00:00:01.740 - 00:00:28.110

This is Grandpa Bloomberg, Leon Bloomberg. I was born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 5, 1920. My mother was Rosy Rosenthal who was born in Siemiatycze, which is now Poland near the Russian border, and my father came from a town called - Harry Bloomberg came from

00:00:28.110 - 00:01:06.460

a town called Chotycze, which is south of and east of where my mother's town was about 10 or 12 km, and which is also near the Russian border. My father, my father came over by himself at the age of 17 or 18, and he lived to be 83 years old

00:01:07.270 - 00:01:29.230

and he went to New York where he worked for about a year carrying mattresses on his back in a tenement mattress factory. Carrying them from the basement to the third floor on his back for which he received a dollar a day. [Esther]: He was five foot two. [Leon]: Will that pick up what

00:01:29.240 - 00:01:51.880

Grandma's saying? My father was five foot two or five foot three inches tall. He worked and lived in New York for a year. Enough to get fare to come out of New York and went to Kansas City, Missouri, where he had people from the town that he

00:01:51.890 - 00:02:20.530

came from. Friends of his, and he - [Esther]: What year was that? [Leon]: I don't know. [Esther]: That was 1916 or 17. [Leon]: No it was before the war, I think he came over about 1913 or 14. [unknown]: You're pressing play or record, right? [Leon]: Yeah. You want to play it back to see what it sounds like? What else went on? My father when he came to Kansas City, he became a junk man -

00:02:20.530 - 00:02:47.010

a huckster. [unknown]: Why'd he come to Kansas City? [Leon]: Because I've said that in there. He became a huckster he sold fruits and vegetables from horse and wagon. That's where he met my mother. My mother was working in a bakery owned by - what was it as her cousin? Her cousin? Ben and

00:02:47.010 - 00:03:17.630

don't know what Morris, Shanzer. The last name was Shanzer. They are cousins of my mother's and they were married, and my mother gave birth to me and died 10 months later of cancer. So I never I never got to know my mother. My father remarried

00:03:17.640 - 00:03:43.420

a year and a half or two years later to Frida Schwartzbart, who was from Mogielnica, Poland, which was about 20 or 30 miles south of Warsaw. She was living with her brother Sam Schwartz. And again he met her when he on his huckster routes

00:03:43.420 - 00:04:11.000

selling fruits and vegetables. We lived in Kansas City. I've left out a very important part. After my father, while he was still single, while he was in Kansas City, he brought his brother Frank and his sister Bertha over from the old country, and the brother

00:04:11.000 - 00:04:32.360

went to Portland, Oregon because there were friends out there, and my father went out to Portland too. While in Portland they had a double team of horses and a big wagon and they used to go through Oregon and Washington. The small towns in Oregon and Washington.

00:04:32.840 - 00:04:48.740

And they would buy furs and hides and wool from the farmers, which they shipped back to Portland and sold. My father was in Portland for a couple of years and then he went back to Kansas City because he like Kansas City better. And that's where he

00:04:48.740 - 00:05:18.760

met my mother and got married. When he married my stepmother three years later, a year or so later they had my half brother Morris, and then several years later they had my half brother Izzy. Morris still lives in Kansas City, Missouri. I never see him.

00:05:19.920 - 00:05:40.870

Izzy lives in Fort Worth, Texas, and when my father died, he was buried in Fort Worth, Texas. In the intervening years he he had a junk business. He used to buy junk from a horse and wagon. He used to buy junk from a truck. Then

00:05:40.870 - 00:06:06.400

he had an automobile wrecking yard in a junkyard. And when he in his older years he went to Texas where my brother, half brother, is. He married Jeanie - what was her maiden name? Lipschitz. And he died and was buried in Fort Worth. Now where

00:06:06.400 - 00:06:33.250

do you want to go? When I was born? I went, I I went to school, I went to - started school in Kansas City, Missouri at Olive Street School. That's not important really. And when I was in the third grade we moved to Portland, Oregon

00:06:34.330 - 00:06:53.350

and we lived in Portland, Oregon. We went to Portland by - my father went out there first and then we came out later in the train and we lived in Portland. We lived in two separate locations - two different locations in Portland. [Esther]: You remember one street - [Leon]: One was

00:06:53.350 - 00:07:20.790

at 333 Porter Street and one was on Grand Street. I don't remember the number. [unintelligible] [Leon]: Well that's not really, wait. [unknown]: And you learned English while you were in Portland? [Leon]: Well no, I probably had trouble speaking English when I started school originally because I did

00:07:20.790 - 00:07:40.000

poorly in kindergarten and the only reason I can understand that I did poorly in kindergarten, it was Yiddish was spoken at home and I probably couldn't speak much English. When I went to school we stayed in Portland's where my father was a junk man and in

00:07:40.770 - 00:08:03.690

Portland he worked by himself with his brother, and we stayed there til 1929 when the depression hit and then my father bought a little 1923 model-T Ford half-ton truck, learn to drive and loaded all of us on the truck and took us back to Kansas

00:08:03.690 - 00:08:28.670

City. The furniture was shipped by train, but we all go back to Kansas City, and the trip took us 10 days in the model-T Ford, and as my father couldn't read or write English, I was the navigator. I was, I was nine years old and I was expected

00:08:28.670 - 00:08:47.840

to be able to read the maps and give directions for the trip, and we got to Kansas City. When we got back to Kansas City we moved back in an apartment with an Italian family where we had lived before we went to Portland. I

00:08:47.840 - 00:09:08.040

went back to the same school that I had attended originally in Kansas City, and then from there we lived in four or five other places in Kansas City, at least five other places in Kansas City. I don't know, I don't know. I think I attended three

00:09:08.040 - 00:09:35.060

or four public schools and I attended two junior high schools and two senior high schools. Every year I attended a different school in my high school career. I graduated high school. [Esther]: You used to walk to school in the snow for two miles. [Leon]: Well it was, it was depression years and we couldn't afford carfare. So no matter

00:09:35.440 - 00:09:50.670

how far away the school was, and very often it was two or three miles away, you had to walk back and forth and winters were pretty severe in Kansas City and we didn't get any snow days off. You were expected to get the school the best

00:09:50.670 - 00:10:06.830

way you can. So we walked and if we, if we could, we would thumb rides. If a bunch of us got out on the corner to thumb rides, the crowd got too big. The police would come along and make us walk and follow us while

00:10:06.830 - 00:10:26.210

we walked. But we got to school back and forth for four years. When I graduated high school, I couldn't get a job for about four or five months and then I finally went to work in an automobile wrecking yard, Sheffield Auto Wrecking Company, which was owned

00:10:26.210 - 00:10:45.450

by friends of my father's, where I sold used auto parts to people who would come in to buy them and if I'm necessary, I would have to help dismantle them and take them off trucks. I worked the ad cars, I worked 6.5 days a week and

00:10:45.450 - 00:11:10.780

I made $11 a week while at Sheffield. [Esther]: That was 1937. [Leon]: I was probably about 17 years old or going on 18. I bought my first car, which was a model-A Roadster. Had to tow it out of a man's garage because it wasn't running and the mechanic that worked

00:11:10.780 - 00:11:30.690

in the wrecking yard fixed it up for me and painted it for me, and that car cost me $15. When I got it fixed up, I went out and I spent $25 for radios to put in the car. I kept that car for several years. When

00:11:30.690 - 00:11:50.220

I left the wrecking yard, I went to work in a filling station owned by Dave Bell. It was a Phillips 66 station right across from where we lived at the time, which was on 39th and Park in Kansas City. I kept that car for about two

00:11:50.220 - 00:12:11.260

years and then I sold it to somebody else. Worked in the filling station, had a lot of friends, boys and girls. We had a club at the synagogue. We probably had about 20 or 25 members. We used to have a lot of fun. We had parties

00:12:11.260 - 00:12:36.510

and picnics. Some of my friends, almost all my friends were - parents were better off than mine. A lot of them had cars. My model-A was the chief mode of transportation for a lot of us. I worked in a filling station until the war was imminent -

00:12:36.520 - 00:13:02.450

- the Second World War - and then my cousin Louis, my half cousin Louis Schwartz. Is he a half cousin? Is he a half cousin? [unintelligible] My cousin Louis Schwartz and I and another Jewish boy Louie Cohen who worked in the filling station. I decided to go to an aircraft sheet

00:13:02.460 - 00:13:21.480

metal school, which would cost - I think it cost about $225 to take. I don't remember whether it was a six or eight week course. I had a hard decision to make because It was either go to school. I had $225 saved up. It was either spending

00:13:21.490 - 00:13:47.610

$225 and go to school or by a - what was it - LaSalle convertible for $225. I made the decision to go to school with them and we went to the sheet metal school for - I don't remember whether it was 6 or 8 weeks, and then we had

00:13:47.610 - 00:14:07.960

a choice of where we wanted to work, what aircraft factory where we wanted to work, and I had already been on the west coast as a child. So we decided we'd go east to either Long Island, the Republic Aircraft Company, or Martin in Baltimore, and we

00:14:07.960 - 00:14:28.970

decided we would hit Baltimore first. So we started out in my friend's 1933 Plymouth car. Prior to starting out one of my friends, Melvin Leaper gave us - who worked at a liquor store at the time - gave us three bottles of wine to take on the trip

00:14:28.970 - 00:14:47.660

with us. And on the trip with me driving in Peru, Indiana, we turn I turned the car over trying to pass some trucks on a bridge, and the three bottles of wine broke as the car turned over, and we were afraid to call the the state

00:14:47.660 - 00:15:08.760

police because they would probably figure we'd been drinking. So we just had a farmer call the next town and send out a tow truck, which righted the car, tore the top of it off - it had a cloth top - and this was in December of 1940.

00:15:09.540 - 00:15:35.760

We drove 600 miles from Peru, Indiana to Baltimore, Maryland without a top in December cold winter. And when we got to Baltimore we went to work at the Martin Company. I went to work as a helper on the drop hammers and a drop hammer department

00:15:36.440 - 00:15:54.790

on the night shift for 50 cents an hour. And because I worked on a night shift I think I got it five cents an hour bonus. And we didn't have to work eight hours because of the way the shifts turned out. We only worked seven hours

00:15:54.790 - 00:16:20.410

and 15 minutes, but got paid for eight hours as a bonus for working at night. The first two weeks we came to Baltimore we lived in 900 block of Broadway in a house that housed medical students at the Johns Hopkins Medical School. And two weeks

00:16:20.410 - 00:16:41.360

later after visiting Rabbi Shaw, who was the rabbi of the Oheb Shalom Synagogue, who came from Kansas City originally. We met the secretary of the synagogue who told us that her mother needed income, as her brothers were going away to the army and we should go

00:16:41.360 - 00:17:02.760

out and see her mother to room with her. So we went out there and all three of us roomed with Mrs. Gordon. Now, Louis Schwartz and Louis Cohen were both registered for the draft before we left Kansas City and I was too young to

00:17:02.760 - 00:17:28.920

register for the draft and I didn't register for the draft till I got to - I was already working at the Martin Company in Baltimore. Louis Cohen was only work two weeks until he had a finger chopped off at the drop hammers and at that time I

00:17:28.920 - 00:17:47.960

decided I didn't want to be a drop hammer worker anymore and I threatened to quit and they put me to work with plaster pattern makers in the days before computers. The whole airplane used to be built out of plaster of paris and this served as a

00:17:48.640 - 00:18:10.760

coordinating medium for the whole airplane that everything was coordinated too. They also made all the plaster patterns for drop hammer dies and all kinds of models. And I thought these the original workers that did this were old Italians and old Germans who could barely speak English,

00:18:11.340 - 00:18:32.130

who are brought to this country to work at the capitol in Washington D.C. to make all the fancy columns and cornice work and all the fancy, fancy plasterwork in the capitol buildings. They were hard taskmasters and treated the people who were put to

00:18:32.130 - 00:18:48.930

work with them with slaves and if they didn't like you they wouldn't really teach you anything. They just put you on cleanup work. But I worked with an old Italian fella and he taught me, he taught me the trade after about a year or year and a

00:18:48.930 - 00:19:13.240

half of working with him and I was able to get first class classification, which was instrumental and keeping me out of the army for until a year before the war was over. It was two years before the war was over in Europe. But a

00:19:13.240 - 00:19:40.780

week or two after I - we stopped at Mrs. Gordon's to take a room there I met Esther Levin who lived across the street. [Esther]: Was it one week after you came? [Leon]: One or two weeks after I came. She was brought up - she and her cousin and the girl next door were brought

00:19:40.780 - 00:19:58.740

up by the girl who was the secretary of the Schuyler Brother's house we were living in to meet us and in our bedroom. We entertained three girls in our bedroom. That's where I met my future wife and in my bedroom. She might not

00:19:58.740 - 00:20:25.880

remember that. [Unknown]: What street was that on? [Leon]: That was that was a 1648 Monroe Street in Baltimore. Baltimore, Baltimore was quite an enigma to me because I had never seen row houses before. They call him - where they call them now - they call them call them townhouses. Now in those

00:20:25.880 - 00:20:40.540

days they were called rowhouses. [unknown]: Rowhouses with marble steps. [Leon]: And in order - when I came home from work in order, in the morning in order to find where I lived I used to have to count how many houses it was from the corner because I couldn't tell one house from the

00:20:40.540 - 00:21:14.090

other. Anyway. I met Esther and start taking her out, but maybe about six months later, eight months later. And eventually through a stormy going out period, we finally ended up getting married. She said I didn't want to marry her. She says she

00:21:14.090 - 00:21:40.120

got me because I had contacted pneumonia very seriously and she got me when my resistance was low. I don't know whether that's true and I think I really liked her. [laughing] We were married. I had a deferment I was working. I

00:21:40.120 - 00:21:59.260

was working on the night shift then I was a plaster pattern maker, and I was also personnel contact man for the department. So when new employees were brought into the department, which was almost every night because some people would always come in to go to work

00:21:59.260 - 00:22:14.850

and some people would always quit or go to the army. So there was a steady flow of new people, and my job was to take all the new people on a tour of the plant to explain all the rules and regulations and how are job related

00:22:14.850 - 00:22:30.340

to all the other jobs. To show them where the cafeteria was to show them where the restrooms were. That was an additional to my regular work. So I got to know a lot of people and I got to know the plant very well. I went to

00:22:30.340 - 00:22:50.480

work at the original Martin plant in Middle River and then as the war progressed they built another plant a mile down the road, which was planned to - that was solely for the production of the B-26 Bomber. And that's where I worked until - oh, Esther and

00:22:50.480 - 00:23:36.230

I were married in 19 - [Esther]: March 21 [Leon]: March 21, 1943? '42? '42. [Esther]: Or what is '43? [Leon]: I don't know. [Esther]: No, it must have been '42, I was 22 going on 23. [Leon]: Well it must have been '42. [Esther]: Jackie was born in '44. [Leon]: In '42 we were married. I think we've settled it. And I think we were married in '42. [Esther]: I don't know. [Leon]: '43? [unknown]: No, you just had your 50th, right? [Leon]: All right. We're gonna have our 50th. [unknown]: You're gonna have your 50th, so it's '43.

00:23:36.230 - 00:23:57.560

[Leon]: We just figured it out. We were married in 1943. March 21, 1943 in Baltimore. We walked to the we all walked to the Rabbi on North - off North Avenue and Monroe Street and were married and in a snowstorm, married at the Rabbi's study. And then

00:23:57.560 - 00:24:21.130

the whole wedding party walked back home where we had a reception at her mother's home where we were to live. 1627 Monroe Street in Baltimore. At that time, Monroe Street was Route One going through Baltimore. It was a major, it was a major thoroughfare. Our daughter,

00:24:21.130 - 00:24:52.510

Jaclyn was born and - what was her date? July 27, 1944 and 12 weeks later I went in, I went into the army leaving Esther at home with a 12 week old baby. Luckily she was living with her parents, and luckily her grandfather was a

00:24:52.510 - 00:25:21.070

great help. Her grandmother too, but grandfather especially was a great help take care of the baby. I went to, I was inducted into the infantry, was sent to Camp Croft South Carolina for infantry basic training. We're supposed to get 21 weeks of basic training.

00:25:21.080 - 00:25:40.850

The things start getting worse at one point in the war in Europe. [unknown]: Around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. [Leon]: It was around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. So they cut our training short at 11 weeks and I got a five day delay en route to visit home and we

00:25:40.850 - 00:26:10.110

shipped overseas. Within 12 weeks after I got into the army, I went over seas on the Il de France, which at that time was third third largest ship afloat. Passenger liner that was converted into a troop ship. We had 15,000 troops on board. We traveled

00:26:10.120 - 00:26:28.840

without a convoy because no submarine could I could travel at the speed that the Il de France traveled. So if they would get us it would be just a lucky shot that we didn't need a convoy. We were convoyed by aircraft for a day and a

00:26:28.840 - 00:27:00.830

half out of New York and we were met by aircraft a day out of Greenwich, Scotland, near Glasgow, where we landed, where we debarked. We disembarked at Glasgow, got on trains and went from Glasgow to Southampton to ship across the channel at Southampton. The troop ship

00:27:00.830 - 00:27:28.740

ahead of us was torpedoed. So we, we laid in South Hampton on a ship that carried troops to the Boer War. It was a terrible old boat and they fed us like pigs out of big buckets. The food was awful. The English crew was selling us, black-

00:27:28.740 - 00:27:50.630

marketing us, roast beef sandwiches for 50 cents apiece, which was a lot of money in that - at that day. The captain of the ship was a Scotsman who wore kilts and after three days we went across the English Channel and we landed in Le Havre, France. From

00:27:50.630 - 00:28:20.010

Le Havre, we stayed in Le Havre one or two days. They loaded us on 40 and 8s, which were box cars, about 30 or 40 people, soldiers in each boxcar. And they took us to, I think the next replacement depot we hit was Dienville, France. That

00:28:20.010 - 00:28:41.590

took three or four days because all the railroad tracks were bombed out. So you would go for a while and then you'd have to stop because another train was coming. And and from Dienville we went to several other replacement depots. I can't even remember

00:28:41.590 - 00:29:09.450

the names of them now, and it took us about, I guess about two weeks to get to where we were going. We were shipped to the 94th as infantry replacements. We were shipped to join the 94th Division which had just gone through the Siegfried Line. This

00:29:09.450 - 00:29:32.770

was a the tail end of the Battle of the Bulge. Well we tried to get to them. They had been cut off and we stayed with a graves registration unit for a couple of days, two or three days. And it was very disconcerting to wake up

00:29:32.770 - 00:29:52.400

in the morning and walk outside and see trucks parked with, just stacked with bodies in them stacked up like firewood. In fact, the first night that we hit the town that we were. I think it was only either the Roer or the Moselle River. It was

00:29:52.400 - 00:30:07.540

right on the banks. I don't remember now which river it was, but they told us to find places to sleep the best we could. It was pitch dark when they let us off the trucks and a friend and I chose a barn and we saw two

00:30:07.540 - 00:30:21.510

GIs curled up asleep in the barn and we thought they were asleep, and so we slept there all night. And when we woke up in the morning, they were still in the same position they were in the night before. We went over and checked. We found

00:30:21.510 - 00:30:37.890

out that they were dead. So we had slept with - the first night overseas really on the way to our outfit, we slept with two dead men all night long. In the morning when we walked out, there were a bunch of trucks all piled up and all

00:30:37.890 - 00:31:00.980

day long there were trucks coming back, bodies of Germans and GIs. There would be Germans on the bottom and GIs on top for burial. The officer in charge of the burial outfit gave us food and lodgings best he could and gave us wine to

00:31:00.980 - 00:31:20.260

drink and we got him drunk one night and he got real maudlin, he started crying after we got him drunk and he said, "Gee, you guys are nice guys. Just think probably next week I'll be buried." That's the way, that's the way it was. Well

00:31:20.260 - 00:31:47.000

we got to our outfit, they were in a town of Pellingen, that's right inside of Germany close to where France and Germany and Luxembourg come together. They were pulled back for a three day rest. [tape changes]

00:31:47.000 - 00:32:07.960

[Leon]: Where was I? We joined them in this valley and we had some 155 millimeter guns that were shelling the front, which was 18 miles away and had some piper cubs, small airplanes spotting targets for the artillery, and they noticed that there were German soldiers up on a hill overlooking

00:32:08.440 - 00:32:31.930

the town. It was called Hill 508 was 508ft high. Over this hill ran the main supply route to the front. General Patton was just making a breakthrough and most of the supplies were passing along this route. A battalion of German S.S. mountain troops were sent

00:32:31.930 - 00:32:58.660

in to cut the supply route to the front and we were told - two companies with us - were told to go up and get him out of there. We started up in the afternoon of I guess it was March 6th, and it got dark real quick.

00:32:59.040 - 00:33:18.770

When we got about halfway up the hill, they start shelling us with 120 millimeter mortars. As it was getting dark we couldn't do anything. So we tried to dig foxholes but the ground was still frozen and we couldn't dig foxholes. So we just rolled up in

00:33:18.770 - 00:33:42.110

our shelter halves and try to sleep throughout the night. When we woke up next morning, it was real bright with fluffy clouds and the officers had called for tanks to come and support us as we were to attack next morning, and we waited until 11 o'clock.

00:33:42.110 - 00:34:11.270

It took till 11 o'clock in the morning for five tanks to reach us and we started attacking shortly afterwards. We started out with 173 people, men in our company, and four hours later there were only 71 of us left. I don't know

00:34:11.270 - 00:34:32.470

how many were dead and how many were injured, but there were only 71 men left in the company after the attack was over. A goodly number of them were dead. I was shot. I was shot twice by shrapnel. I picked up 12 pieces of shrapnel in

00:34:32.470 - 00:35:01.290

my back of my legs and in my mouth and I was carried, I had to be carried away from the battle site by medics. I was taken to the Duchess's Summer Palace in Luxembourg City, which had been converted into a general hospital, and I guess

00:35:01.290 - 00:35:25.970

I was brought in there about four o'clock in the afternoon and I laid till 12 o'clock at night until they my turn can be taken in to be operated on. I was awake all the time they worked on me, which was probably about two and a half or three

00:35:25.970 - 00:35:55.860

hours. I remember asking for food all the time. They were working on me because I hadn't eaten since the early - since noon the previous day. I was taken from there to an airfield outside of Luxembourg City. I don't remember the name of the little town.

00:35:56.640 - 00:36:27.090

If if they thought you required extraordinary care, they were to fly you back to Paris. If they thought that you were just had normal care, he went back in the hospital trains. I was to go back in a airplane but the

00:36:27.100 - 00:36:48.630

landing field where the casuals were, it got sucked in and for three days we laid on the ground on litters, because they couldn't fly with the hospital airplanes in and out. When I got to Paris - when it was flown to Paris, which

00:36:48.630 - 00:37:07.870

was my first airplane flight on a DC3 hospital plane, which flew in about 250 or 300 ft all the way to Paris. I could look out and see the farmers working in the fields. I could see the farmers and riding on their carts. I felt like

00:37:07.880 - 00:37:33.550

I could almost reach out and touch them. When we got to Paris, they classified us further, and if you were to require care from 30 to 60 days, you stayed in Paris. If you were 60 to 90 days, you went to England - no, 60 to 120 days

00:37:34.230 - 00:37:59.410

you went to England for hospitalization. If you were more than 120 days they sent you back to the States. I was classified as less than 60 days. So I went to a hospital in Paris. It was in the section of Paris called Villejuif. Villejuif

00:37:59.410 - 00:38:26.680

means 'jew village' and the days before the war it was said a lot of Jews lived in that area. I stayed in bed without turning over even by myself for 31 days. I couldn't even turn over by myself. Once a week they would change my

00:38:26.680 - 00:38:43.840

dressings and got good excellent care. Once a week they would pack all my wounds on my legs. I couldn't get my teeth worked on because they were bringing back a lot of American prisoners that they had released from the German prison camps and they

00:38:43.850 - 00:39:02.190

required dental work more than I did. So I had a broken off tooth in my head that was broken off by shrapnel, but I couldn't get that work done till about - until I had been in the hospital about six weeks I guess. I stayed

00:39:02.190 - 00:39:24.260

in that hospital till my 60 days were up and then they had to release me because that's all I was in. Therefore, I still had five open wounds with dressings on them that were on my legs when I was released from the hospital. From the

00:39:24.260 - 00:39:47.300

hospital, we went to a replacement depot for casuals outside of Paris. There were 13 general hospitals for GIs and Germans in the Paris area. Went to a replacement depot and then at the replacement depot they had a bitch line where if you felt you weren't

00:39:47.300 - 00:40:05.900

ready to go or you felt you still had a medical problem, you could go in there and register your concern. I wanted to know where I was going to get my wounds dressed on the way back to my outfit, which was in Czechoslovakia. Oh, by

00:40:05.900 - 00:40:27.430

the way, by the time I got out of the, uh, no war was still going on at that time. [unintelligible] [Leon]: No, the outfit - - March the 7th was when I was wounded. When I was discharged from the hospital, the war was still going on.

00:40:31.210 - 00:40:50.710

What I got in line the inspecting Doctor Colonel, named Cohen, was looking at my legs and he chewed out the fella in charge of the depot and wanted to know how many men a day like that were being sent back to the front because I

00:40:50.710 - 00:41:17.550

was classified for full field duty in the infantry, and he ordered me back into a convalescent hospital for 30 more days. So I was sent to another convalescent hospital pretty close to Bombard. Altogether I was in three hospitals. I don't really remember the sequence of

00:41:17.550 - 00:41:43.550

the first two. The first hospital was at Saint-Cloud, we'd say "St.Cloud," but it had a "clue." The second hospital was in Villejuif, and the last hospital was pretty close to Bombard. You could walk to Montmartre from the hospital. The army

00:41:43.550 - 00:42:04.000

was very smart about convalescent soldiers. They offer them passes into Paris, 12 hour passes into Paris every day. They figured if you walk around and stuff on your legs and move around a lot, you'll be ready to go back sooner. So I went to

00:42:04.000 - 00:42:24.140

the Paris a lot and got to know Paris pretty well. We went into Paris, they packed us lunches every day because there were no messes for for casual soldiers or soldiers from the hospitals to eat in. So they would pack us a lunch every day and we

00:42:24.140 - 00:42:44.880

would go sightseeing and we would go to Rainbow Corner, which was the USO for the G.I.s. Was as a big hotel that they had made us a a place where they had coffee and donuts and dance bands and games and books. I got to know

00:42:44.890 - 00:43:06.310

Paris pretty well. Go back and they pick you up at night at one of the railroad stations, either Gare de l'Est or Gare Saint-Lazare, and take you back to the hospital. When I was released from the hospital it took me about three weeks to get

00:43:06.310 - 00:43:34.610

back to my outfit, which at that time was in Czechoslovakia in a little town, little village called Dubi hora. And from there we were training. By the time I got out of - before I got out of my convalescent hospital the war had

00:43:34.610 - 00:44:00.390

been over in Europe. I forgot that May the 8th. I forgot to mention that. On the way back on the way back from the hospital to my outfit I stayed in in Nuremberg at a replacement depot where I saw

00:44:00.390 - 00:44:25.810

Jack Benny entertaining. We stayed in the Lindy Stadium where the Nazis used to have all their pageants, and when I joined my outfit they were in Czechoslovakia. We were training at that time to go to Japan because this division wasn't listed to go home.

00:44:27.490 - 00:44:48.540

I wasn't able to train with the guys for about a month after I got back. I was limited duty because I still had open wounds on my legs that were healing. So I did K.P. and took care of the latrines and did all kinds

00:44:48.540 - 00:45:07.610

of menial work. We lived in squad tents. We didn't have any bathing facilities. Another G.I. and I traveled 30 miles each way to a little town that we heard had a public bathhouse only to find out it was closed on that day, and the

00:45:07.620 - 00:45:25.280

next day we did the same thing all over again so we could take a bath. Most of our washing we did was in our helmets, out steel helmet liners. We'd fill them up with warm water. We had garbage cans with warm water, that's where we did

00:45:25.280 - 00:45:59.190

our shaving and our washing and washing our clothes, and we couldn't drink the local water in Czechoslovakia because I had cholera in it. For a while - [pause] Talking too much about the army? [unknown]: No, it's good. [Leon]: Very good. Okay. For a while we couldn't drink the

00:45:59.190 - 00:46:16.170

water so they used to bring, they used to send trucks up to Pilsner, home of pilsner beer, and they used to bring us back beer and they put them in these blister bags out in the hot sun, and we drank hot beer instead of

00:46:16.170 - 00:46:40.060

water because we couldn't drink the water. We stayed and trained in that area for a while and then we moved to a town called Blatna. Blatna was a fair sized little town. It had about 30,000 or 35,000 people in it, and we stayed in

00:46:40.060 - 00:46:59.910

a nice building called a Sokol Hall. That's a gymnastic hall. That's the center of all the small towns in Czechoslovakia. We slept in bunk beds in a bunk room and it had a tavern in the building and it had a gymnasium. The Czechs used to throw

00:47:01.640 - 00:47:21.590

dances for the G.I.s once a week, and while when we hit this town of Blatna, which had previously been occupied by the Russians, there were no MPs in the area, so they took our infantry company and made MPs out of it, and we patrolled the town.

00:47:22.380 - 00:47:44.660

Our biggest thing was to keep the Russian soldiers out of there, who used to sneak back across the line. Czechoslovakia at that time was divided between the United States, between the allies, and the Russians, with a mile of no man's land between and the Russian soldiers

00:47:44.660 - 00:48:02.710

had been there previously. So they had girlfriends and they had friends that they had made. They always try to sneak over and our company commander hated Russians. So he made us made sure that we would bring in all the Russians we would capture.

00:48:02.710 - 00:48:16.880

Then we had the police replaced because it was the largest town in our area. A lot of G.I.s would come there for leave and we would have to police the area to make sure that they were in uniform that there were their caps and neckties.

00:48:18.470 - 00:48:35.230

Our biggest joy in life was bringing in officers who weren't worried of capture at that time. The Russian soldiers, we felt sorry for If we caught them we would, when we could, we would tell them how to sneak back out. We wouldn't bring them in because

00:48:35.230 - 00:48:58.490

if we brought him in, our company commander would put them in trucks and take them 35 miles down the road, turn 'em back loose, and we felt sorry for them. So we didn't bring them in. We stayed until in Czechoslovakia until until the division got

00:48:58.490 - 00:49:22.100

orders to move out. A lot of men were going home. They had enough points to go home and I didn't have enough points. Those of us that didn't have enough points. I went to Southern Germany there, a town called - Well, let's see where is

00:49:22.100 - 00:49:53.010

the Passion Play. That's it. Connor, what's the name of the city that, they've had Olympic ski meets there? I'll be there. Southern Germany, can't think of it. Anyway, we we went to Southern Germany and in the foothills of the alps and they shipped a lot

00:49:53.010 - 00:50:15.820

of the high point men home and us low pointer stayed there and then they sent us to a small town called Walenchsee and see that was way up in the alps, beautiful country and we prepared a place, a separation center there and from there the low

00:50:15.820 - 00:50:38.970

pointers of us. Oh what I forgot to say - there was one the latter days we were in Czechoslovakia. I was in a special parade battalion made up of all soldiers that were 5ft 10 and over and in height and we had special uniforms and

00:50:38.980 - 00:51:03.720

we were sent to all the parades where Russians and French and English soldiers would be, being that most of the other countries had short soldiers. We were supposed to look sharp because we were all tall and from southern Germany they took all

00:51:03.720 - 00:51:24.920

of us tall guys and sent us down to the war trials in Nuremberg. Some of us went to the Big Red One Division, and they were guarding all the Nazis in their cells and the jails, and I was sent to a medium tank battalion which guarded

00:51:24.920 - 00:51:49.800

the military government buildings, the courthouse, the road junctions and properties that had been taken away from Jews like large distilleries and the likes of that. It wasn't bad duty. We would go out on these posts for 24 hours at a time and

00:51:49.810 - 00:52:13.120

live on the post and then they would take us back to the area. At that time we lived in, our area was Firth right outside of Nuremberg. We lived in apartment type houses, two men to a room. My roommate and I occupied the

00:52:13.120 - 00:52:32.870

kitchen because I that the stove and as we had lousy cooks in our area, by that time I became company mail clerk. I got to be around the headquarters a lot. So when the food came in my room mate and I would get our

00:52:32.880 - 00:52:52.290

food from the kitchen before they cooked it, and we would cook ourselves over one of our stoves. My buddy, my roommate became battalion Sergeant Major in charge of breaking down all the PX rations and passing them out. The PX ration, the cigarettes and the soap

00:52:52.290 - 00:53:13.090

and candy and all the rations, whiskey that we got. So it was great for me because after he broke down rations, he would always bring me an extra box rations which I could black market and get extra money to to do things with. We stayed in

00:53:13.090 - 00:53:34.500

Nuremberg, I attended half a dozen or so sessions of the trials. I saw all the Nazis who were on trial and during the trials it was quite exciting. When it came time for me to go home, my company commander knew that I'd like to

00:53:34.510 - 00:53:52.950

travel and there was an opening for a trip to go to Switzerland for 8 or 10 days, I don't remember which now, on the same day that I was supposed to leave for home and he said - what do you want to do? He said. I said,

00:53:52.950 - 00:54:06.190

well I want to go home. I said I'd like to go to Switzerland cause I never figured I'd be able to afford to go to Switzerland on my own. So they said well you go to Switzerland , the first day that you come back

00:54:06.190 - 00:54:23.510

I'll send you on your way home. So I went to Switzerland. I had a ball for whatever it was, 8 or 10 days. Went to Basel and Bern and Geneva and Sion in the Montreux and saw pretty well in the whole country we did, and

00:54:23.510 - 00:54:43.060

the whole trip cost us $85 a piece. We stayed at first class hotels and out of the $85 we had $50 for spending money and it was like heaven in Switzerland because they hadn't been touched by the war. The women all looked good. There were cars,

00:54:43.060 - 00:55:06.720

there were pastries in the shops, there were no bombed out buildings, the restaurants had food in them and it was just normal everyday living. It was like heaven. When I came back I was shipped home, and when I got home we got back to the house

00:55:06.720 - 00:55:31.870

on Monroe Street my daughter Jackie was almost two years old - or two years old, and I was so used to sleeping by myself in a sleeping bag that the first night I was home I couldn't sleep with my wife because I've just my sleeping

00:55:31.880 - 00:55:55.230

bag. I had to sleep on the floor by myself wrapped up in a blanket. That's one of the things that I remember. Is that enough for now? [unknown]: Yeah, that's good. [Esther]: It went on for about an hour. [Leon]: He doesn't have enough tape. [unintelligible] You want

00:55:55.230 - 00:56:18.860

to talk grandma? [Esther]: No [unintelligible]. [unknown]: Okay. I got another tape. [Esther]: Yeah. [Leon]: So that takes me through the - When you review that, when you review that you can - you want me to rewind it? Leave where it is? Did I stop it?