in Dachau, by the mayor of Dachau. In fact, we were, I think the second couple involving a G.I. and a war bride, that was married by that guy. But he gave an endlessly long speech, and we were then supposed to have a reception at the officers" club. And we were getting late and late, so when we finally got through, we told the driver to step on it, and we got a speeding ticket from the MPs. But then we had a reception at the -- or a din -- a nice dinner at the [indecipherable] club. And -- and a band and everything else.

Q: What year was this?

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert 8 October 16, 2010

A: F-For -- "47. In fact, this is one reason when the -- I stayed longer in Europe than I had to, because when I was supposed to come back for discharge, come back to the States, I could not bring my -- I could not get married, I was -- as a G.I. you had to get permission by the military to marry, and I could not get that permission, and without that she couldn't come to the States. So, since there was a shortage of people, they offered all kind of incentives for people to stay there if they had certain skills. And I stayed there as a civilian, where I made quite a bit more money, but I was a -- they had a uniform for the civilians. So -- and it was important that you wore some service ribbons, that meant you were not a carpetbagger. Some guys, they just went there and never in the service, but the fact that you were in the service, you were accepted by them. And we could go to the R and R centers in the -- near the Alps and used to have some good times over the weekends. And was on a lake, and early morning there had to be a festival. And then you went on a sailboat. They rigged it for you, you didn't have to rig it yourself, and then we sailed until lunchtime. And then there was a -- then there'd be a party in the afternoon. So -- and with an oompah-pah bands and all this kind of stuff. No, this is the -- G.I.s at that particular time, if they could get to those places, the army took good care of them.

Except one thing is, there was one of the experiences my wife had. We went to a place where we knew there was an R and R center, we went there, but we did not know that was for blacks. But we asked them whether we could have lunch there.

ontactrefiranneGaushariarg a hither atrmedortabeattfiexaliaton Interview with Harry Ebert *deg October 16, 2010 Said yes. But then we sat on a table, and there was some blacks sitting on the table, they said, hey you, you can't sit there with them. That's -- that was the U.S. military in deg46 - "47, before Truman integrated the military in -- forgot again the year that was. Yeah, | think it was one of the first things he did. I think he did that after -- after V-J Day. Well, okay, then we got married there, and we could go over -- we went back to the States.

Q: Where did you settle?

A: Pardon me?

Q: Where did you live?

A: I went back to Columbus, Ohio, where my parents were living. And I went back to Ohio State and got my degree. In fact, three weeks ago, I was elect -- I was titled distinguished alumnus from Ohio State, for engineering department.

Q: Oh, congratulations.

A: Thank you. I got -- had quite a bit of involvement with the -- I was member of a industry review board to advise profs what kind of things are strong, that industry needs and they sho -- should emph -- things they should emphasize. For instance, one of my biggest complaint, I think that's not only with engineers, but with other people, too -- you went to college, did you?

Q: Mm-hm.

A: Which one did you go to?

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert * October 16, 2010

Q: Well, I bounced around, but I graduated from North Dakota State University.

A: Isee, okay. North Dakota. I've not spent any -- I spent quite a bit of time in Wyoming, and I used to go to South Dakota to go skiing at the -- was it Black Hills, or -- yeah, I used to go skiing in the Black Hills. Whenever I had -- I was in -- in Gillette, Wyoming. I was working in a coal mine there. And let's see -- no, this is --no, this was quite interesting, to get the -- to work with the profs and do things, and this is -- yeah, I mean, the things I said, which is something wa -- most universities make a big mistake. When you went to college, whatever you studied, when you wrote a term paper, or had to give a report, who was your target audience?

Q: My professor.

A: Yeah. Somebody who knew much more about it than you did. In real life, most of the people deal with people that know less about it. For instance, when I learned about computer, they told me to toggle over, and I looked for a toggle switch. I mean, the kind of terminology. Doctors are great for using terms which nobody understands unless you're a doctor yourself. Engineers do that too, accountants at times, and --

Q: Everybody does.

A: Yeah. Th-That's where you were trained. And I was trying to get the school to mandate that the ki -- that the students take a course in public speaking. True non- specialists in -- let's see, what is that organization that gives speeches?

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010

Q: Toastmake --

A: What?

Q: Toastmakers? Toastmakers?

A: Yeah, Toastmaster.

Q: Oh, Toastmaster.

A: Yeah. The kind of a thing that they do there by which you are asked to give, for instance, this is something I either learned in the military, then when I get back, after I started working there, I also went back in the reserve. And I progressed quite a bit there, and I commanded a unit, and I had some fun with something. It was [indecipherable] we had inspection from a guy from Washington coming, I don't know, from headquarters. And I kn-knew about it, when that was, and I scheduled commanders time. And one of my favorite things to schedule there is -- it was during the Eisenhower administration, [indecipherable] for peace. And I was involved in building the first commercial nuclear plant in this country. And so I talked about how they operate and I had the drawings all over the wall, and -- til I found out the inspector hadn't heard about that, but I could put it in a way that this guy who was maybe an accountant or something like that, or an auditor could fo -- could follow it.

Q: Right.

A: And so in fact, I had some fun. I had my senior non-com was a high school teacher, and I made a deal with him: whenever I gave a lecture -- and I had to do that http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert % October 16, 2010 once a week, we met once a week and -- for two hours -- one hour I had to do the work; he critiqued it. He took notes, what I did well, what I didn't do well: talking too fast, not getting things organized, talking to the blackboard, all that kind of mistake. Using terms that were not defined. So after the meetings, we went to the nearby legion post and we both had beer, and he gave me a critique. And I am very thankful for what he has done for me. And I have addressed, I think last year at Ohio State, I addressed a group of about 400 people.

Q: Wow, that's incredible.

A: Yeah, so it's -- I--I feel comfortable with doing that.

Q: Yeah, you've had lots of practice.

A: What?

Q: You're have lots of practice.

A: Yeah, right, yeah. Doing that and then back in the engineering part, I had to testify, or talk to governmental agencies. Like one time in Canada and one time in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur.

Q: Malaysia, wow.

A: We were doing something that was non-standard, and I had to defend it. So there were a lot of people, some of them were technically trained, some were not. Why we're doing it, what we're doing, what the risk was, and what the training was for to be done properly, and what the results are from the testing that had been done 43 Interview with Harry Ebert October 16, 2010 before. But I felt quite comfortable even talking to a foreign country like in Kuala Lumpur.

Q: I'm going to stop the -- the track, and we're going to start a new one, cause it's almost --

A: Okay.

End of File One Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010 Beginning File Two

Q: This is a continuation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Harry Ebert, conducted by Annie Erling, on the 16" of October, 2010, at the Kindertransport Association Conference at Arlington, Virginia. So, do you have any children with Hanni?

A: No, no, we decided we didn't want any. But I have nephews and nieces with whom I'm quite close, and --

Q: Did you s -- did you stay in Columbus, Ohio?

A: No, when I graduated, I went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then I went to Marietta, Ohio. In fact, there I worked for a company, and they had a Marietta College, and they had some night courses in business related things, but to be an accredited thing where you could get a degree, they had to take some science courses. But the science faculty at Marietta College were so lazy, and they didn't have a graduate school, so they didn't have the graduate students who could -- would teach those. So the -- the dean of the gradu -- of the night school got people out of industry. I was teaching physics, and engineering drawing, and they had some other people were teaching accounting and chemistry and stuff like that. So the wa -- it was quite, quite interesting. In fact, it was like teaching liberal arts because maybe I talked about a different piece of equipment in a power plant, and some guy says, oh, I know all about it. This is depreciated over five years, because the guy was in Interview with Harry Ebert * October 16, 2010

accounting. But he had no idea what in the world it was doing, why it was there. So I tried to clear that up. No, it's all right. So --

Q: Is there anything else that you'd like to --

A: Well, yeah, that's -- I've stayed -- stayed in the military, and I got -- had a -- had -- also had a -- what was known as a mobilization designation. That meant -- familiar with that term?

Q: Mm-mm, no.

A: That means you are training for a job that's held by somebody else, in case a balloon goes up, one of you guys -- maybe we'll split the headquarter, and we need two people with that training, and I used -- I did that, and I was in the intelligence branch. And one of the things that I was really trying to push, and we were successful -- that was during the Cold War era, that we had linguistic training. People training in linguistic and it was all packed military items. We had several reserve units. We were lucky; the Cold War never got hot. We di-- they didn't have to be called up. Maybe some people got called up during the Berlin crisis, but well, there was not -- then we were prepared, as compared -- and I may be talking politics now, during the Gulf Wars, we had not -- the government had not prepared linguists who could speak Arabic. I'm sure there are plenty guys around there who are maybe people who immigrated from Jordan, or immigrated from Israel or Palestine, or some of these -- Egypt, or some of the other countries, who could handle these

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert %deg October 16, 2010 languages. And so it -- it was -- no, then, that's interesting. When I -- I was working for Exxon for -- as an engineering specialist for about 30 years, and I worked in 22 countries, often teaching courses there. And you learn some of the tricks of the trade of how teaching in a foreign country. For instance, I was giving a course in Japan, and I found a commercial book, or an advert -- actually a catalog by a company that had published the same thing in English and in Japanese. I had the English one, so I got the Japanese one, and got one of those for each of my students from the supplier, and if I wanted a certain graph, maybe I had a slide, but then for the Japanese to read things about it, I would have in there saying E page 42, J page 52, so they could look up the reference material. Plus, the idea of simple sentences. Many p -- and speaking very slowly. If I would have a foreign speaking audience -- foreign language speaking audience, I would speak about this pace. And no k -- no complicated sentences, which the French can do the conditionnel. I don't know whether we use that in English, the conditional case.

Q: I'm bad at grammar.

A: I mean, when you insert, the green house, which is located on the next street. You know, by inserting that thing.

Q: Oh.

A: Is for sale. I mean, if that's -- that is loca -- the next street. Make that a separate sentence. This is putting two thoughts together. So I had a lot of fun with that, and I http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert " October 16, 2010 stayed in some countries where -- which generally are not known as being Jewish friendly, like Gaddafi's Libya. I worked there for a while. I was about four times in Saudi Arabia, and I worked there, and recently, since I retired, I'm working for -- part time for a company, and I was in United Emirates.

Q: Oh. You've traveled a lot.

A: Oh yeah.

Q: That's incredible.

A: Yeah, I said I worked in 22 countries, and I think I visited 52.

Q: Wow.

A: But I didn't -- I always liked to go in the Far East. I used to -- I used to enjoy Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan. And I -- I really enjoyed Pakistan. And Pakistan was one of the most surprises. For instance, I was working there on a fertilizer plant, we were rebuilding things, and they -- I had some young engineers.

And about half the young engineers were indigenous females, and they were treated just as well, were given assignments equivalent to what the -- the male engineers of the same experience level were getting. So when you, in some, I guess, in the primitive farm areas, this may be different, but in the industrial area, there is -- you find out the f-- the female is treated better. And we were sitting all together, having lunch and stuff like that.

Q: Oh.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert %8 October 16, 2010

A: The only thing is, the guest house I was staying was next to a mosque, and they woke me up every morning when they called for prayer. So, I had a lot of fun with those things. I mean, this is the experiences. I said, I lived history, the same way.

First time I was in Israel -- in fact, to get there I was -- had been in Pakistan, and I cou -- they couldn't f-- you couldn't fly from Pakistan to Israel, so I flew from Pakistan to Teheran, Iran, from -- at that time there was -- the shah was still in command. I -- they could fly from Teheran to Jerusalem. And I decided to do some sightseeing. But I figured, these old things, they have been around that long, fine.

But it was my military background, I got myself a guide who was fighting in the Golan Heights, and we we went up the Golan Heights the same way his unit went up. I'm glad they cleared up all the mines. But it was very interesting. That's another interesting experience dealing with that part of the world. We -- this guy had -- he was Israeli, he had some Arabic friends at one place, and we went there and I got some tea and some dates. Not dates with women, dates the food. And then there were -- near there there was a warehouse, and there were some trucks parked. And these trucks had Israeli license plate, and he said -- they had wing-nuts on them. He said, you loosen one of those wing-nuts. And they had Jordanese license plates.

What happened? They were taking the famous Jaffa oranges -- although it was not in Jaffa, it was farther west, but the same type, and transporting them to the Jordanese -- to the border between Israel and Jordan, then change the license plate, and then Interview with Harry Ebert deg October 16, 2010

moved to -- all the way to Saudi, because Saudi had the money and they -- they wanted the -- the better food. So this is a kind of cooperation that the Israeli were aware what was going on and these Arabic farmers who were growing the oranges up there in [indecipherable] were making some money, and I guess the truck drivers got paid. So it was -- no, I've been several times visiting Israel, but that was an interesting experience. Also, from the military point of view, there is a place just east of -- east of Tel Aviv on a mountain called Kenkillya(ph). From there you could fire some of the bigger guns into Tel Aviv. And I think the Israelis made a big mistake of ma -- considering part of the West Bank, they should have annexed that, as a security, to control the high ground. After they found out at the Golan Heights how important the high ground is. So I'm sure they had enough people who were studying this thing. And then with the military, I st -- stayed with a co -- [indecipherable] command general staff college, and stuff like that, which is the second highest educational thing within the army. The only higher one is Army War College. I applied for that, but I didn't -- I couldn't get in that one. So I--I had an interesting time there in involvements and stuff like that, and retired as a full [indecipherable] colonel. And in fact, night before last, I stayed in abot -- on Aberdeen Proving Ground, and I had a VIP suite for myself. I had one and a half bedrooms and one and a half baths.

Q: Nice.

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Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert *deg October 16, 2010

A: And a living room. So that was -- that was a convenient way. I figured I didn't want to drive all the way from New Jersey to Washington and try to fight the traffic, and to get to the hotel in the evening, so I stopped over in Aberdeen and worked my way through Baltimore, which is a mess.

Q: Oh, traffic is so terrible around here.

A: Well, the fact I didn't know the roads, I said, this is detour, and I followed that thing. And then I -- the detour sign disappeared, and --

Q: The roads sh -- th-the construction and traffic --

A: Yeah, yeah.

Q: -- most of the time it doesn't make any sense.

A: Mm-hm. I used to spend a lot of time at Fort Meade.

Q: Okay.

A: And we used to go to Baltimore, because we had a bunch of young guys, they never had been at strip clubs on the East Baltimore Street, they had a lot of them. I guess that's pretty well known, that East Baltimore Street. And I -- if I wanted to get all my tu -- all my guys together, the best place to find them was at East Baltimore Street.

Q: You knew where to go.

A: Right. That's -- and these were boys from West Virginia, my -- my army unit at that time was based in West Virginia. So it's -- since I was living just across the http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection Interview with Harry Ebert * October 16, 2010 river from there. But that facility was there, and that unit was there and they had an opening. So that's about it, and -- well then, after -- went walking when I was working. I went to mari -- there's Marietta, Ohio, which -- have you heard of Marietta, Ohio?

Q: I've heard of it, never been there, no.

A: There's Marietta, Georgia.

Q: Okay.

A: There's also Marietta, Ohio, which is a very -- historically a very famous town, because after the Revolutionary War, they handed out the G.I. Bill of the Revolutionary War, was 106 -- 160 acres, you know, in o -- in Ohio [indecipherable] Ilinois. And they were handed out in Marietta. People came by boat from Pittsburgh on the Ohio River, and went to Marietta. And that's where there was General Putnam, who was from Massachusetts, but he was the dispenser of the G.I. Bill of the Revolutionary War. And the house where he did that in was still in existence. In fact, it was that -- in the top of that town has a little mountain, and there's a -- was an Indian mound. So we lived on the road that le -- went from the river to the Indian mound. That was called Sacra Via. So -- so it's interesting --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- things I -- I lived through and saw.

Interview with Harry Ebert * October 16, 2010

Q: Yeah, we've covered everything. This is great, though, we were able to fit -- talk about your post-war experience too.

A: Yeah.

Q: So, that's good.

A: No, I got -- I had a good time. I was elected fellow of an engineering society.

Q: I saw that in the --

A: And I published several technical papers, and so that's about it, unless you have some other questions.

Q: We've covered a lot. This has been fantastic. Thank you.

A: Yeah, in fact, you'll find in that article that's -- you did not have before.

Q: Mm-mm.

A: Take a look at those two I got.

Q: [indecipherable] this is just one. So we just have --

A: A G.I. remembers?

Q: Mm-hm. G.I. Recalls the Occupation of Germany.

A: Yeah, I think that goes ba -- that goes quite a bit at the end.

Q: This will be really good to have, because we -- we archive all of this, so this is fantastic, thank you.

A: I think I may have sent that. After the last Kindertransport Conference, they asked to send things to them. And I think I may have sent that already.

Interview with Harry Ebert *8 October 16, 2010

Q: Okay. Well, we might -- we might have it --

A: Yeah.

Q: --I guess, but Pll -- Pll check into it.

A: Yeah, ag-again, this is something you don't put in a recording.

Q: Sh-Sh-Shall I shut it off?

A: Yeah.

Q: Okay then, one second. This concludes the -- the interview of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with Harry Ebert, conducted by Ann Erling, on the 16" of October, 2010. Thank you.

End of File Two Conclusion of Interview