Jump to: Tape 01, Tape 03, Tape 04, Tape 05
WWII Veteran Transcript
Subject: Werner Kleeman
Interviewer: Bobby Allen Wintermute
Tape Number: 02 of 05
Interview Date: May 5th , 2009
Transcriber: Matthew McCann
Transcription Date: July 15th, 2009
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Interviewer: Test, Werner Kleeman interview two, May fifth, 2009. May 5th, 2:15,
picking up on the second day of conversations with Werner Kleeman of Flushing,
Queens, present is myself, Lawrence Capello and Werner Kleeman. When we last
left off Werner we were talking about your arrival in the United States from
England, you had made it to the United States you want reflect or remind us
your reception in America in 1940?
Kleeman: I came here with two suitcases and two dollars and fifty cents in my
pocket, mine was a few dollars more because I came from England, the two
dollars and fifty’s was what was allowed to take out of Germany, but I had a few
to, to find the Subway I walked from the dock to the forty second street subway
and took a train to Jackson Heights where I had a cousin living.
Interviewer: What docks did you arrive at?
Kleeman: I believe it was Dock Fifty on 52nd Street, it was an old British ship
at that time, that was the only ship crossing from Liverpool to New York because
they other boats they were running but I didn’t have the money I had to buy the
cheapest ticket for thirty shillings or thirty pounds I don’t remember. It was
all blackout boat, because the submarines were out it was wartime, and the
submarines the German submarines were chasing and sinking British ships;
freighters, passenger ships, anything they could find.
Interviewer: How many people were on the ship that you travelled.
Kleeman: Not to, about two hundred. Some young people from Ireland and quite a
few refugees from England it was very plain sailing nothing luxurious like
other cruise, liners.
Interviewer: Were there any other Germans or any other Jews on board?
Kleeman: Yeah there was some German Jewish people on board, one lady I liked to
see, she was seasick she was laying in her, in her bunk seven or eight days
without going out. When people get seasick, forget about it.
Interviewer: Did you have any fears on the passage over, either-
Kleeman: Well you had-
Interviewer: -fears of Submarines or fears of not being allowed entry.
Kleeman: Well you had a fear of submarines, that was the greatest fear because
if they catch you, you were finish. They were powerful.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: But, but the ocean is big so they didn’t find us.
Interviewer: What entrance into the United States, were you afraid you may be
grant-
Kleeman: Seven O’clock in the Morning you see the first land, a little after
daybreak way out past Brooklyn if you know what I’m talking about.
Interviewer: Describe that the approach.
Kleeman: Takes about, then a captain goes aboard a local captain who guides the
ship in to New York Harbor, they don’t let foreigner run in that harbor because
those captains know the harbor better. That goes for every boat, I don’t know
if it’s still today or not, but in those days no, no foreign captain were
allowed to sail a ship in New York Harbor, I don’t, that still exists?
Interviewer: I think so, yes.
Kleeman: Yeah, whatever, the Harbor is very tricky they have to know the lanes
where the ship can go.
Interviewer: So you come up past Brooklyn.
Kleeman: Past Brooklyn-
Interviewer: What do you see?
Kleeman: -on one side and Staten Island on the other side and we came up the
Hudson River.
Interviewer: Did you pass the Statue of Liberty?
Kleeman: Yeah, that’s what, where you, eyes open up.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: You see the downtown first.
Interviewer: How did that look to you, a German man coming-
KLeeman: The downtown with the skyscrapers, Wall Street already had skyscrapers
in those days and it’s very impressive. And the ship goes very slow up the
Hudson till it reaches the bay where its being guided in. That’s well, very, I
would say exciting of course you, you were part of the New World to come into,
I don’t recall, I’m sure we passed the Statue of Liberty, because when you come
up it’s, she lays on the left side, but I don’t remember now.
Interviewer: You were at the right side looking at that city.
Kleeman: Whether, I’m sure we’ve seen it but whether we were excited I don’t
remember.
Interviewer: There were accounts in 1939 in 1940 of Jewish, German Jewish
refugees being denied access to the United States.
Kleeman: Being denied access?
Interviewer: Correct.
Kleeman: Well you had to go to the German Consulate, where ever your district was,
and there was a medical team that would examine you and see whether you fit to be
admitted to the United States, I had to go in London to the consulate to get
clearance.
Interviewer: How did they treat you at the consulate?
Kleeman: Oh they treated you very nicely, they, in, once your in England they,
they know you already passed a lot of things, and they take, they treat you very
nice. And the American Consulate in England is the same building where the
American Embassy was at that time I think it was Kennedy was the Ambassador.
Interviewer: Joseph Kennedy.
Kleeman: Joseph Kennedy is if I remember, I’m not sure, but you have no
connections with him, because the consul has it’s own entrance and you go in and
you stay maybe two three hours and you walk out, with your passport and your
immigration, I can show an, in a passbook what it looks.
Interviewer: We’ll look at that in a bit yes.
Kleeman: Yeah, yeah.
Interviewer: The concern I’m describing though, there was a famous incident
involving a German ship that, the passengers who were all Jewish were not
allowed into the United States.
Kleeman Was that the ship that first went to Cuba?
Interviewer: Yes.
Kleeman: Well they all had bought tickets for that-
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: -and I think they got a visa to go to Cuba.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: And when they got to Cuba they were refused.
Interviewer: Then they were refused entry.
Kleeman: Then they came here and they were refused in America.
Interviewer: Was that a concern that you may be.
Kleeman: That was I think that was after my.
Interviewer: It was after your trip okay.
Kleeman: But that was well written up, that they went, they went back to Germany
and most of them were, went to the camps and were exterminated.
Interviewer: So you were not afraid of being sent back or?
Kleeman: No, no, no. I was in a British ship, if anything the only could have
happened we would have gone down to the bottom of the sea, even if they had
captured us they couldn’t have taken the ship back to Germany.
Interviewer: You arrive at dock fifty-two.
Kleeman: You know what I mean?
Interviewer: I do, I do.
Kleeman: That’s, that’s how it was that time, sink or-
Interviewer: Sink or swim. Let me pause here for one moment.
[Recording pauses]
Kleeman: They searched it and they let him go.
Interviewer: This was your uncle who was went to Italy you said.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: Okay. So you arrive at dock fifty-two, pier fifty-two.
Kleeman: I, my trip was exempt for the submarines there was no other problem, if
you know what I’m saying.
Interviewer: What kind of inspection did they give you?
Kleeman: They give you no instruction. They just tell you ‘if you go out on deck,
don’t smoke, don’t have a light, don’t do anything like that,’ so in case somebody
flies over they don’t want to be spotted.
Interviewer: Did you see any British or American navy ships during your journey?
Kleeman: No. On that cruise, I did not see anything, I did not see an airplane
and I did not see any other ships.
Interviewer: And but nothing but a hundred-
Kleeman: We were all by ourselves.
Interviewer: Nothing but a hundred periscopes I’m sure.
Kleeman: I saw ships on the next convoy when I went back to England, and then
there was between fifty and a hundred ships on a convey and the airplanes from
America went halfway and the other airplanes from England came to protect us,
the other half. And there, that convoy had destroyers.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: They were circling the convoy.
Interviewer: Well before that you arrive in America, you arrive in New York,
pier fifty two.
Kleeman: Pier Fifty-Two.
Interviewer: Were you inspected upon arrival? Were there doctors to inspect
you?
Kleeman: No, there’s no in, there’s examination or anything.
Interviewer: They just let you off the ship?
Kleeman: You have Consul gives you the what they give you the Blue Card that
gives you permission to work, and once you, in your passport, no stopping once
you come in.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: As far as I remember.
Interviewer: Now you had lived in England so you had acquired English.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: You knew where to find your family? In Jackson Heights?
Kleeman: I knew the address that’s about all.
Interviewer: Tell me in detail the Journey from Pier 52 to Jackson Heights. I
want to know everything.
Kleeman: The first thing I did I drove the boat on ninth or tenth avenue I went
in and got a hair cut.
Interviewer: How much was that?
Kleeman: With my suitcases everything I was so disgusting long hair I figured
I’d get a haircut to look respectable, then after that.
Interviewer: But how much did they charge you for the haircut?
Kleeman: Don’t ask me.
Interviewer: Don’t remember?
Kleeman: I remember.
Interviewer: How much?
Kleeman: Couple of dollars.
Interviewer: And you brought two dollars and fifty cents with you.
Kleeman: I told him this ‘this is all I can afford’ But they thought I must a
stranger they’ll take me over.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: Those, those barber shops down on tenth avenue they’re waiting for
dumb travelers, I don’t know if there’s, well they’re not that powerful
anymore because the airports take the traffic away.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: But in those days they were waiting.
Interviewer: So you got your beautiful haircut.
Kleeman: I got my haircut I was clean, and then I went to Jackson Heights and.
Interviewer: Well after that you how you got there.
Kleeman: Knocked, Knocked, knocked at the door and my cousin opened.
Interviewer: You had fifty cents how did you get to Jackson Heights from?
Kleeman: Subway, nickel.
Interviewer: Nickel Subway?
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: How did you read the map? How did you know?
Kleeman: I didn’t read the map I inquired, I had no map. I inquired ‘How do I
go to Jackson Heights?’ I knew enough English and they told me, to go to this,
go to forty second street and seventh avenue and go down and take the train to
Flushing.
Interviewer And how did they treat you as a new arrival? People, in General?
Kleeman: They were nice, they were nice. Course, you could tell we were
wearing German Clothes, German hats, Germany everything. You could we were
refugees.
Interviewer: Yeah. I have to ask because you’re coming to New York.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: From Germany, you come to New York which is a multi-ethnic city
in 1941. There are Italians, there are Poles, there are Irish, there are
Blacks, what is your thought coming to this big Metropolis, of so many
people?
Kleeman: Well you worry about yourself, you don’t worry, who’s next to you or
what you’re facing, you worry that, I didn’t know that those relatives didn’t
even know I was coming. But I was lucky, I knocked at the door, am here and
I want to stay here.
Interviewer: So what do your relatives do when they see you?
Kleeman: They made me comfortable and I stayed one or two days and I said I
have to go to work and I took, went to Manhattan on a train and I started
running up and down Broadway to look for a job.
Interviewer: Well what was Jackson Heights like, in nineteen forty one.
Kleeman: Jackson Heights was an, in those days an elegant borough, it was
young, it was clean it wasn’t overcrowded the subway was the way it is
today practically, but half of the buildings weren’t there.
Interviewer: What was there instead? In, in, you say it was a young
elegant borough, was there farmland was there parks?
Kleeman: Well it was more building lots, corners and in between open land but
there was no more farms there.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: It was, it was built up aleady in mostly apartment houses, few blocks
with row houses every so often, but on the corners were usually apartment houses.
Interviewer: Did your family live in a row house or did they rent and apartment.
Kleeman: No in an Apartment house, and this cousin he was in about one or two
years already, he came and his father in law bought him as a farewell gift a
new car.
Interviewer: What kind of car was it?
Kleeman: A Ford.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: So he came with a car.
Interviewer: Yeah?
Kleeman: But he didn’t want to spend money driving it, and registering it, so he
put in the garage a few blocks, a block away from where he rented an apartment
and they put the car on stilts so it wouldn’t stand on the tires and he didn’t
use it for a few years.
Interviewer: A lot of people did that in wartime, yeah.
Kleeman: Yeah, you understand what I mean?
Interviewer: I know exactly what you mean.
Kleeman: Every so often he walked over to the garage to see that the car was
there.
Interviewer: When you come to America and many of these questions I’m asking
about your perceptions of a new place, there’s different music what do you
think of the American music when you arrive.
Kleeman: The American?
Interviewer: Music.
Kleeman: Music I didn’t, I was never very much in Music so I didn’t hear
anything.
Interviewer: No swing or Jazz or?
Kleeman: It passed me away completely.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: I was not ready to go to a movie or anything like that, I, I was poor,
I had no money for anything. So that, didn’t occur to me to radio I think
existed then already.
Interviewer: Yes it did.
Kleeman: Yeah, radio existed, because they radio you could hear some news once
in a while.
Interviewer: So much of American identity though is about music and movies in
the 1930s. Did you feel excluded because you weren’t-
Kleeman: I didn’t, I didn’t miss it, I really didn’t miss it because I had no
hearing, no musical inclination even in High School where I was supposed to be
taking Music, I wasn’t very active in it.
Interviewer: You remember, you mentioned the news, do you remember the, the
big news stories when you arrived about the war, what kind of stories.
Kleeman: Well the biggest story was when the war started, December 7th. That
was a big story, that was the exciting day.
Interviewer: What about what was happening in Britain? With the Blitz?
Kleeman: Well we heard it about five o’clock in the afternoon. Because there
was you know there excitement going on.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: That was a big, the biggest of the year I would, of course the year
was over December 7th.
Interviewer: Yeah. What about, you stay with your family-
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: -your cousins, what were their views on politics.
Kleeman: It was, I slept in the living room on the sofa, they had no extra
bedroom or anything, and I stayed there they let me stay and I stayed there
for couple of years, till I went in the army.
Interviewer: Into the army. Who did they vote for, who did they favor in
politics.
Kleeman: Well that time Roosevelt was president.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: Yeah, there was no, here was no problem. No discussion about it,
everybody accepted Roosevelt. And what can I tell you?
Interviewer: What were your thoughts about Roosevelt, coming from Germany?
Kleeman: Well we knew very little.
Interviewer: But I mean, you’re here now.
Kleeman: Yeah I’m saying we knew he was considered a hero, he put the country on
it’s feet, and he was a respected man. Very great politician.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: In New York, people do different things for leisure time.
Interviewer: In New York?
Kleeman: In New York. In New York, it’s a metropolitan city, you have to, your
eyes open up. When, no matter what you do, where you go, at that time there
were just the building and opening La Guardia Airport. 1940 there was, the
first local airplanes to travel a little in the air. So that was all new it
was all growing, but I, I know I didn’t get to sit in a car for two years in
America.
Interviewer: Really?
Kleeman: I didn’t, nobody invited me, nobody offered. The average home didn’t
have a car in those days.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: And cars in those days was more or less a luxury or business people.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: So I didn’t, my cousin, when I was there never took his car out,
never registered it.
Interviewer: He put it on stilts yeah.
Kleeman: He ran the motor once in a while.
Interviewer: Not then.
Kleeman: With a German, with a steering wheel on the, no the steering wheel was
on the right side in England it would have been on the wrong side.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: We think about, again of your perspective as a German coming to
America, alright, as a young man, you probably had your own interests your own
sports interests and thoughts about, about football and such. You come to
America it’s a different sport, a different game.
Kleeman: All different, everything is different, the traffic, the sports, the
life, the hours, everything is different.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: You have to adjust yourself, you’re here to stay.
Interviewer: Did you get to Coney Island at all?
Kleeman: That time I didn’t go to Coney Island. I didn’t go, I don’t
think I went to Coney Island.
Interviewer: No?
Kleeman: I should remember. Maybe I went one Sunday to Coney Island, I
don’t, I really don’t remember.
Interviewer: Okay, well we’ll move it forward, what kind of job did you get when
you first arrived?
Kleeman: I got a job it, I was here, early December, I think it was, or middle
of December, I walked Broadway up and down from Forty-Second Street down-
Interviewer: That’s a long walk.
Kleeman: And I got as far as Fourteenth Street and I went into, there was a
department store, called S. Klein, and I went in and they hired me on the spot.
Interviewer: To do what?
Kleeman: Stockroom.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: They show you how to, put labels on the dresses and so on and so
forth.
Interviewer: This is Broadway and fourteenth?
Kleeman: Broadway and fourt-
Interviewer: Right by Union Square?
Kleeman: Fourth Avenue and Fourteenth Street.
Interviewer: Oh fourth and fourteenth.
Kleeman: Union Square.
Interviewer: Right on Union Square, okay.
Kleeman: They kept you right there, they made you start the minute they hired
you and they had, they had a lot of refugees there, the refugees worked for
less then the Americans, and also they had union problems, so the refugees were
hired by a brother in law who had a Minsk pants business in the Neighborhood
but the payroll came, he paid the man. So the Union couldn’t, throw us out.
Interviewer: Did you have trouble with the union people personally?
Kleeman: No we never met them, we never met them.
Interviewer: No?
Kleeman: This was union high level, if you know what I…we knew about it and we
knew we got paid from the other firm.
Interviewer: So how did you feel being a well educated.
Kleeman: You were happy you had a job, you didn’t look you didn’t worry, because
you got paid in cash, you didn’t even need a bank account. They, they held us
down to a minimum, and it was so bad they had a cafeteria to feed us, and they
were subsidizing the food in that cafeteria, we were able to buy salami
sandwiches other sandwiches for two or three cents a piece. Because everybody
strapped if you know what I mean. So they subsidized us.
Interviewer: How many hours did you work?
Kleeman: Forty eight hours and if it was overtime they paid you extra regular
time, they didn’t believe in overtime.
Interviewer: How many days a week?
Kleeman: Five, six days.
Interviewer: Six days?
Kleeman: If I remember? And at least it was a job. And you had a little money.
And It was before Christmas nobody else would have hired you then. So we were
lucky, and some of us they kept for after Christmas they didn’t, they didn’t
throw us out. Some of them they didn’t need, but I was kept, so I was lucky.
Interviewer: The whole time there you were a stock person? Stock boy? The
whole time?
Kleeman: Stock clerk, stock clerk.
Interviewer: The whole time?
Kleeman: All the time yeah, that was the main job for us to, to put, the labels
had to be sewn into the dresses, in such, and sealed so no one steal one or
change one. They had management who controlled all of those things. In those
days do you know there were women who might take one label and put it on another
dress or something?
Interviewer: Did that happen? That happened?
Kleeman: So they sealed it with a seal, so you couldn’t remove it, and changed
it, that was professional, he was the big boss he was controlling that. He had
developed the system, the system had six or eight different numbers on it. One
number the supplier, another one was the date, everything was on that tag. And
if the dress didn’t sell in eight days, then it was marked down.
Interviewer: Wow.
Kleeman: Another eight days, it was marked down again, because their business
was strictly cash, cash on a line and they bought all leftovers from
manufacturers and sold them out cheap, and the women who came their they knew
it, and they knew how to shop.
Interviewer: What kind of women were they? What kind of people?
Kleeman: I would say, a lot of middle aged women, of course we didn’t know who
was American who was Italian, who was Greek, we, we didn’t have the brain to
study it or look at it that way, they were all customers, and they, the store
was very busy, they had two stores they had the regular store, then they had
an annex at half a block away, the annex was used for better clothes and of
course the customers knew that they were paying more and they got better
quality over there. And of course besides dresses they handled coats and
jackets everything, mostly for women, I don’t think, if I remember I don’t
think they handled anything for men.
Interviewer: What about children?
Kleeman: Children they handled, yeah. There was two or three floors, and I
don’t, elevators, I don’t they had an escalator, they had elevators.
Interviewer: What other businesses operated at that time? What other
businesses were there, I mean?
Kleeman: Around the corner was Orback’s, that was the big competition, and
down the block was the department store Hern’s that carried everything,
and otherwise was chain stores on 14th street.
Interviewer: Wollworth’s and such?
Kleeman: Chain stores who had, different stores in different cities.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: Yeah, most of them they could afford the rent and they could
compete with the other stores.
Interviewer: What did you think of there being so many stores on top of each
other?
Kleeman: Well you, you didn’t you excepted you had no, you, you didn’t have
time to think. I learned fast.
Interviewer: Some people are overwhelmed by the choices.
Kleeman: No I learned fast because I was young and I knew I had to settle, I
had to stay you know?
Interviewer: How much was rent for your cousin? How did your cousin pay for
rent, in-
Kleeman: In paid eight dollars for food and sleeping for a week, I made twelve
and I paid eight so I had for dollars to spend and out of the four I wanted to
save two in case I got laid off.
Interviewer: It didn’t go far. Amazing.
Kleeman: You people don’t know what it is when you, I don’t call it hardship,
once you’re working you make your own dollar you don’t have to ask anybody to
help you.
Interviewer: Other questions about New York.
Kleeman: Today’s generation young fellows couldn’t live like that.
Interviewer: You’d be surprised, some of them do pretty good.
Kleeman: Well some of them go out in the woods and do other things that are
different. Am I right? They explore, they take a boat they do all kinds of
things now. I, I’ll say the young generation is more daring today.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Yeah, they, they well, the whole country has changed in sixty, seventy
years.
Interviewer: It has, it has.
Kleeman: We think for the better
Interviewer: What was it, other questions about New York City. What were your
expectations of the police? You had come from a country where the police dogged
your every move.
Kleeman: Well we had no, no imagination, you just figured you had to, to do the
best you can, you, you walked you did all kinds of things, sometimes Sunday we’d
walk down to the airport to watch there for an hour or two, planes coming and
going.
Interviewer: I mean, the police in Germany, watched you.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: They, they observed you they were constantly around.
Kleeman: They kept a record of you, that they didn’t have in America.
Interviewer: What did you think of that?
Kleeman: You didn’t think, you took it for granted they didn’t know I was here
except that when you get off the boat you registered, that’s about the only
thing I think they know, I don’t even think they know where you are.
Interviewer: That didn’t shock you at the time?
Kleeman: No, I don’t remember. I don’t believe, maybe they asked you where
you’re going, I’m not sure.
Interviewer: But I mean the freedom to move around.
Kleeman: The freedom.
Interviewer: Was that a surprise?
Kleeman: It was all freedom, there was no restrictions no day, no night,
nothing. You were free, you had money you could go out to a nightclub
[laughs].
Interviewer: If you had the money, but you only had two dollars.
Kleeman: In those days not many people had money.
Interviewer: No. You of course, you, you were, person of faith, you came to
America, persecuted as a Jew, you’re now in a country where you could worship
freely.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you go to Synagogue upon arrival? Did you go to temple?
Kleeman: Yeah I went to temple, where I, on Saturday or Friday night if I had
time. Cause you met some people there, yeah.
Interviewer: Did, did American Jews ask you or treat you differently?
Kleeman: Yeah, well they, they took a little interest they weren’t overexcited,
but they talked to you. But well you didn’t go there for help anyhow, you went
there see something different and you know, in your religion that’s all.
Interviewer: What did you think of the rabbis and the-
Kleeman: They were nice people. They were educated, you could tell.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Yeah, they very educated and they knew how to run the synagogue
they were more or less in charge. And they, the did the best they could.
American people that time were not very religious minded.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: The young ones didn’t want to go to Hebrew School.
Interviewer: There’s a book I want to bring you about that, it’s in my office,
about American Jews who go to war, and they come back from the war more
religious then they were-
Kleeman: Oh yeah, we had them in the army, they didn’t want to be Jews, we
six-hundred Jewish boys in the fourth division, half of them probably never
knew there was a rabbi in the division, and Friday night service maybe twenty
people came. That’s, that’s they were not trained they were not educated in a
religious way, that’s, that we know, but like you say when they came back,
they realized they were missing something. Some of them, became not religious,
but, religion minded, yeah, we know that, we know that.
Interviewer: You felt of course religious minded.
Kleeman: Yeah, well I was already more educated in a religion then most of
them were.
Interviewer: Did anyone try to introduce you to their daughters while you were
in the temple? Did anyone try to introduce you to their daughter or their
sister?
Kleeman: Not in those days, you met a few boys, you joined a little youth
group in the temple but it wasn’t very exciting.
Interviewer: But no mothers were looking for, for-
Kleeman: No, no, no. No mother were presenting their daughters [laughs].
That happened to me when I was home in Uniform, and when I was in the army
in the hospital in Arkansas. There were a couple of families from Chicago
they misfit daughters, they, they presented them [laughs].
Interviewer: And you said no thank you.
Kleeman: You see, most every family has someone to marry off. You hit in right
on the heads, it’s, you, no matter where you went if they knew you were single
they all knew somebody. That happened to me quite a bit.
Interviewer: How long were you in New York before you began thinking about your
family, back in-
Kleeman: Well my family came about a month or two later.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: The boat went back to England and on the trip back to America my family
was on that same boat.
Interviewer: Kay, where did they live, when they came? Did they live with your
cousin as well?
Kleeman: No they, lived two days with my cousin but they were, went to Baltimore
because I had relatives in Baltimore, an Aunt and a brother and so on, but I
didn’t want to go to Baltimore I wanted to stay in New York.
Interviewer: What did your family do in Baltimore?
Kleeman: Well they slowly adjusted, my father was an a medical man for two years
in his Army and he became they, they knew a family who had a sick father and my
father was hired to be a companion. So that family had a car and money and they
took the man out for rides and everything and my father started that type of a
job to make some money.
Interviewer: Did he stay with that later, or?
Kleeman: No, he, I don’t remember, maybe he stayed a year or so.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Then he got through someone else another job in a factory where he
was making more money.
Interviewer: Did he ever desire to own his own business again. He had been a
business man, he owned a business.
Kleeman: Yeah. No he didn’t, he was too old for any business.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: He was already, close to sixty-
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: And didn’t know the language.
Interviewer: Did he pick up the language?
Kleeman: Very little. It’s very hard for people that age to start learning. A
few words you pick up.
Interviewer: Did he ever voice any regrets about, did he ever mention any
regrets or-
Kleeman: No, no they were happy they came out, they were practically two months
before the war started.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: They were lucky that’s what, you know what I mean.
Interviewer: I do, I do.
Kleeman: That I worked and brought them out just maybe two months before
Germany declared war on Poland.
Interviewer: Did your father want you to come to Baltimore or-
Kleeman: Yeah he was happy, he was happy because a sister in law was in
Baltimore, relatives you know.
Interviewer: But did he, did he want you to come to Baltimore?
Kleeman: No he didn’t insist on it. I wouldn’t have gone anyhow I felt New York
is good enough for me, you can’t make it in New York you don’t make it, period.
Interviewer: That’s right, that’s a song about that you know. That’s a song
about that you know.
Kleeman: Well I tried very hard. I tried very hard because I felt sooner or
later you, you have to, grow a little you know? You can’t become, you can’t
stay a refugee all your life.
Interviewer: True. When was the last time that you saw your father?
Kleeman: I saw my father?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Oh I went there about maybe three, four months for a day or two, oh
I went there quite often.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: By train, yeah, yeah, no it was no, no problem.
Interviewer: Okay. What about your other family members.
Kleeman: They went to Baltimore.
Interviewer: They were all there.
Kleeman: All of them went to Baltimore, I didn’t want to go.
Interviewer: Are any of them still there or are you the last?
Kleeman: Yes, still there. One brother went to Israel 1936 because that the
only country open that time where he could go. We were all digging to find a
place where to go.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: And was very difficult but we made it.
Interviewer: There’s talk, people who study America in the thirties, they do
note that while America was a different, better place then Germany there was
a measure of Anti-Semitism, in the United States
Kleeman: There was. We knew that when we were here because what was it the
Wheeler and the guy flew the first airplane.
Interviewer: Lindberg?
Kleeman: Lindberg and there was the Senator Taft, there was a lot of
Anti-Roosevelt feeling.
Interviewer: And that translated into Anti-Jewish feeling you think?
Kleeman: Yeah. Yeah, but there were more what I call the WASP people, they
didn’t like Jews. And they didn’t, Henry Ford was one of them, lot of Jews
refuse to by a Ford, because he didn’t want to deal with Jews he, he only
dealt with J.P Morgan he wouldn’t talk to Lehman Brothers, he, there were a
lot of them like that. But, but, but the, I wouldn’t say the majority but it
was what can I tell you? A mixed feeling. They didn’t want America to fight
war with Germany they I think they would have loved Hitler to come here,
they might have opened the gates for him.
Interviewer: But at the same time, there were people who accepted you. Who,
non-Jews who Gentiles who accepted
Kleeman: Well we were a minority, we really had nothing to say.
Interviewer: Although in New York City, you know, there’s strength in numbers,
even in a small place like, or in a place like New York if you have enough
people like you.
Kleeman: You had a major-, you had a lot of Jews in New York, but not a
majority. The city was not at that time had no Jewish Mayor, the first Jewish
Governor was Lehman I believe in 1932 I don’t remember exactly when.
Interviewer: But there was enough Jews in New York so that there was a
community and-
Kleeman: Community yeah, synagogues were built and they were filling them up
once a year on high holidays, for that purpose they built big synagogues.
Temple Emanuel is supposed to have been the largest temple in the United
States. But they were not religious Jews. They were Jews, broadminded and
they stuck together. They had their own clubs they had their own
neighborhood their own buildings and everything.
Interviewer: Were, was that like the experience of Jews in Germany you think,
before the Nazis?
Kleeman: I don’t remember that it was that predominant, like, like it was
here. I don’t know if you ever read the ‘Our Crowd’ the book by Steven
Birmingham, he describes it in a big way.
Interviewer: Yeah, okay.
Kleeman: But he lived in that neighborhood, so he was able to able to describe
it all.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: But they lived their own lives, they had no time for refugees they
had no, no time to invite you in for a cup of tea or anything. They did not
deprive themselves of anything.
Interviewer: What was your thoughts, and this is probably more related to you
when you go South, in the Army, what was your thoughts about racism towards
African Americans? Racism against Blacks. What was your thoughts about Jim
Crow and American’s attitudes towards Blacks. Being as you came from-
Kleeman: I said, you watched it, you saw it, but it didn’t excite us if you
know what I mean.
Interviewer: Even in the south? When you were in the army? Even when you were
in the south. In the-
Kleeman: In the south you were separated you were in the army, the army had the
blacks on one side and the whites on the other side. They were never mixed in
the barracks or in the dining room, even in the camp they were separated.
Interviewer: Wasn’t that, didn’t that strike you as strange?
Kleeman: That, that was the accepted condition I suppose in the country. And
like I say, you, it lasted ‘till Eisenhower, changed the laws a little bit. I
don’t know if he did it on his own or whether he was forced to do it we don’t
know, but, it was I guess they were ready to be more or less educated more and
grow up a little also.
Interviewer: But you didn’t feel that there was any injustice in how people
were being treated, about that or not?
Kleeman: Well we didn’t know too much what was going on I mean, we know we
knew that the banks, railway express big companies did not hire Jews or
Blacks.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: You understand what I mean? That was known all over that, none of use
ever needed to apply any place like this, because it was known they find out
they wouldn’t hire you. It was probably an unwritten law I don’t know if it
was written but it was known, either your name or your face or they found out
that if you were Jewish, if they did, if you were hired you didn’t last, they
let you go.
Interviewer: Kay’
[END OF SIDE A]
[BEGINNING OF SIDE B]
Kleeman: There were a lot of unwritten laws, and when I came here I applied at
Macy’s was supposed to have been a distant relative of my family, Strauss and
so on, I applied for a Job, you get, you got as far as the employment manager,
a lady, and she always said ‘We have no opening.’ In other words they were not
hiring any refugees, and the bosses, the owners didn’t interfere and didn’t
know what was going on, or they may have issued the orders ‘Don’t hire them’
because they figured it might hurt their business. Something like that. So
there was never, never a chance in other words. We had one German, my father
had a business man who used to buy corn from him and when I came here I heard
the son was working in a department store in Newark, New Jersey. So I went
over one time to see him, nice fellow he was a buyer already in the linens and
I told him who I was, and he says ‘I cannot help you.’ In other words he went,
he had no permission to help me. But that was accepted, he already, first of
all he may have been college educated and he may have been here eight or ten
years you don’t know, but had already a responsible position. And if he could
have, he might have hired me, if you know what I mean. But he said ‘I cannot
help you.’ So that was it, the normal reply you were getting in other words
you had to go out and conquer on yourself. In order to promote yourself and
grow a little. It was no, relatives did not open their arms to help any one
of us.
Interviewer: In, in New York, at the time, it’s an intellectual center as well,
lot of people, New York is an Intellectual City as Well, many young college
people or people active in the union movement had graduated towards because of
the depression more radical ways of thought, including some people who flirted
with the Communist Party in the United States. Did you know anybody, or did,
what were your thoughts about Americans who had become involved with the
Communist party?
Kleeman: No.
Interviewer: Didn’t notice anybody?
Kleeman: Didn’t know anybody, didn’t know anybody. Once in a while you found
a refugee who was critical of the American Army and say ‘The Germans will
beat us’ but that was very few.
Interviewer: Now that wasn’t necessarily Communist line.
Kleeman: Yeah, no, that was, their own opinion.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: If you know what I mean, but otherwise you never, you never, you never
met anybody whom you could suspect of anything like that, well first of all you
didn’t mingle very much with college educated people.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: That was one you, you, you were deprived if you know what I mean, you
were not ready in that cycle.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: To sit at the coffee table with.
Interviewer: Takes rich college kids to talk revolution I guess. Takes rich
college kids to talk about revolution I don’t know.
Kleeman: I said that’s how it worked. They were on their own anybody from, from
who was at that time, first of all they were not that many people college
educated the average man especially Jewish people, they, it opened when some of
them were able to go to the City College and the Local College and, and they
had no Quotas, but the big schools all, Yale, Harvard didn’t take Jews.
Interviewer: Did you think about City College at all? Or did you think about
Queens College?
Kleeman: No, I didn’t think about City College because after the war, when I
could have gotten to college I had no money, and when I inquired they wanted me
to go to High School and get a diploma for three years before they accept me in
the college. So that would have made me over thirty years old and I would have
been an old, old student if you know what I mean. And when you don’t have
money, you have to think twice you cannot ask relatives to help you, unless
they offer you, forget about it. You understand?
Interviewer: I do. No I understand perfectly.
Kleeman: You understand what I mean? That didn’t exist in those days that,
relatives. There was my wife’s side they had relatives, the Lehman’s family
and the Lehman’s brought in about fifty different families, they helped, they
had one niece who took care of all the aphidavits and helped them to get in,
and they when they were, I would say passed fifty they would send them money
every month for a while. I believe it was either a hundred and fifty dollars
or something, they had to pay their own apartment, and food and so on but was,
that was the only family I ever heard of that really helped refugees.
Interviewer: You mentioned, Charles Lindberg, Wheeler, Taft and Nye. In 1941
summer of 1941, there’s a Deutsche-Amerika Bund meeting, in, German-American
Bund, meeting-
Kleeman: Go ahead.
Interviewer: In June of 1941, there’s a big rally in Madison Square Garden of
the German-America Bund, these were the German-Americans who believed in Hitler,
and all. Do you remember this happening?
Kleeman: You’re talking about in America?
Interviewer: In America yeah.
Kleeman: Oh they were fanat-, yeah they believed in Hitler, I don’t whether
they, they didn’t wear a uniforms I don’t think, but they believed in Hitler
and they had their own friends.
Interviewer: Yeah. They had a big meeting in Madison Square Garden before
December ’41.
Kleeman: Oh they had to be, I don’t remember, I don’t remember that but they
were, they would have opened the gates for them, if they would have landed here.
We know that, we know that, and then what year did they send sabotage, saboteurs
that landed on Long Island?
Interviewer: Oh that was ’41, ’42 yeah, you remembered that.
Kleeman: Yeah I remember that.
Interviewer: Tell us about that. Tell us about that, what you remember.
Kleeman: Well, they caught them, they landed from a submarine on the beach
and someone must have spotted them, and they caught them and I think they
shot them. Because they were considered spies.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: I would have locked them up and give them the water board
[laughs]. Well, they had to be fanatics to, to volunteer for that job.
Interviewer: Well they, did that put you in people’s minds at risk? Being a
German refugee, German spies are landing.
Kleeman: Well the thing with us was you couldn’t volunteer for the service.
They did not allow us to volunteer because it would have cause, suspicion,
you might be a spy. So you had to wait till you were drafted and then of
course you got the dirty end, the infantry and so on. Unless you were lucky
and got something else, whatever.
Interviewer: Did you want to volunteer?
Kleeman: I might have volunteered for the signal corps or for something else.
But you couldn’t do it, because right away you would have created suspicion.
That’s why you, you weren’t supposed to volunteer in other words of course
once, once you were drafted it was different, then ninety days later they
swore you in as a citizen. But then you were in already and once you were
in and once you were in you couldn’t change, your employment anymore.
Interviewer: Before we talk about the army my last question, and it may not be
answered now, when did you meet your wife? Before the war or after the war?
Kleeman: I met her before the war she was seven or eight years old, maybe nine
years old.
Interviewer: Really.
Kleeman: I knew her parents they came from Germany, they were doing business
with my father. Yeah. That was, yeah I’m sure I met her before the war.
Interviewer: Yeah, when she was here already. Where did they live?
Kleeman: They lived in Washington Heights.
Interviewer: Washington Heights.
Kleeman: Where all the refugees were living. They used call, call
it…Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson [laughs].
Interviewer: There’s still a lot of German restaurants up around that area too
yeah.
Kleeman: At that time it was it was a German neighborhood you know?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Butcher stores, everything, bakery, everything was German out there.
Interviewer: Did you go up there much?
Kleeman: Not to much, no. I never moved up there but, I, I wasn’t up there very
much. I had relatives there but I didn’t bother with them to much.
Interviewer: You know another big German community was in Astoria.
Kleeman: Yeah, Astoria.
Interviewer: Did you go there much or?
Kleeman: No I didn’t go there much neither, I stayed in Jackson Heights, and
then, then Forest Hills grew to be a big community. Yeah, that we know, that we
know, but you stayed put where you were you didn’t have that much money to move
around.
Interviewer: Yeah, not until the war was over, yeah.
Kleeman: Not with twelve dollars a week.
Interviewer: Two dollars a week left-
Kleeman: Oh I improved myself ‘bout two months later I, I got myself a better
job for fifteen dollars a week.
Interviewer: Oh where at?
Kleeman: In, on Sixth Avenue in New York in the Sports Warehouse.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: I improved myself for three dollars.
Interviewer: That’s good.
Kleeman: And better conditions.
Interviewer: Left that out on me yeah.
Kleeman: Well you had to do something you know?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: You couldn’t stay poor and under pressure all the time.
Interviewer: What date, when did you get this new job, roughly?
Kleeman: About, maybe March '40, 1940.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: And you stayed there?
Kleeman: I stayed there a year, a year and a half ‘till I was drafted in the
Army.
Interviewer: Let’s talk about that. When were you drafted, do you remember the
date?
Kleeman: Yeah, it’s in my book, August '42.
Interviewer: August 1942.
Kleeman: Yeah. It’s all in my book.
Interviewer: Well we’re gonna-
Kleeman: Important dates are in the book.
Interviewer: Okay, that’s an important date, that’s an important date, you got
home from work and there was the letter, right?
Kleeman: Right, right, you get home from work and you, a letter right?
Interviewer: Did anybody else in the family get the letter?
Kleeman: Yeah, I had to more, two brothers who got drafted, a little later.
Interviewer: What about your cousins?
Kleeman: Yeah, one went to Pacific and the other one came back home after basic
training.
Interviewer: Why did he come back home?
Kleeman: He, he played sick, he couldn’t take it.
Interviewer: He played sick?
Kleeman: He played sick.
Interviewer: Oh, not many people are willing to talk about that? Not many
people are willing to talk about that.
Kleeman: I don’t know, I know he played sick.
Interviewer: What did he claim was wrong?
Kleeman: He, he couldn’t do anything they told him not to do.
Interviewer: [laughs] He resisted authority? Which made him sick in the army’s
eyes. That is perfect.
Kleeman: I, I, think some doctor must have advised him, I don’t, I never asked,
whatever.
Interviewer: What did he do when he got home? What did he do for work?
Kleeman: He went back on his job where he was working before.
Interviewer: Which was what?
Kleeman: It was, in the a men’s factory where they were making pens and
dungarees in Baltimore.
Interviewer: So he stayed the whole war then making clothing?
Kleeman: Yeah he stayed out the war.
Interviewer: Did he ever have regrets of that or did he ever feel-
Kleeman: I don’t talk to him about it.
Interviewer: Okay, okay.
Kleeman: I know I wouldn’t have done anything like that, cause I felt we have
extra responsibility to fight the Hitler regime, and we had our, to do our
duties to contribute whatever we could.
Interviewer: Yeah. What did you think about the Japanese attack?
Kleeman: That was very sneaky, and the Americans were not prepared for it.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: And they, they just couldn’t believe it. It could happen.
Interviewer: It was in our backyard and it was-, in our backyard and it was the
American Navy was the second largest in the world right?
Kleeman: It’s supposed to be.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: But assembled in one little basin?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: On a Sunday morning, the boss is riding horses in the woods [laughs].
Interviewer: I saw that movie too, yeah.
Kleeman: You read that, the read Kimmel and all those, those bigshots?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: It was a big defeat.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Whether they were narrow minded or whether they didn’t wake up to the
fact, to the danger we don’t know.
Interviewer: Winston Churchill is quoted as having celebrated the attack and
jumping for joy because he knew that was the end of the war. That if America
entered the war, they were going to win.
Kleeman: Well Churchill needed America.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Because Roosevelt gave him what? Fifty destroyers before the
Japanese attack.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: So that already had to save Britain from destruction because he must
have run out he lost so many boats,-
Interviewer: Yeah
Kleeman: -that he must have come begging to Roosevelt to help him.
Interviewer: But the idea that with America’s factories-
Kleeman: Yeah but Roosevelt-
Interviewer: -Manpower-
Kleeman: -was able to bypass Congress by making it lend-lease. He’s only
leasing it to them.
Interviewer: That’s right. If your neighbor’s house is on fire you give them
hose.
Kleeman: Roosevelt was smart as far as politics were concerned.
Interviewer: Yep.
Kleeman: Am I right?
Interviewer: Yes.
Kleeman: And Roosevelt wanted to help Churchill.
Interviewer: Did you, speaking as a European living in America, a German who’s
been denied his homeland, did you think that America entering the war meant
that Hitler would be defeated at the time?
Kleeman: Say it again.
Interviewer: Did you think, know, did you know in your heart or did you believe
that America entering the war would mean the end of Hitler?
Kleeman: No I, I knew once America got in they have to win.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: They couldn’t afford not to win because the world would have been at an
end.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: If you know what I mean.
Interviewer: But did you think that America would be on the winning side?
Did you-
Kleeman: Yeah. No America had to win they had no choice, and they, they put,
the first thing they did, build army camps and build up power to fight the
war.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Airplanes, trucks, jeeps, you understand what I mean? They had
nothing.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: They, they, they couldn’t kill a fly.
Interviewer: What was your feeling about the Japanese after the attack? Did you
think that the war effort should be applied exclusively to Europe.
Kleeman: The Japanese I would have love to see more destroyed or whatever, if
the Russians would have occupied them there wouldn’t have been much left of
Japan.
Interviewer: That’s very true.
Kleeman: The way they handle it they deserved to practically be wiped off.
We rebuild them. And we rebuild, you want another cup of coffee?
Interviewer: Not yet, no.
Kleeman: We rebuilt Germany, I met with Rommel’s son oh about fifteen years ago,
and he wrote a book he gave it to me and he, he said ‘Our luck was that your
secretary of defense Jimmy Burns came to us two years after the war was over and
brought lots of money to help us rebuild.’ So that, that in other words the
Americans overlooked everything but they knew the Nazi regime was wiped out and
they wanted the Germans in case Russia was going to march all over Europe. If
you know what I mean.
Interviewer: I do, I do, we’ll come back to that question because, I mean
because that’s-
Kleeman: Because America couldn’t fight Russia in Europe by themselves.
Interviewer: What were your thoughts in the summer of nineteen-forty-one? About
the war in Russia?
Kleeman: It was a stalemate for the Germans to make peace with them right, at
forty-one they, they made peace movement with Russia.
Interviewer: They invaded Russia in June forty-one.
Kleeman: They invaded Russia?
Interviewer: Yeah, that’s when they got to the gates of Moscow.
Kleeman: Well that was, for us it was an advantage that Russians were coming
on our side, because we weren’t so sure about them.
Interviewer: Right. There was a fear that they would, they would surrender.
Kleeman: Yeah. Yeah, so anyhow it was in forty-one, the Russia, the Germans,
I don’t remember now, but, that we needed the Russians to help win the war. We
could have one it but being that the Germans had two fronts to defend, weakened
them. We had to be afraid that they’d push us back in the water.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: We had to be afraid that they’d use gas, poison gas, we were wearing
two sets of uniforms one the, outer one was impregnated against gas, shoes,
gloves, everything was geared to fight of gas. So, they, must have been scared
that they would use it if the Germans were desperate you didn’t now what they
would do. So, that was a big fear.
Interviewer: Yeah, we’ll come to that s well. We’ll talk more about that as
well. In, you get the news, you get your letter, in August of '42.
Kleeman: Right. '42 yeah.
Interviewer: What do you do before you go to your camp? Before you’re inducted
what do you do?
Kleeman: I was working down, practically the last day, and I settled all my
personal business and you have to report one morning to Governor’s Island and
they swear you in and put you on a train, out to Camp Upton, Long Island.
Interviewer: How many guys went with you? How many men were at Governor’s
Island.
Kleeman: Oh must have been maybe hundred, hundred and fifty that morning. You
still in civilian clothes.
Interviewer: All going in the army?
Kleeman: Yeah, on the train ride you still, you’re still civilian. But once you
get out there then they start processing you and within a few days you’re in
uniform. And have a medical examination.
Interviewer: Where is Camp Upton at? Where was Camp Upton at?
Kleeman: Up near Riverhead.
Interviewer: Okay, all the way out.
Kleeman: It was an old army camp, and they, they put you on the Long Island Rail
Road on one of the trains and they tell you when to get off and, the train goes
right into the camp. That’s where you first experience of Army food, and little
bit army life, then they tell you, ‘Take your clothes off send home your civilian
clothes, you don’t need them anymore for a long time.’
Interviewer: How was the food?
Kleeman: Well the food was army food. It was good food but it was not
restaurant food.
Interviewer: It’s pretty bland I bet, yeah.
Kleeman: Mess, mess cooking you know? You learn that, you get used to it fast.
You have no choice.
Interviewer: It’s true, you can’t order out. You know?
Kleeman: Get used to it that’s all.
Interviewer: What about the experience of being processed, I mean, describe to
me what your training was like at Camp Upton. What did they-
Kleeman: You do nothing, everything is done for you, you’re told what to do
which way to go, where to wait in line, which line is for this doctor, and you
lose your independence. You’re like an animal going to the slaughterhouse or
something, everything is planned for you. So you’re, then of course I would say
ninety-five out of a hundred were kept, that they were accepted, maybe they
found a few who maybe had a bad heart or something, or whatever, we don’t know,
but I’m sure they had to be a few.
Interviewer: So for Camp Upton then it’s just a processing camp.
Kleeman: Yeah, only processing.
Interviewer: Okay. Where did you go after Camp Upton?
Kleeman: Camp Upton, when you’re finished within a week or so, then, then they
tell you tomorrow morning comes the train, and comes the troop train, specially
made to carry troops, and there’s no, no passenger seats they’re all bunks to
sleep on triple deckers and so many in each car and then one car is the kitchen
car and one is the officer in charge a few men in charge, and you don’t know
where you’re going. The train takes off and every so often they change engines,
you don’t even know where you are unless you get a chance to read what railroad
station you passing through, so took two or three days to go to Georgia.
Interviewer: Georgia-
Kleeman: Because you had to wait on siding for their regular trains to go
through, you were, you were secondary you were not important to the normal
trains.
Interviewer: Were you meeting people at this point, did you meet people in your
train.
Kleeman: No, you didn’t know anybody.
Interviewer: You weren’t making friends?
Kleeman: No, you didn’t make friends you were all more or less, in the
same predicament. You didn’t know whether the next guy was married or
single or anything like that.
Interviewer: What’d you do to pass the time?
Kleeman: You didn’t ask to many questions, you just couldn’t do much, you
didn’t know if you, when one came you’d go half here and half, you know
nothing, they tell you nothing.
Interviewer: When you arrive in Georgia where do you go?
Kleeman: When you arrive in Georgian the train is into the, the train goes
right into the camp, they always built a railroad-
Interviewer: What camp?
Kleeman: -directly into the camp so they, can bring in their supplies on a,
on a train they don’t have to, and the people also, it’s for them a big
saving, to have a, they lay the tracks in from a main branch.
Interviewer: What camp was it?
Kleeman: Camp Wheeler, in bout ten or twelve miles outside Macon, Georgia.
Macon was a pretty little town, bout maybe forty thousand people, some nice
hotels, some nice stores but you didn’t, you didn’t go in very much, you didn’t
have much time to, go in and so and see everything, but you get long hours
training, six o’clock in the morning, breakfast at seven, you, you start, they
try to whip you up to make a soldier out of you.
Interviewer: Did you know that you were gonna be Fourth Division at that point?
Kleeman: No, you don’t know.
Interviewer: You didn’t know.
Kleeman: You, you, that was basic training.
Interviewer: Right.
Kleeman: There’s no division there’s all broken down in battalions and
companies-
Interviewer: Training Companies.
Kleeman: -But no, no really steady assignment.
Interviewer: What was the weather like for you?
Kleeman: It was hot when I was there, I got there in August it was hot for
three months, Georgia gets very humid and hot, you get used to it.
Interviewer: What was your thought of the training? Describe to me a typical
day of training.
Kleeman: Well you took, you had no choice, you had to take it.
Interviewer: What was the typical day?
Kleeman: Yeah, you couldn’t complain you had to comply and do everything they
asked you to do, that’s.
Interviewer: What was a day like, describe to me from the beginning to the end a
typicall.
Kleeman: Most of it is repeat, calisthenics, and marching and running and all
stuff, they say it builds you up I don’t know whether it improves you or makes
you feel worse.
Interviewer: What time did you go to bed?
Kleeman: About nine, nine-thirty I think, I think nine o’clock the lights went,
were turned off in the Barracks. Because you had to get up early so you had to,
supposed to go to bed early. It was a routine training.
Interviewer: What were your thoughts of the Sergeants?
Kleeman: Well most of the, most of the, the [?] they called were Hillbillies
because they were in the army before the, long before they had, we used to call
them they had, their families couldn’t support them, feed them and clothe them
so they sent them in the army, they were taken care of.
Interviewer: How did they treat you? I mean…
Kleeman: They treat you…refugee! Refugee! You know they, they wanted to be the
big shots.
Interviewer: Yeah. Did you deal with any Anti-Semitism from the Sergeants?
Kleeman: Not there. There was more problems in the Division.
Interviewer: Then at the camp?
Kleeman: Because this was all, temporary, you had to do it and that’s all but
there was doing.
Interviewer: Did you encounter any Sergeants who seemed to genuinely care about
their men?
Kleeman: Yeah I met a Sergeant down there who happened to be a distant relative
and we became good friends and two days ago his son was sitting in my living
room.
Interviewer: Really?
Kleeman: Visiting. That’s right, we’re still friends, the father died when he
was about fifty-four, fifty years ago, and left three sons and the widow, I
know, I knew the widow and I know the boy-, two, I met the three sons now they
came to visit me.
Interviewer: That’s fantastic.
Kleeman: Yeah, very nice, very fine people and we still stay one daughter is
living in Asotria and she’s moving now she bought a house in St. Paul,
Minnesota, and they told me, he was here two hours.
Interviewer: That’s good.
Kleeman: Very nice relationship.
Interviewer: By the same token, did you meet any or did you encounter any
Sergeants who were brutal, incompetent-
Kleeman: No, what you met in basic training was second grade.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: The army did not send their top officers down there to train people.
Interviewer: So they were pretty, were they competent, we they incompetent was
the training-
Kleeman: Cast off I would say. Anybody who wanted to be something wanted to
have a regular division, didn’t want to get stuck in a training camp.
Interviewer: So how did they treat you then? There had to be resentment?
Kleeman: How did they treat us? Like soldiers. They, they, they, they don’t
care about you, they just give you orders and that’s all. It’s a, it’s a
temporary state, basic training.
Interviewer: Alright. We’ll move on then, we’ll move on.
Kleeman: You know about that, I’m saying, this is all different, but once you
get into a division it’s different people, different officers and different
loyalties.
Interviewer: Well get’s you out of basic training then. You finish your
training in, at Camp Wheeler.
Kleeman: Yeah.
Interviewer: When did you finish?
Kleeman: They put you on a train and they took us to Augusta Georgia, another
camp, Camp Gordon Augusta, and that was the Forth Division waiting for six
hundred of us, we used to be called Replacements. Because they were
understrength so every so often they had to send in a trainload of troops, to,
to fill the ranks.
Interviewer: When was this?
Kleeman: That was about, August, about November nineteen-forty-two.
Interviewer: November forty-two.
Kleeman: After the three months training.
Interviewer: Okay. And the fourth division is then still in the United States?
Kleeman: The fourth division was training down there, was not infantry it was a
motorized division they had, half-tracks for everybody. But that lasted about
a year or so, then Washington decided there’s no room for a motorized division
they made it into a regular infantry division.
Interviewer: No room where for a motorized division?
Kleeman: In the army. So they took the half-tracks away and made a regular
infantry division out of it. And once it was an infantry division they decided
to send us to Africa. Without enough training, and they send us, they sent us
to Fort Dix, New Jersey, waiting to be loaded and go to Africa. And after
being in Fort Dix they find out they had no shipping facilities to send us.
They already sent the advanced detail, men, officers and men to Africa to
prepare where we were go to train and live and so on, and they brought them
back to the Fort Dix, they didn’t leave them over there, they brought them back
to New Jersey.
Interviewer: Yeah, that’s typical.
Kleeman: The army. The army does stupid things if you know what I mean.
Interviewer: Oh yeah. All familiar with it. Very familiar.
Kleeman: That, they didn’t, they don’t advertise those stupid things if you
know what I mean. Because those stupid things can cost a lot of money.
Interviewer: Oh yeah. Well before we get to that point you’re at Camp Gordon,
alright, what does your training consist of at Camp Gordon?
Kleeman: That, that was, war training.
Interviewer: So-
Kleeman: Night exercises, more training, weapons to learn all the different,
rifles and machine guns and all the things.
Interviewer: Did you train in all these weapons?
Kleeman: I trained, I learned about them, yeah.
Interviewer: What did you think of these weapons?
Kleeman: Well, you had no choice, you have to, to watch and see and take it
apart and put it back together.
Interviewer: Was there any weapon that scared you, that you didn’t want to
operate?
Kleeman: No, it didn’t scare you but you had to get used to it, you know, you
were in there, you might have to use it, so you wanted to know they always
said you got, your rifle is your best friend.
Interviewer: Oh that, they still tell you that.
Kleeman: You learned that also?
Interviewer: They still tell you that, what about grenades?
Kleeman: But the army is not as fanatic as the marines.
Interviewer: True. Did you meet marines in Georgia. Did you see any marines in
Georgia.
Kleeman: No, their camp was in North Carolina.
Interviewer: Yeah, yeah, in South Carolina, yeah.
Kleeman: They were all volunteers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: The marines had no draft.
Interviewer: So you didn’t see them on, like when you were on liberty you didn’t
see them or?
Kleeman: No, we didn’t see them any. The air corps was mostly volunteers.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: The Signal Corps was volunteers.
Interviewer: Did you see anybody from the air, from the air corps?
Kleeman: Yeah, down in Augusta, and also in Maton, there were airports maybe ten
miles away. Training bases.
Interviewer: How did they act differently or?
Kleeman: They didn’t mingle with us. They did their own.
Interviewer: Camp Dakoa, was an airborne camp in Georgia. Did you see any
Airborne?
Kleeman: Each state had, airports.
Interviewer: Not Air corps, Airborne.
Kleeman: Airborne? No Airborne was different from the Air Force-
Interviewer: Yeah did you see any-
Kleeman: Airborne was all volunteers.
Interviewer: All paratroopers did you see any of them in Georgia?
Kleeman: No we didn’t mix with any.
Interviewer: No you stayed to yourself.
Kleeman: They were, a group by themselves they were proud of everything they
wore different boots, they had everything a little better.
Interviewer: You think that was deserved or not?
Kleeman: Well, it took guts to be, come out of the sky and drop down and no,
don’t know who’s waiting for you.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: You had to be hardened up for that.
Interviewer: Yep, that wasn’t for you?
Kleeman: No. They were fanatics. And mostly youngsters.
Interviewer: How old were you when you went into the army?
Kleeman: I was, I was born nineteen-nineteen, so I was twenty-two.
Interviewer: Twenty-Two? Were you older then some-
Kleeman: No.
Interviewer: Same age?
Kleeman: There was some younger ones, some, there were quite a few all the way up
to thirty.
Interviewer: Yeah?
Kleeman: Yeah. It was mixed, mixed, very mixed. But the, the paratroopers, they
were their own. They had a scarf they had the cap was set on differently, they
were, they were proud of themselves.
Interviewer: You mentioned training with weapons, your rifle is your best friend.
Did you train with grenades? Hand-Grenade.
Kleeman: Grenades? Oh yeah, you trained with everything. You go on the rifle
range for four weeks, you throw grenades, you learn everything, sure.
Interviewer: Yeah?
Kleeman: Dig foxholes, they, they, they tried to teach you everything. While
you’re there.
Interviewer: Did the training help you when you got to Europe or did,-
Kleeman: The training did help a little, yeah, it did help a little. It’s,
you’re prepared, because you’re all by yourself you don’t know where the next
shell will land.
Interviewer: There’s stories that soldiers had to relearn how to fight because
the basic training was too simple or wasn’t good enough.
Kleeman: It helped, it helped, of course you didn’t think it would take two
years to train but, it did.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: They kept you busy whatever, they didn’t know when you were ready for
combat, when you were needed.
Interviewer: When did you get your final assignment to your company? When did
you know what your company was? When did you know what company you were in?
Kleeman: Oh as soon as I got to Augusta they assigned and that’s where you
stuck.
Interviewer: Where were you?
Kleeman: Right away, which regiment and which company and this is it, you can’t
get out anymore.
Interviewer: What was your company?
Kleeman: K company, twenty-second infantry. You stuck, only by luck something
needs you or you get a transfer and that doesn’t happen very often.
Interviewer: Twenty-Second Infantry is an old regular army unit.
Kleeman: Regular army outfit the whole fourth division was in World War One.
Interviewer: How did you get in, you were a draftee, how did you get into a
regular army units?
Kleeman: Well, they took trainees to fill up the ranks, they were half empty
because the army was building up slowly.
Interviewer: Spread people out.
Kleeman: Yeah, so they took from the basic training and shipped so many in,
each camp where they needed them.
Interviewer: What did you think of those regular army soldiers?
Kleeman: The hillbillies were hillbillies. They were hillbillies some of
the officers were highly educated, this was the WASP outfit. They were
proud of them to be in the army, but, young ones, the ninety day wonders
the ones who went to Fort Benning for training school for ninety days
they got the shit.
Interviewer: Really?
Kleeman: Really.
Interviewer: How so.
Kleeman: They had to do what they were told.
Interviewer: Did they like that?
Kleeman: That, in those days they had nothing to say.
Interviewer: Wow.
Kleeman: Because the captains already were higher level.
Interviewer: How did the regular army officers treat you or the regular army
sergeants?
Kleeman: The regular army officers they were alright they had understand and
they they more or less they were waiting to get a promotion.
Interviewer: Right. And they knew taking care of their men is part of that.
Kleeman: Right. They, they all they worried about if they were a captain they
wanted to become a major because that was in their blood.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: They wanted to go up in rank. The higher they go the, different life
they would have.
Interviewer: Okay.
Kleeman: So that was a different side.
Interviewer: What about the-
Kleeman: The young ones the ninety-day wonders they had to take the shit.
Interviewer: They had to take it. Did they give, did they take it out on
you?
Kleeman: No, not really, but they had no choice, they knew they were stuck
they’re an officer and they’re on the bottom of the rank.
Interviewer: Were they incompetent?
Kleeman: Some of them were. Some of them were alright, it’s no two alike.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Kleeman: Some of them very, very kind and very understanding, but they had to
take, they had to do whatever they were told. They were, the low ranking to
wear uniform that was responsible.
Interviewer: I imagine even the old sergeants gave them trouble too.
Kleeman: Some of them, yeah. Sergeants sometimes were, the hillbillies when
they had smelled a little beer they, they went high, they couldn’t take liquor
or anything. That was another problem. You had to learn, to live with
everything.
Interviewer: Did you make friends in the, when you got to K company? Did you
make friends there?
Kleeman: Yeah I made friends, yeah I made friends, I had some nice boys from
Pennsylvania, nice boys from New England, you had, you had boys from all over
so you could pick but was nice friends. But you were still in the army.
Interviewer: How long before they began to think about you as a translator?
Kleeman: It was I got transferred, in England.
Interviewer: It was much later then, okay.
Kleeman: Yeah, in England orders came down they put a new government section
into the division and the government section calls for a German, two German
interpreters, a staff sergeant a clerk, a couple of orderlies and so on. So,
some Colonel gets a job to interview people for these jobs they couldn’t wait
to bring them in from the states, they had to pick them up from in the division.
So they, they sent me up to this colonel for an interview and he told me I’m
the twelfth man he’s interviewing and he says to me ‘I like best from the
twelve, and he tested my German and everything.’ So he says to me ‘I want you
up here to be my Interpreter.’ I says ‘Thank you very, I’d be glad,’ then he
says to me ‘Your outfit can refuse you because you’re earmarked for D-Day for
the, eight o’clock, nine, seven o’clock in the morning.’ I said ‘I know, but
you try and see what we can do’ So anyhow I went back to the company I took a
man, a nice fellow from North Carolina he used to be an insurance man before
the army I took him on the side I said to him ‘This is what happened to me.’
He says to me ‘You want to be smart?’ I said ‘Yeah.’ He says ‘Keep your mouth
shut when a order comes in from the division they get scared and they send you
up there for the job.’ I said ‘Thank you.’ Next morning-
[END OF RECORDING]
End of Tape 02 of 05
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