Appendix D — Audio Transcriptions

These are transcriptions of the audio recordings found in Appendix C: Audio.

D.1 Fireside, 1973

Ewald spoke at a fireside at BYU in 1973, sharing his wartime experiences and testimony.

Good evening brothers and sisters. It’s a very pleasure to be here with you. I’m especially thankful to Marie Nielsen for the invitation she gave me to be here and talk on the fireside. It’s a very great honor to me, Sister Nielsen. My name, like you mostly know, is Ewald Rapp. My English is not 100% perfect. If you have any questions or don’t understand, please don’t hesitate to stop me right where I’ve been and ask. I’m glad to answer any questions you have.

First, I would like to do only one thing out this evening under you. That’s the topic for our discussion tonight. Are we blessed in this valley as Latter-day Saints? If I go on, I would, if you recall this topic on and off in your mind, and see if this fits in our life today.

Only a few remarks, what I’ve seen lately in the press, for sure you’ve seen it too. I shouldn’t mention this, but I want to repeat it. Floods in Brazil, earthquakes, tornadoes here in the United States, war in Vietnam, Israel, and uproar all over the earth. I think this gives us a little bit to think about how grateful we are blessed. Now all this for sure you can read in the press, you don’t need me to come. But I would like to tell you a little bit tonight about myself and my experience I had during the last World War II.

I was a soldier called in 1939 for sure on the wrong side in Adolf Hitler’s army. I was called for a five week maneuver, but this five weeks maneuver never stopped. We haven’t been told the truth from the beginning and not till the end. A lot of people are wondering today, still today, how the German people could agree to this. What happened over there? Now let me tell you very short. We are as Germans wasn’t interested in any war like you or your husbands or sons aren’t either. To that time, I had three children when I was called, and also all the other members or people that I met in my company or in my division.

Anyway, we got, we pulled into Poland. It was a very short time, like you recall, 16 days, I think, something like that. Everything was passed. The people are very good people. It’s more not a very ambitious people, more the lazy side I would say. But otherwise are very good people. From Poland he was put into France, also there was a very short time we have been there, people over there they’ve been more ambitious and more prospered than the Polish people.

After France, sure enough, we had arrest, I was not released from still, I was called for my maneuver and this didn’t take, took never end. So we had arrest, was pulled back to Germany and was laying there exercising and building recruits and things like that. Till one night we got on to another maneuver up to the Russian border. Settled down there, he still didn’t know what goes on. Till somewhere around 11 o’clock in the night everything was alert. He was gathered together. The company commander, captain, he was standing in the middle and told us what happened and what was going to happen. That we right now were going to start marching to Russia. He wasn’t far away from the Russian border. This took place the same night.

We walked into Russia. No, we didn’t meet no soldiers, no any resistance at all. I couldn’t say for sure how many miles we marched without any resistance. It was only border guards on the border and they must flee so fast they could. Or what didn’t get away, they got captured.

We met the people, very nice people. Russian people, I love them. It was a very good experience for them. We loved each other. Their husbands and sons were thrown in the war, like we were, for no good cause.

As we got on, like you remember, the front got back and forth. And Hitler, wanting on his mind only to overrun Russia. But he was wrong. He couldn’t overrun Russia like he overrun Poland or France. This was one thing that was not possible. And Russia is a country, it’s I don’t know how many times bigger than whole Europe, and Germany alone had a small army. The army was good, was very good trained, was very good equipped for the first year, but it was not possible to overrun a country like Russia.

We came to a still stand, middle in the winter. The generals urged Hitler to allow them to dig him in the ground and keep the front, stand and fight back whatever attack should come right there from out in the ground, but stay for over winter in this ground. Hitler had one thing on his mind to go on and overrun this country. So, there was not a thing to do. The generals had this command, and what Hitler commanded had to be done. Otherwise, you didn’t accept his command, you were a dead man. Here in this country, I’ve seen the last Vietnam War, soldiers deserted, and they’re still alive. Anybody deserted over there, he didn’t go far. There’s one thing possible, go or be dead.

Now, in my own experience in Russia, I want to go on now and forget all this Hitler’s command. My own experience in Russia was what I found, like I say, the people were very good people. We found a lot of poorness. I was in the middle, like you would say, in central Russia. Ops, Smolensk, Minsk, Prezhev, all around there in this area. That are the center points of the big cities. But I came through. The people over there are very poor. Russian people don’t own nothing. I would say only their life. All the rest belongs to the government. What they used to own before the Russian Kaiser, the Tsar, all this was taken when the revolution came and the Communists took over and was the leader of this country, of this great country, I would say. That’s really a great country. If the leadership would be there, like in this country and some countries I’ve seen, they wouldn’t have to buy for one cent anything. There is everything you need. But on account of this communist regime and that the people don’t own nothing, they have to work, I would say, more as a slave. They only get their food for their living and very, very little.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s different today. I talked for the time when I was there. Russia changed quite a bit. I’ll come back to this later. They are working for very, very, very, very little money. They got so many grams on food, I forgot it now, how much gram on bread and other food products to make their living. People that didn’t work, they got only half what the working men got from the government.

The living conditions in Russia must be the same today like when I was there. I talk about middle Russia, central Russia. They lived in log cabins. The houses are of logs. If you see them laid over one on top of another in between the logs of moss or the woods to keep the wind out so that the wind don’t blow through the logs. Now this moss is a very good bug catcher, I would call it. And between the logs, there’s a different kind of bug. I don’t know what I should call them or what it is, but it’s a very dangerous thing for some people. Didn’t bother me, but I heard that he was laying with four men, always sleeping together with the staff sergeant, the paymaster, and the staff sergeant’s writing aide or secretary, you know, whatever you call him, and myself.

And this poor secretary, he was a civilian, in his civilian life, he was a bank president. A little fellow came up here to my face and kind of slim, you know, and wore glasses. The glasses was quite bigger than his face, you know. And his bugs really tortured that poor guy. I don’t know what kind of bugs that was. Anyway, he rode home and his wife sent him some powder and he circled himself all the way around in with his powder to keep them bugs off from him, you know. After in the morning, what I want to say, his bugs, what happened when they bite him, a lot of boils all on his body whenever they bite him and that was an itching he could hardly stand. Anyways, he circled him in with his powder and thought he was safe, but what they did, they climbed up on a wall and dropped down from the ceiling, you know. So they got him in it, you know. He was not safe for the Russian bugs, you know. It was not pleasant.

And we know of the condition of the Russian people. All they have is one big room where they live. I would say right there where this door is, right from that door, all the way around, through the corner, up, to right where Paula sits, not this gentleman, right over there where that lamp is. All the way around, the bank would stop. That’s all their seats what they got, and that’s all their furniture they got. And this lamp post there you see over there, up till that other wall, not quite, till that wall, this much room away from that wall, it’s a big oven. The ceilings are higher than ours. And this oven is but the same width, like I say, for that lamp post, almost, but two feet away from that wall. And then a certain deep, up to here, I would say, somewhere around six foot. This oven, that’s where them people sleep on it. Between that wall and that oven, there’s a stepladder, there’s a climber. They sleep on that oven. Children born, grown up, family members die, all on that oven.

All they take off their filled boots in the winter. All the rest of the clothes they keep on there. Whatever they have up there, I don’t know, blankets, you know, but I don’t know, I didn’t never look in on it. But all families sleep up on the oven.

Now when they have a little baby, newborn baby, there’s a big hook right here where this lamp is, in the ceiling, and that little baby has a crib, handmade crib, out below, branches. This little crib got four strings coming up to that hook on the ceiling. And inside that little baby, and from this crib, but this long goes another piece of rope. From this rope goes a beam up to that oven, where the whole family sleeps. Now when that baby starts crying, open that oven, the father has a beam. And as soon as the baby starts crying, he only moves that beam there on the oven a very little bit. But here in the center of the room, that crib is going all over the room, you know. There, that’s the baby crib. Where they swing, the baby’s going to make it sleep again. It’s a poorness. It’s a sad condition.

Now through going back and forth to front, I have to tell you that this people, I never seen any poorer people in my life. When we had to move back, whatever was left on food within people, their own soldiers, they didn’t have nothing to eat. So they took that from their own and eat their food. When we came back, that’s what he was taught.

Another thing I would like to mention that they taught me personally. I used to have an interpreter in the beginning and this interpreter, when I later, I had a lot of conversations with people, I love them. I realized that he didn’t interpret what I wanted. He didn’t bring it the way I wanted, you know. He was a guy, he was kind of Ukrainian. He was a Russian, but he spoke German, you know. And he didn’t interpret the way I wanted. So what I did, when I found out, I really could myself understand with him people, you know, I said, you go where you came from. I let him go. I didn’t need him no more, you know. And he didn’t want to tell them people the truth, you know, I’ve catched him a few times with lies, and so I let him go.

What happened? I came off on my own. So they told me personally that they didn’t have for the last 10 years one pound of sugar. Even they had babies. They had enough sugar in their own country. This sugar got to the commissars. That would be like here our mayor, city councilman. That was it. All the rest was imported to other countries for machinery and other equipment. And these people had to suffer. With my own eyes, I see to keep their lives, they didn’t have no more one piece of bread. They had their mills where they did ground their grain when they had grain so long they had grain but they didn’t have no more grain. What they did with the same mill, they got in the woods and gathered moss — I imagine everybody knows what this is, moss in the woods what grows around the trees, this green moss — they dried that in the oven and they grind that on this mill and they make bread. I tasted it myself. It was bitter like gall.

The same place — I can’t call exactly that boy, I think their parents was killed — he had him with us and his sister not too long. Their little bellies was thick, blown up on the nourishment. He tried to be like a father to his little sister. And we fed him good. But that still didn’t happen. It was too late. This little girl died. We buried her. And put a little wooden cross on the top of her grave. He still came with us. Even the tailor, the company tailor, he gave him a uniform, soldier uniform, and he was so proud of it, to wear a soldier uniform. And it didn’t take too long, he died. The boy was too far gone, undernourished. These are only parts of what I would say I see.

It is horrible to see a war and then the war. Then you see human beings blown apart in pieces, hanging on a tree. Or human beings laying in the mud. And the cannons and other equipment runs over them. It was not only Russian people. With my own eyes, German soldiers. There was no time to take them away or to bear them. This is horrible. You don’t know, brothers and sisters, how blessed we are. We hear these things. But it’s even worse that we have to depart from it.

I am thankful and grateful to my Father in Heaven. Through all this horrible and terrible war I got through, I didn’t have to harm one person. I know how far they haven’t gone to get these people, but forced their countries into this for responsibilities. There’s no doubt about how any, how Hitler ever can face this judgment day, I don’t know. How is Stalin ever going to face this judgment day when he is not clean either? I can tell you from my own family that not only Hitler did these things, but Stalin did the same thing, even one thing worse than Hitler. Hitler did this to the Jews. Stalin did this to his own people.

I don’t know if you followed lately in the last few months this Provo newspaper and did read, but Soviet editor Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Thank you very much. I have a hard time to pronounce that. I don’t think even that’s a Russian name. The name is not Russian. Anyway, probably you did read this and follow up on that. Now, this time he could allow him to write about what the Communism did with their own people. To that time when I was in Russia or there before, it was not possible that anybody even could mention to his next-door neighbor what — how they call him in Russia, in Germany they call him Gestapo, and the same thing they have in Russia, but they call him different. I forgot it. I’ve been too long gone, I have to go back.

And Stalin did the same thing, but with its own people. Anybody that believed on religion, on God, he took care that he didn’t exist very long. The reason I can tell you this, I know it out of my own family. In 1936, one of my uncles, he lived there. He has been taken from the Russian Gestapo and returned after, I think it was two weeks, and then they came picking him up again. The reason, for religion reasons, they found some books in the Bible in his home. They picked him up in the some books in the Bible and he disappeared.

In 1942, when I returned on my first leave, my only leave from Russia back home to Germany, my parents visited me over there in my home with another uncle from my mother’s side again. He got out from Russia through the German army. They freed him and the Germans came in over there and he got freed from the communism through the Germans. You have probably been kind of confused. You don’t know what the Germans was doing over there, but the same like here in Pennsylvania. You have German colonies, you know, and Polish people — whole bunch of settlers, you know, let’s say it this way. I think that’s more correct, settlers in English, you know. And that’s what my relatives was over there. And when the German army came in there, so he returned as fast as he could to Germany.

When I met him there, he was a worried man. He was full of sorrow and worries. And he didn’t believe that he could settle down in Germany, then he was cared for the Red Pest, he called it, the Red Pest. And he didn’t settle down in Germany. He got all the way up to Paraguay, South America. He said, I go to the other end of this world only to go away from the Red Pest.

And what he told us that time, it’s hard to believe. You can’t believe it. You have to go through this yourself to comprehend things like that, what they have been suffered, what they got through. That’s the reason I asked you in the beginning to remind, call this back in your mind, if we are blessed people in this valley. And you hear stories like this. This is only one part, a little bit, what I can bring here tonight. And I hope you understood what I like to bring, or what I brought.

I want to come to conclusion, I want to tell you good people, I’m a convert of this church. I’m 12 years now in this church. I thought my religion was good enough. That’s all I knew. Missionaries came on the door. There’s sitting one right there. Probably had this experience when he was in mission field. I told him, thank you. I have a religion and I’m satisfied. Thank you very much. That was it. This got on for quite a while, but the good Lord wasn’t satisfied.

He struck me sick. I got so sick that I couldn’t move. I don’t know what I really are, but all at once I got so sick that I didn’t know what to do. I picked up the phone and called my doctor. My doctor was out of town. So I picked the doctor on the telephone book. I never knew, never seen. Dr. Gerald Jones, called him up and asked him if I could get an appointment and come see him on account of my sickness. His aid answered and made an appointment with me, and so I got down and visited this doctor and he examined me and put me right away on a therapy table and gave me therapy, this aid.

She give me therapy, and when she was standing giving me therapy in this room, she asked me what I know about the Mormons. I said, not much. I said, I have a daughter-in-law. She comes from a Mormon family, but that’s all I know. Now, would you like to know some more about him? So I thought she was going to tell me right there on the table, you know. I wasn’t man enough to say no. I said, sure, it wouldn’t hurt, you know. Okay, she says, when can I see you in your home with my companion? That took the wind out of my sails. I didn’t expect anything like that. So I was thinking and thinking how to get out of that, but I still was not strong enough to get out of this. So I say, alright, why we don’t make it Wednesday?

This must be on a weekend. I really don’t know for sure when it was when I was there in the office, but I think it was somewhere on a weekend. And then she says, alright, I come with my companion and I want to see you and tell you more about the Mormon church and about the gospel. Fine. That was all.

So we broke off the conversation by the Mormons. I got home and it bugged me quite a bit that there are two girls going to come and see me, you know, by the Mormon church. I was by myself there living in a house and so I thought, how could I get rid of them? So what I did, I prepared a dinner. I’m going to feed them good and let them go, you know.

Sure enough, they came in and I invited them right away to the table. They came to the table and sat down and ate. So after they were ready with eating, all right, let’s get on with our lesson. So I didn’t inspect that, you know. Sure enough, they gave me a shot in the arm at the first lesson. And they asked me right the first night when they can come back again, you know, they want to continue the lessons. And so they came back.

But this doctor’s aide, she was a state missionary and her companion, she brought with her, they both were on a state mission. And she was only temporary in this doctor’s office. She used to go here in BYU to school. So her time finally ran out, her summer vacation, you know, so she had to go back to school. And she left me then with two full-time missionaries. These two full-time missionaries came and visited me once and that was the end of it. I never seen them again. For some reason, they didn’t like me, I don’t know. I was not too strange in the Bible myself, you know, and there was a few points we got together and discussed it. And I did stay on my point and they did stay on their point, you know. Anyway, didn’t come to my back.

So she wrote me and asked how I come along with the lessons. I had to write her back, but couldn’t write in English. I wrote her in German. Well, back in Germany, you know, what happened? And so I knew she is a student. They don’t have too much money. So I put her $5 in there to translate the letter from German to English and that she can read it. And what happened? The $5 came back, you know. And she said somebody translated the letter and didn’t charge me nothing for it, you know.

So I read and I feel sorry what happened. I think the missionaries would come. But I notified already the stake mission president, and they’re going to pick up the lessons. In the meantime, Thanksgiving came on, and she came back for Thanksgiving vacation, and she brought down the stake missionary president and a companion, and they’re seeing me. No, I think I’m a little bit mixed up. That was, huh? Was it right? Okay. That’s a stake missionary, if I can tell you right there. Anyway, she came on and they came on and gave me the lesson and came back again shortly before Christmas. I think somewhere around three weeks before Christmas. And gave me the rest of the lessons.

And every time they gave me the lessons, they asked me to say a prayer, and I said, but I said it in German. And this time, they made me say it in English. My perfect English, you know. So I said it in English, and that was the moment when I broke down. I read on the truth of the Gospels. And I knew that Jesus Christ died for me. I accepted the gospel, the open heart and thankfulness in my heart to my Father in Heaven and to my dear wife.

I had to come all the way to this country to meet the Mormon church. I didn’t have a chance over there. One thing that I leave you alone for is I don’t want to get too late. I want to say this when I still was talking about Russia. I was wounded end of 1942. I lost one leg. And I was kind of spiritually broken down that time. Not in the moment. I was happy, very happy to get out. And I was happy that moment.

I was sitting like a few here in a row with my back to the wall in front. This house, exceptionally rich, had a big table. A very heavy, that thick, wooden table. That thing was long for that wall to go till here. I was sitting behind that table very closely. And the bomb fell behind the wall twice. We made it to run out of here and come, but when the airplanes come that low, very low, you don’t hear them till even there, you know. And the bomb dropped behind the wall and broke the wall and got me in water leaks. I was the only one that was wounded. Nobody else. That saved my life. This day saved my life that I got wounded.

I got from there right in a field Lazarett. From there I should be flown out up to Minsk in a Lazarett, but they couldn’t fly us. We was laying there all, a very big crowd of wounded soldiers. And the planes came and you couldn’t creep. You was laying there, you’re strong on the floor and you couldn’t creep. And the planes came and fired and you thought any moment that’s the end for you. You know, you don’t know what kind of feeling it is if you can’t sleep and danger surrounds you, you know.

Anyway, I got them finally, I lay there three days, and then I got finally out of there. And they put us in a freight train and shipped us off backward in Russia in a hospital. This freight train, there’s one little story I want to tell you. It’s a horrible story to me to remember. Same again, we were laying straw. This is the car, you know, on one side straw, on the other side straw, on all them wounded soldiers laying, right in the center one round big oven with the pipe going through the ceiling, coal oven, you know, to heat the car, you know, then Russia is a little bit colder than here. I met 60 and 65 degrees below, so I know probably what it means.

Anyway, during this transport in this freight train, there was one doctor’s aide in each car. There was one door on the bottom and one door right above. One set to open that careful and here was another door to flip up and put the coal in there. One set to open the bottom door to take the ashes out. He opens the round door and all the fire lies on the floor. Catches fire right there. People can’t move. There was a couple of cases there was not so badly hurt and the rest of us with big blankets and things there, stopped that fire. Nobody would see or hear anything. There was no emergency brake you could pull, nothing. Nobody would see and hear anything when I was still there. Locomotive probably would all, with the first few cars and the draft comes from the front, you know. All the rest of the cars that would be all on fire if you wouldn’t stop that fire right there in this car. So our Father in Heaven was with us and protected us there.

But I want to say, when I was wounded, I returned home. Four years after the war, I met one man from my division in the train station. I didn’t recognize him. He came back from Russia. I seen him. His clothes were a bunch of rags. When I met him, I met him there only through he recognized me. I didn’t. And he came up and talked to me and asked me if I wasn’t in that regiment. I said yes. So he told me where he was and he recognized me. I couldn’t say from where or when.

But in my division, there are 25,000 people in the German Army. I don’t know here, but over there. For 25,000 men, only one person I’ve seen alive. He said it was all in one camp, the whole division, but they died, they had them up in Asia, in a daytime hut, in a nighttime court. They died like flies if you poisoned them. He was the only one but he still seen himself on this one division.

Now I thought a lot of times on this. Why did I have to get out alive? Sure, my condition is not pleasant. Most people don’t know it, but I have my problems. But I see a lot worse conditions when I was in the hospital than my condition. I’m grateful and thankful to my Lord in heaven that he returned in this condition I am. So I had to come out safe there, and I had to come to this country to meet the right church.

I’m ordained with the priesthood. I’m grateful for this. Sometimes we feel kind of inconvenient if we have to go to sacrament meeting or Sunday school or priesthood meeting. Brothers and sisters, please. Don’t let this to be a big sacrifice to you. This is nothing. Only be thankful and grateful to your Father in Heaven that you have the health and strength to visit his house and be in his presence where you belong.

I remember the priesthood meeting from last night for an elder. A boy ordained with a priesthood was in a wheelchair, not able to do things by himself, but he passed the sacrament like all the other deacons. He collected fast offerings like all the other deacons. His father cared for him, put his job on his arms. That’s our duty, brothers, as priesthood holders. That we try to do our best to support our family and show them the right way. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Anybody got any questions? I’m glad to answer them.

D.2 Personal History, Volume 1 (1975)

My name is Ewald Rapp. I’m the son of Michael Joseph Rapp and Emilia Welke Rapp. I’ve been born April the 1st, 1912 in Minsk — Pinsk, state of Minsk. I’m not exactly sure if that’s correct but so far I can remember what my parents mentioned, this should be correct that this was a state Minsk, that’s in Russia. My parents lived to that time in Russia in a German colony and there where I am born, my family and myself.

We left Russia in 1915 during the First World War. I grew up in the county of Ungerborg in the state of Gumbinnen, Prussia, Germany. I visit the public school during this time and lived with my parents till I was of age 15. During this time we had some good and some sad days. We did get in a depression and inflation.

My father worked hard to take care of his family. But a lot of times it didn’t reach far for the needs that was necessary through all this hardship, through inflation and war and so on. Beside myself, there was two brothers and one sister. My oldest brother is John Rapp. In other words, Julius Rapp. And my second brother was Ludwig Rapp. And my sister is Sarah Rapp. Sarah is still living in Germany. My brother John is living here in Las Vegas, Nevada. And my other brother, he died during the World War II. Please forgive me. It’s not easy to translate things what you think in German by the German language and have to translate in English and it’s not easy to do this and I’m not that perfect.

I would like to mention a few things what have been found on my youth time and school time in Prussia, Germany. And we had some beautiful times there. It was very cold, but still we enjoyed it. Around where we was living, it was all big meadows, and during the fall time, there was quite a few rivers down there, and during the fall time, the water got over the riverbank and flooded all the meadows over there. Then it didn’t take long so that the hard winter broke in and did freeze all this water to a solid ice. We did go during the winter time over the ice to school and the spring time happened quite often that we did go on a canoe or on a paddle boat so that we could go to school. Sometimes we couldn’t go for quite a while if Dad or any grown-up didn’t have time to take us over to the school on this paddle boat, so we would have to stay home. We lost quite a bit of time on our school.

But in the wintertime it was a fun time. We had a lot of fun on this ice. We had a lot of sled riding and ski riding and made other things, but made a lot of fun. We tied a big sheet on two poles, and one did hold one pole, the other held the other pole, and we sailed along the ice. The wind set himself in this sheet and drove us with the speed limit, I imagine, somewhere around at least 25 to 35 miles an hour on this ice. So it was a lot of fun till one day one of the boys was with us and he did hold this one pole and in order the water did settle and when the water settled the ice broke. There was a big gap in this ice, and we didn’t know that when they came on in this high speed, he fell in this gap and broke his leg. This stopped us for a while doing this, and then didn’t take long. The spring broke in, and we lost this ice, and we had to go with a boat on the water back to school again.

I can remember quite a bit what is inflation. Then I know when my father worked hard and got to get paid off every day so that they could buy at least a little bit. When he worked all day, the morning he started out working until the evening when he got paid, things, the prices was not much higher. I remember there was times that he only got maybe somewhere around 10 little packages of matches for all day work. And it was very hard, especially for my mother, to feed a family with things that Dad earned for buying groceries and things that was needed and necessary in the household.

He was raised very strict in our family to respect people’s property and respect people and be decent. My parents helped us grow up as decent young men and young girls. Our belief in the church — we was, I was born as Baptist and grown up as Baptist and the Baptist Church over there in Germany was very strict. No smoking, no drinking, no dancing, but all this was very helpful for me in my later life. It came very handy to believe in God and try to worship my Father in Heaven to the best of my ability.

With 14 years I tried to help to support my family then. My brother John, he left Germany for the United States when I was 10 years old. My brother Ludwig, he was out working for earning money in other places. So I was home and worked with my parents. And my father got very sick. My father had three operations in a very short time. So for a while, I was the only one that really was there for taking care of the necessary things and necessity for my family. It wasn’t easy, but still with health and strength and good Lord’s guidance I managed to take care of the necessary things what we need. My daddy had a nice farm, wasn’t big, it was 80 acres, but all in all 80 acres at that time there was not much machinery. You had to do most the mowing and all the work, plowing and things like that with horses and mowing everything by hand, so it was not easy to take care of 80 acres. But we had a very good life there and we enjoyed it.

I did stay with my parents till of the age of 18. Then at the age of 18, I left home and did go to learn a trade. I learned a trade of shoe business — shoe building, orthopedic shoe building, and what was necessary for a shoe store. To that time, it was not easy. Anybody want to learn a trade, you had to pay for it. It’s different today when you go and learn a trade, they pay you. But at that time, you had to pay for it that they learn you a trade. And you had to learn three and a half years, what took me three and a half years.

After I finished my apprenticeship, so I did go in the armed services. I volunteered, to that time two years. That was the time what you had to go to armed services. I did go to the artillery and was built out in the artillery. I had a lot of fun with horses. I always was a horse lover, and they gave me a riding school, and I had a lot of fun over there in the service. It was a very hard service. The German service was one of the hardest services so far I know, especially in Prussia. To that time, when I did go, there was only 10,000 men in the service, and these 10,000 men in the armed forces, they was very highly trained and with very respect and very strictness so that everybody what did go to that time respectfully honored the service and they trained you hard.

After I came out of the armed services, I did go back to my parents and helped them again in the farm when they needed me. I was faithful with my dad and helped him to take care of the farm, what was necessary. This was in 1935. In 1936, I got married to Martha Thielke. It was my first wife. She gave me four boys — really five boys, one boy died, and one little girl, but she died too, she lived only 24 hours, she had a heart failure. That little boy Dietmar died on the end of the World War II.

After I was married I earned my money in my own business up till 1939 in August when they called me for a six weeks maneuver, 1939. And this maneuver never stopped. After we was ready with that maneuver they took us to the storage plants and equipped us with sharp ammunition and with all war ammunition. We really didn’t know what’s going on but it was kind of suspicious, the equipment they gave us. It was not for any other maneuver than — we was afraid it’s gonna come to the war.

Sure enough, in September the 2nd, 1939, the war with Poland broke out and we had to go over the border to Poland. Myself, I was in the 206th Division and our division didn’t have any enemy contact whatsoever. We was lucky, we only marched through Poland and the war was over in a very short time. The whole thing lasted only 16 days, the whole war with Poland. I’m not very proud of this but I was happy it was over in 16 days. Poland was not prepared for any war and the country was not equipped for any war to Germany.

I would like to mention, to make this better to understand, that I volunteered in 1935 in the armed services. To that time our head of government was General Field Marshal von Hindenburg and when we was sworn in, we was sworn in of Hindenburg. Then in 1935, end of 1935, Adolf Hitler took over Germany so we had to be sworn in again of Adolf Hitler. So I was not very proud of this whole situation, then we didn’t know to that time Hitler, and we only did our duties in best hopes, but we didn’t think and didn’t fear that anything like this would lead us to war.

Myself, I was for seven months in Poland. It was the occupation troops over there, and after seven months, they took us back to Germany. We came back to Germany and it didn’t take too long, he wasn’t released. It didn’t take too long then the war started with France. Again with France we didn’t have any enemy contact whatsoever. We got into France, I got up to Marseille, and I think all together when I was in France it was somewhere around five weeks. Then by this time our division got pulled out and back to Germany. So I thought for sure we gonna be released but it wasn’t so. They kept us there and we had to train soldiers. I was in meantime a sergeant and we had to train troops, recruits, and was laying around there in Germany.

Then till the next fall came up we got again equipped with ammunition and a lot of war equipment and was put on freight trains and was shipped towards Russia, out of Prussia through the Russian border. And there we was laying for quite a few days. And one night, by 11 o’clock, he had alert, and the commander had a speech to all of us, and he declared that we’re going to go over the border into Russia. Germany declared a war with Russia. This was kind of sad. Then to that time, like I say, I was married. I had to that time three children and I didn’t look for any war or for any fight whatsoever. And most of our troops was married men and nobody had desire to go to any war. We came going off with Poland and France, but we knew what Russia gonna mean to us. Russia is a very big country, and we as a little German country was not able to overrun this big country.

The same night when he spoke to us, Commander, we did go over the border. I think it was somewhere around by 1 o’clock in the night. We didn’t have any enemy contact whatsoever. We marched and marched for 10 miles, for 50 miles, for 100 miles, and 100 and 100 miles. We didn’t have no enemy contact. And Hitler, he had a war already won and in his pocket, so he kept on going and going. But in 1941 to 1942 this strong winter, that was what brought the German army to a stop.

First we had many enemy contacts but behind our lines all our supplies what came in to Russia by train, the partisans blowed them in the air — like you would say, underground, Russian underground — blowed all the train tracks and trains in the air so that we couldn’t get enough supply. Then came the strong winter in 1942 and sure enough we had to suffer and suffered hard, not only the men but our army was most equipped with horses. Them poor horses, they suffered more than any human being. A human being can ask and tell what’s wrong, but a poor horse is not able to tell what happened to him, his sickness, his aches, and his hunger.

When this winter came, we was not equipped with winter clothes, we was not equipped with enough ammunition, we was not equipped with enough war weapons and not enough equipped with food. So it was a very hard winter for us and we really suffered. Especially we lost our most losses was not through people that was wounded but through the frost, through the cold winter. We had I would say 60 percent losses through the frost. People didn’t have enough, was not enough prepared with clothing for this strong winter. Our generals and high commands, they ask Hitler that they want to dig them in in the ground to protect their troops and stay till the spring in the winter. But Hitler didn’t go for this. He commanded them to go on and he didn’t care what happened. He has to win the war with Russia. This was a bigger lowdown and blowdown than to that time Napoleon had.

I like the Russian people. They are good people. It’s only that their government is a big failure to that time. I make this recording now in 1975. The government today, it’s a big difference over there, but to that time was Stalin’s government. He was the head of the government and Stalin, he was no good. He slaved his own people, he prosecuted them, he had only, I would say, slaves. And he didn’t give them anything what they earned. Them poor people, they had to work, I would say, practically for nothing. They didn’t own nothing. They didn’t have anything they owned. Everything what they had belonged to the government, only what they had on their bodies.

Their pay, what they got, they got so and so many ounces of grain per day for a working man and for a non-working man only half that amount. And it was hard to make a living for these people. And I see them still today, when we came over to Russia and met them civilian people, they was very grateful and happy to see us. They thought that we gonna free them from all this bondage and they was very happy. They swung their arms around our neck and kissed us, the older people especially, then they knew a different life in Russia. Russia used to be once a very rich country when the Tsar used to be in the government. Russia was a good country and a rich country. But now, to Stalin’s time and communist time, they didn’t have nothing. There was only slaves.

And they were so disappointed later on through the Germans. The reason that they was disappointed, the German government or the German troops made a lot of — captured a lot of soldiers and put them in the prison camp. They held them in a prison camp and then when the war did turn different, when the Russian soldiers finally gathered their strength and that we had too many losses through frost and the wounding, then they fired the German troops back. And sure enough they came in contact with these prison camps what the Germans had put up there with their Russian soldiers, and they didn’t have enough food to feed them. There was starvation in these Russian prison camps and they found out that they had a lot of people starved for hunger in them camps. But the German government didn’t have a choice. They didn’t have enough food for their own soldiers through all this cold and strong winter. So when the civilian people then found out that their own soldiers had to die in them prison camps, then the whole thing turned against the German people.

In the meantime, I could myself very good understand with them people in their language. I tried hard and I learned their language. And we could conversate with each other. Not 100% perfect, but they knew what I wanted and I knew what they wanted. So we had some very good time with each other.

The Russian people over there, it’s different than here or in Europe. Especially the Russian women, they work hard. They have to go in a field and mow with their sickles. Sometimes, not sometimes, very often, the men laying home, they are more lazy. And their women, they have to do the work, especially this happened during the war when there was no communist government where they was occupied from German troops. There was no communist government to force them out, so their women had to go and do the work in the field and the men, mostly the men, was laying home and doing nothing.

I’ve seen some very sad things in Russia that I’ve never seen in my life. I never would think that anything could happen like this. A war is very painful, especially for these people where this war takes place. I found cases that people really was there living in starvation. They didn’t have no food. Through this zone change — we got forward, then we had to go back, then again we fight the Russians back so we got forward and then we got to go back — we fed them poor people. I fed them not once, I fed them more times. I had even a special kitchen built to feed them people in this village where I was there for quite a while. I was in command of 60 men and 220 horses. And we had our own kitchen there and I made them build another kitchen for the public and I fed them. They was grateful. They was ready to kiss my feet for that what I gave to them. I wouldn’t be afraid at all to go back in these places where I met them people, where I was sitting together and talking with them, eating together and sharing together. They wouldn’t harm me. They would be happy and glad to see me. Most of them older ones, I imagine they’ve been no more alive. I’ve been today myself 63 and to that time I was a young man, I was I think 31 or 32, so this would be quite a change there.

Anyway, what I want to say, the people did live practically from nothing. I want to explain what they did to survive, only to keep themselves alive. They did go to the woods and pick this moss from the trees, that green moss, and brought it home and dried it. And when they dried it, they had two stones. This was what disappointed me so terribly. The people was living like in a stone time, you know. For, I would say, 100 years backwards. They had them millstones laying on top of each other, in the center there was a hole and on the outside there was a stick, and that stick was tied up in a beam on the top in this little room. And on this stick there was two women, they grabbed that stick, and then they turned the top stone. The bottom stone was tied, but through this hole whatever you put in there, that goes between them two stones and you grind that. And they grind this moss. And this moss, they bake bread. I tasted this bread. It was bitter like gall. But they had something to keep them still a little bit longer on life.

I seen people starving, laying in their bed. They even couldn’t take no more food to them even if you hand them. They was not able. They was laying there, last hours. And little children. We had children, a little boy and a little girl. It was brother and sister. They lost their parents, don’t you know. And they came with us. They didn’t want to stay there. They came with us. We really was liked and loved from people. Then we tried to take care of them as much as we could. We shared with them.

Another boy was 10 years old. But the little boy, he took care like a mother of his sister. And we really helped him. We tried to do our best for both of these children, plus their parents a while back, and everybody else from the civilian people had their own fight with their life. So you can imagine what kind of condition these two children have been. This little girl, she didn’t live too long. Then she was so undernourished, and the change of food, she couldn’t take it. Then her little belly was big, blown up. When she died, we buried her, and her brother, the boy, he continued to come with us. He kept riding on a wagon and he was real happy. Our company tailor, he made him a nice little uniform, a German soldier uniform, and he really enjoyed that. I really don’t know what happened later on — after I got wounded I really don’t know what happened to this little boy, if he survived or whatever happened, I don’t know.

But this — yes, you have a rough idea what people got through. They were so poor, you don’t have no idea how people are living, how they was living over there. Their conditions was indescribable. Sometimes you wonder if they, that seemed like they’ve been living thousand years back according to the rest of civilization in this part of country that I met them. And it was a horrible war and you seen how the people was laying there killed from the grenades and bombs, not only the civilian people, even our own soldiers. I’ve seen them laying in the mud, dead for days, their faces was pale, and even there was run over with wagons and military equipment like automobiles. And then nobody had time to take care to bear them. It was a terrible, a horrible war. I hate to think back on this.

Whoever going to listen to this tape, please make sure and think in which conditions you live and what, according to these people, what they have to go through. Nothing is worse in this world than when a country is directly involved in war. This war takes everything. It takes your loved ones, it takes your health and strength, and poor people. I’ve seen them today. How did they live? It’s hard to believe. You have to see this to believe. Otherwise, it’s hardly possible.

I’ve seen them. They didn’t have no furniture. They had, some of them, they had a very big table and no chairs. They had a bench going, starting along on a wall from one side of the door all the way around through the room and came up to the other side from the door, a bench. So when they had company — and they really did have company, they visit each other, that’s what they told me, they had a lot of fun, they visit each other — so that the people had something to sit, that’s the reason they had all this bench built around through the room in this wall. Them houses was built out of logs, big logs, chopped flat with axes and laid on top of each other, and between them logs they put moss from the woods, for protection for cold weather and wind, that the wind couldn’t blow through. Them houses was warm. This wood house, it was very warm. I was surprised. But so primitive, that’s hard to believe.

If you would see anything like this, that’s the reason I mentioned them people living in their villages like they would be thousand years back according to the rest of civilization. They didn’t have any other furniture. Some of them had the big table, and I didn’t see hardly any chairs around there. If they had, they had some benches made themselves, handmade benches to sit on. Stools like in the height for the regular chair, but only like a stool. And their beds, they didn’t have any beds.

They did all sleep on the top of this oven. This oven was a big oven, I would describe it, I would say somewhere around seven to eight foot in the square. And between the oven and the wall — the oven was built away from one side of a wall so that you had a space to put a ladder, a regular ladder made out of two beams and pieces nailed over it, so that they could climb on the top of this oven. On this oven the family did sleep there. The children was born there and the family died up there. They didn’t have any beddings. Mostly they pulled off their filled boots — some, even they did go to sleep in them filled boots, they never took them off — and their jackets, what they covered them with. And underneath they had some rags, like I would say, I seen few of them, they had like old quilts, you know, it wasn’t really quilts, it was really only rags.

And there the family was all together, sleeping on top of this oven. The reason they slept up there — the oven was about, I would say, somewhere around two and a half foot away from the ceiling — and up there it was warm, on this oven they slept. And inside the oven there was a big opening where they cooked and baked their bread in there. So this oven took care of a few purposes: cooking, baking, and sleeping. So that’s the way the people was living there.

I could go on and on and tell you things on conditions, how the people have been living there, how they’ve been fed, and things like this, but I would run through a few dozen tapes only to tell you from their conditions. And I think it’s not so much interest anymore in a way — this is all past, this was especially when at that time when Stalin was there. But Russia altogether, what I found out, it’s better today. And lots of hope, even in this part of Russia where I did speak from — this was up in Smolensk, Rzhev, Minsk, and all around there, central Russia. It was horrible.

Now, my brother, what died in the war, he was up in Ukraine. And he told me there the conditions was better. The people was more civilized and more living more like other parts, but still it was very poor. It was all of the communist regime and they didn’t own nothing either, but it was in better conditions than over here.

One thing I would like to mention: they did have radio in some villages, not very often, but in some villages did have radio. But you didn’t have a radio — they had only the loudspeaker built in their house, and the radio station was in a mayor’s office. And the mayor selected what you was allowed to hear, to listen to. Things that they didn’t want you to listen, you couldn’t listen. The reason, they didn’t want them people to know what goes on in the outside world. That’s the reason they was not allowed to have their own radio. They had only the speakers, and they selected the music for you in the mayor’s office, when it was all sent through cable over to your speakers. And you could listen there, but that was all what you was allowed, and you was not allowed to get in contact with any outside world whatsoever. That’s the job and work of the communist regime — they don’t want the people to know how other people live and what goes on in this world.

I was wounded in 1942 on December the 6th. I was wounded through an airplane. This airplane was American airplanes. The Russian airplanes, we didn’t have to worry about. We never seen any Russian airplanes during the daytime, only in the nighttime. There was not many airplanes, but what they had, they came only in the nighttime. They sound like a helicopter, the noise sound like a helicopter, so it was a funny noise their motor made. And we had to be careful — I would say we wasn’t afraid, but we had to be careful — that when they seen anywhere light, didn’t matter if they knew if there are German soldiers or not, but soon they found the light. It sounded like that the motor stopped, you didn’t hear that thing. And we was always laughing. He said, oh, now the motor stopped, he shut the motor off, now the pilot goes in the back and throws the bombs out. That’s the way it seemed like, but I don’t think it was that way. But it was a funny thing, for some reason you couldn’t hear it more. Then all at once there, you hear them bombs whistling coming on through the air, you know. So you have to be very careful.

But later on, I would say somewhere around half 1942, America gave Russians airplanes and then the pilots was Russian pilots built out on them planes. And then you found them in the daytime. They came quite often in the daytime and visited us. And it was kind of dangerous. And that’s where I’ve been wounded from. We was all sitting in the house inside during the day, and all at once there came a whole bunch of planes on. But when they fly high, you could hear them far ahead. And so we hear them twice. We run out of the houses and run in the bunker. So nothing happened. But the third time when they came on, they came in three waves. The third time when they came on, they came very low and we didn’t hear them until they was there. I was sitting on one of them benches like I described a little while ago. In front of me a very large heavy wooden handmade table, and I wanted to push a table away to drop myself on the floor but I couldn’t get fast enough from behind the table. And the bomb fell right behind my back on the outside and it broke the wall and hit me in both legs — left leg right above the knee, and the right leg I tore up more on the back part, I tore up all the way the leg from my ankle almost up to the knee and broke both bones in there.

So that was the end for me of the war. I was — that time we didn’t have a doctor right on hand, so the veterinarian, he came and took a look of me and they tied my leg up and he sent me to the field hospital. And when I came over there, they arrived the way they took me and gave me blood transfusions. I lost quite a bit of blood. And that’s all they could do. They only gave me blood transfusions, and then they kept me there for two more days. They wanted to send me back with the airplane to the field Lazarett, but they were so crowded with the planes that they needed them planes for bringing ammunition and food and everything in. And they didn’t have a chance to take us back, but somehow the planes were so overcrowded. So we was laying there for two days right close to the front.

And them Russian planes came really voluptuous over in that town. Here we was laying on the floor, bedded. Our beds was right on the floor, straw and only covered with blankets. And you couldn’t walk or you couldn’t move. And there the planes came and were shooting and throwing bombs. You only closed your eyes and prayed and gave your life over to the good Lord. You didn’t know which moment or which second your last breath was going to be. Then you couldn’t go anywhere. You was not able to move. When they came on them planes, everybody, the doctors, aides, and everybody ran and hid. But here you was laying and couldn’t move. It wasn’t only me who was laying there. Oh, quite a few other people, you know, should be transported with the plane, but they couldn’t get them out.

And after two days they finally got us up and put us in a freight train. They put us in a freight train and sent us back deeper in the country. And it was a long train put together. That wasn’t only wounded, but there was lots and lots of wounded people and mostly people what had lost their — not lost, but I mean was frozen through the cold winter. It was frozen — the reason we didn’t have enough clothing and not enough warm clothing there, so we lost lots of people through frost. And it was all put together in a long train in the freight train and to send back to the Lazarett.

Each car had an iron oven and was heated with coal so that we kept a little bit warm. That was in the winter time when I was wounded, it was on the 6th of December. Anyway, when we was on our way, the train was rolling back from the front, one of the doctor aides — there was in each car a doctor aide for helping the wounded people — he gonna go and put some more coal on that fire to keep us warm. And he opened the wrong door. There was one door for putting more coal in and one door for taking out the ashes. And he opened the wrong door and that fire fell out. And straw was close there and it started burning. Now you imagine, laying in a freight car, no emergency brakes, nothing, and here there starts fire in your car, and here you can’t move. You’ve been completely out, you can’t move. And we mostly was all in a condition that we couldn’t move. There was I think three guys what could help him put the fire out there. They grabbed them big blankets and smothered this fire out. Otherwise we would be all — not only we, but the cars behind us — we would all go up in flames if they wouldn’t be able to get that fire out.

You can imagine what kind of situation you’ve been in. When you can walk and something like this happens and what fear and what excitement goes on — here you can’t move and there you see that fire comes closer to you. I think it was all together three attacks, airplane attacks, when we was shipped back from the front to field Lazarett. But personally, in our car, nothing happened. I don’t know what happened with the other cars. Nobody told you anything, but there are three attacks. And it’s kind of horrible if you can’t help yourself and you have to depend on somebody when something like this happens. Everybody tried to save his own life and don’t care what happened with the guy what was laying there. So you can imagine what kind of feeling that is.

Then they brought us back all the way to Minsk. Minsk — that was the place — it’s amazing how things happen in your life — it was a place where I was born. I was born in the same — not the same city, I was born in Minsk, but this was Minsk, like a state, the state Minsk, you know. And so I arrived there in the hospital. And we was really nice taken care of. It was all clean bedding, everything beautiful, taken care of. And I did lay there from somewhere close to the 10th of December till beginning January. The reason I was laying there so long, I had high temperature. They couldn’t transport me. They didn’t transport nobody with high temperature.

In the meantime, they didn’t amputate me right away. They wanted to save my leg. But in the meantime there came gangrene in on my wounds. And one day I got a strong bleeding and they gave me a light medicine to sleep so that they could take care of the bleeding. And when they got on this, then they found out there’s gangrene on the wound. So without asking or saying anything, they put me to sleep and took my leg off.

Now you can imagine what kind of feelings that are. Here you are a young man, and here you wake up, and it was some kind of funny feeling when I woke up from the operation. I couldn’t find out what goes on. They had some kind of basket made in my bed and had my stump hanging there in that basket, and I couldn’t examine it. So I was looking for the nurse, and the nurse came on. She was, oh, she must be somewhere around in her forties, was an older lady. And when I asked her what happened, I wanted to see what happened there, you know. She didn’t dare to tell me. She asked me if I could wait till the doctor comes. I said, no, I want to know right away what’s going on there. So she started crying. She started crying and then she lifted the covers up. There I seen what happened. My leg was gone. This happened somewhere around between Christmas and New Year’s. I can’t exactly say the date when this happened, but that’s what it was. I know it was still before the New Year started when they took my leg off.

I was laying down there still for quite a while in this hospital. The reason why I mentioned I had high temperature, they couldn’t transport me. But I was full of fear. Then the undergrounds, they made a lot of damage, and they got in one hospital and they killed there quite, oh, I would say somewhere around 30% of the wounded soldiers. They killed them off. They cut their throats till they finally was overwhelmed and filed back. And you never knew what happened from one night to another.

So that’s the reason I wanted to get out so bad as possible. So what I did, I started cheating with my temperature for I think three or four days. And then when the doctor came through, I think it was on the fourth day, then he said, okay, that man is ready for going back to Europe, to Germany. You can’t believe how happy I was to get out of there. This hell. And that’s what I could call it, only hell.

When I arrived in Europe in the hospital, I didn’t come close to my home hospital. I was somewhere around, still I would say at least 600 miles away from my hometown where they stationed me in the hospital. But my family came and visited me there, and it was a completely different feeling, and the conditions were normal. Then you knew you didn’t have to fear anymore. That alone is a good feeling.

Later on, they transferred me closer to my hometown. Then in my hometown direct, there was not an amputee hospital. They put amputees alone beside the other sick people. So when I was transferred, I was somewhere around 80 miles away from my hometown. And there was a possibility that I could be often visited. I was altogether 18 months in the hospital. I wouldn’t say direct in the hospital, but on and off I did go home to visit my family and came back to hospital. And they made us walk — they had a walking school there — then later on when we got our artificial legs, they had a walking school there. And for excellent walking I got quite a few extra benefits, vacation. They gave me quite a bunch of vacations to go home and then I had to go back. And it was a few days to end and they gave me this vacation again so that I could go home. So altogether what I was hanging around in the hospital was somewhere around 18 months. It’s hard to believe, you know. Today the conditions are all different.

When I came home then I found in my family they had a lot of problems. I was bombed out, or my family was bombed out during the time I was gone, three times during this time. First the house was all burned out, bombed out by the Russians. I was living in Prussia, Germany at that time, and we was bombed out by the Russians through firebombs. They threw firebombs and the whole house was burned out. Everything was gone. Nothing left. And when my wife brought me, she lost everything and we didn’t have nothing. So she did go to the magistrate and they gave her new stamps to buy furniture and bedding and things like that. The families were hard. The husbands on the front, they was taking care of it right away. So she bought everything again, what she needed.

And then she couldn’t stand it there no more. The attacks was too much. So she put everything down in the basement, what she could put down. She left for my parents on the farm and took quite some stuff with, dishes and things like that, to the farm. And all the stuff again was burned out again. Then in the meantime I was able to go home and I transferred my family to West Germany and they did stay there for a while.

But then they wrote — in the meantime I was out of hospital too, and they didn’t release me for the service. I had to stay in the military quarters there and build recruits. That was my job, I had to build recruits. And when I received, one day I received the letter that they almost got killed through the American airplanes. They came down and visited that town and they shot at what was moving, even individual people on the street. And two of my boys, they came that moment from school, and they almost got killed. If they wouldn’t threw themselves close to a fence and would lay close to the fence, they would be gone too.

And so when my wife wrote me this, I asked my commander for vacation, and that’s what he gave me. And I did go back and got my family out of West Germany and brought them back and moved them in to Wittenberg, Lutherstadt Wittenberg. That’s the city where Martin Luther was living. And the Luther church is still there, you know, where Martin Luther was translating the Bible. That’s still there, the church, today. My family was living there till after the war.

I was finally released — almost before the war broke down, and finally they released me. When I came home not too long ago, then the war was over. In the meantime, we had to move from Wittenberg on account of too many air raids. You had to move out into the villages. And when the war broke down, we was captured under the Russians. The Russians came. That was the other side on the Elbe River.

D.3 Personal History, Volume 2 (1975)

The Russians came and the other side the Americans came. So we was captured and the Russians — it wasn’t a very nice surprise especially for me where I knew them. I didn’t like them very much but there was nothing to do.

I remember this day when the Russians came in. It was in the night time, two o’clock in the night when they came in. There was no fights. The German troops was all moved back and there was no fights. And then they came, and when we woke up there was all the Russian tanks right in front of them houses, they was lined up. And didn’t take too long, hardly was dawn, when they was rattling on them doors. It was Sunday morning. I did go out to take a look what’s going on. And when you open the door they came in right away and got through the house and searched around where they could get something what they like. So I did go out on the street. He didn’t have nothing, like I said, he was bombed out three times. There was nothing much what they was interested in.

And there was next door neighbor, he was staying already dressed for Sunday morning, staying on a porch. And he had his watch with a chain hanging on his belly. And when the Russian came up on his porch and seen him stand there, that was the first thing he grabbed for — that watch — and took the watch away. That old man, he tried to hang on, but he gave him a push and almost fell off that porch. So that’s what they was after, watches. Some guys had watches from the hand almost up to the elbow with band watches and pocket watches in the pockets. They didn’t know what to do with it, but they knew they are valuable. So that’s the reason they took it.

This was only material things. We didn’t worry too much about them. Even other people that lost these items, they wasn’t worried so much about them. But the worst part was when they came in there, it was a terrible thing what happened. They took the women and raped them in front of their husband and their family. It was horrible to see what people have been able to do. You can’t believe — you have to see these things.

A friend of mine, he was amputated like me, but above the knee, and they took his wife right in front of him and raped her. Can you imagine with what kind of feelings you sit there to let something happen? And you couldn’t do a thing, otherwise they killed you down in cold blood like a dog. There was not a thing you could do.

Our town nurse, we had in them villages nurses. So when you couldn’t get a doctor either, they had a nurse. Each little town had a nurse. This town nurse, they took her night for night to their quarters and raped her one after another till that poor woman died. She was a single lady, but she was a respectable lady, somewhere around close to the 40s. And that’s what happened. That’s the way she died through this darn horrible war. You can’t believe how people act.

This was Asiatic troops that came in this part, but not only them. We heard all over Germany that this was done, that they came and raped the women. They liked to get even on Germany through this war, what they couldn’t do with their equipment, they used the women. It’s horrible. In our neighbor town they locked all the men, every one of them, in a church with guards for the doors and then they raped the women. It is horrible to think and to see anything like this.

Friends of ours, they had two young daughters, 16 and 18 years old. And they did hide them in a straw stack outside, in a straw stack, for days — not for days, for weeks — till everything slowly settled down. Now, these troops, they did stay there. They occupied Germany right there. But they was allowed — they told us later — they was allowed to do what they wanted. I think it was somewhere around for two weeks they could do what they wanted. Then later on it was forbidden. They couldn’t do these things no more. But for two weeks they did do and could do what they wanted. Terrible things happened.

They loved vodka. They liked to drink. And one house there was rubbing alcohol. Oh, I think it was a gallon or more. And the people told them that’s rubbing alcohol, but that didn’t matter. They smelled alcohol. And there was three guys that died from it, from this rubbing alcohol. You couldn’t take it away from them, and if you tried, they would kill you. So you had to let them drink, and they drunk themselves to death. That’s not only little things, there are a lot more things that did go on.

I myself didn’t lose that time too much through the occupation troops. They were small items, I would say. I had a brand-new coat, an overcoat. The tailor had already cut it out, but he didn’t make it. When the front came so close that we seen it going to break, he called me up and told me to come and get that material away from him. And I did take it home. And he said, when everything is over you bring it back and I’ll sew it for you. So we had it in a nice packet laying there — they took that thing. They couldn’t do a thing with it, but they took it. They took it away from you, you know. Didn’t matter what happened. Even food, what they found on food, they took it away from you.

It was a hard time to make it through. But I was prepared with my family. We was living there as refugees in that little town. And before the Russians came in, I did buy a pig. And we killed that pig. And we did render all the fat out and cut the lean meat in bite pieces, mouth pieces, and left it in the fat. And this fat, when you cover that meat with that fat, you can keep that for years, so long as covered and keep it cool. And the way we kept that cool, we had in the basement underneath the stairway, there was like a root cellar. There was no cement or anything. There was only dirt. And there I dug a deep hole and buried this meat with that fat down there. That was the only thing that kept us alive. And one of the farmers, he baked bread. So often my wife could go by and get bread. That was the only way we kept alive. Otherwise, I don’t know yet what we would have done if that farmer wouldn’t help us and if we wouldn’t have that meat. A lot of people got through very rough times there.

Then finally when everything settled down, I didn’t like the idea to live under the Russians. They occupied that part of the country up to the Elbe River. And I didn’t like to live under the Russians. I’d seen enough from them. And the most thing that burned me up — I’ve seen they was fighting the war against us with all our equipment, our horses, everything that you’ve seen. Mostly they had German equipment, you know. And I would say the only thing they had was their uniforms. All the rest was all German equipment. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t see this. And only to think to live under barbarians like that, I couldn’t stand it.

So when everything settled down a little bit, I made a first trip. I was so messed up with my leg, my stump, through walking. Before I came home, I couldn’t wear an artificial leg for four months. I had to walk on crutches. So I took my crutches and walked around on them.

Once in the afternoon, I wanted to go to one of the neighbors and had to cross the street. And there came a guy on his machine gun over his shoulder, drunk like a monkey. He really was drunk. And when he seen me coming there on crutches, he came up to me, you know, and talked in Russian. I knew what he said. At that time, I couldn’t understand very good Russian. And he said, you fired, you killed Russians. Oh, he blamed me with a lot of things. And thanks God I didn’t kill one Russian through all this war. Not anybody, not in Poland, not in France or in Russia. I’ve been grateful and thankful to my Father in Heaven that I didn’t have to do this.

And so he wanted to kill me right there on the street. I had these iron crutches right in the hand, and I thought if he lifts this machine gun up to point at me, I smack him right over his head. In that moment, there came another guy on. He seen this and he came and grabbed him from behind over both his arms and took his machine gun away from him and took him then with him. But this was only a moment of, I would say, seconds, where I could lose my life. The good Lord, he really blessed me and took care of me. I’m grateful for this.

I was so fed up with all the stuff that I got my crutches one day and took a few sandwiches with me and took off to the western border. And when I came up there I got over the black border and got over to the West Zone. My parents was in the meantime — they lost their farm, they lost everything, them poor people. It’s hard to tell you folks what this means. My dad worked all his life hard for his farm, and now he had to leave everything back and take all his suitcases and go on a ship. And then they shipped him from Prussia, Germany, over the North Sea they call it, past Danzig, over to West Germany, Kiel, the harbor. And there he came on to West Germany only with a couple of suitcases. My mom and dad, that’s all they had left. There was refugees like all the rest of them.

One thing is fair and square in a war like this — don’t matter how much you have, how many thousand acres you got, it don’t help you. You have to leave everything behind. In Prussia, Germany, right there where my dad lived, he did have neighbors from each side. There was big neighbors. There were thousands of acres. They lost the same everything like he lost. They couldn’t save a thing. They allowed you only to take your necessities in a suitcase and get on a ship. And that’s all you could take with you. It didn’t matter how many thousand cattle you got, how many thousand acres you got, you had to leave everything behind. So you can imagine what this means. That’s what’s a war, what you call a war. War takes everything — lives, health, and all your belongings.

So when I got over to West Germany, in the meantime I had contacted where my parents are through the Red Cross. The Red Cross was very helpful to that time. You see, everybody was split up. We was living in Prussia, Germany, that time too, but I brought my family to West Germany. But then even West Germany or Central Germany was cut for the Russians. In the meantime, my parents had to leave everything and flee to West Germany. So we didn’t know where they are, what happened to them. But through the Red Cross, they really were fabulous. In no time, you found out where your families or where your loved ones are.

And so I got over there and visited them. And then I got back and got two of my sons, first with some belongings, what we had on a little hand wagon, pulled it over the black border in the night time. You have to steal yourself over like a thief and not get caught. And when I had them two children over — and believe it or not, I’m on crutches — you don’t know what this means. And I took them to their grandparents, to my parents, and left them there. And then a few days I rested up and I got back. That hundred of miles, it sounds so easy when I talk it here on the tape, but that are hundreds of miles. Then I got back on a train again. Eighteen miles I had to walk on crutches to get to a train station, the first train station after you pass the black border.

And got on a train, got back, and got the other two boys and my wife and the rest of the belongings, what we could take with us, and got back again with them to West Germany. Got over there to West Germany. We had a hard time to find living quarters. But the mayor, he took care so that we was moved in with another family. Families had to share their homes for refugee families. And that’s where we lived for quite a while. Was living there until 1948, from ’45 to ’48, three years I was living there. That was in Knudsen by Kaltenkirchen, Schleswig-Holstein. That’s up in northern Germany.

My parents, they lived there till my dad died. I moved out there in 1948. I moved to Brunswick. I bought my own place there and moved to Brunswick. And we built that place up. We had a nice big building. It was a five-story home that I built up with help, with a good architect, especially help from my Father in Heaven. He blessed me that I could go back on my feet again. I started my own business. I had a shoe store and a shoe shop. Yeah, we did make a pretty good way of living, I would say. We recuperated very good after the war. I was always on the way of taking care of the welfare of my family. There was not one dull day that I lost.

My dad, he died in 1948. I think it was in the fall when he died. And they had already their papers, everything ready to go — my mom and dad — to go to the United States. And that’s what was their destiny, to go to this country. Now my brother did sponsor for them and he wanted to have them come over. When I say my brother, I’ve been talking about my brother John, or Julius Rapp. He left Germany in 1922. He was sponsored by one of our uncles, Julius Hansel. He lived in Portland, Oregon. He had John coming over to this country in 1922. And John sponsored then for his parents, my parents, in 1948. Before my dad could make it, he died. He died of brain hemorrhage. So nothing we could do. My mother, she didn’t want to go by herself, but after we talked to her and then she did go. And she left Germany in 1948. So that was the beginning of the family here in this country.

And in 1953, I got over here with my family to this country. We arrived here March the 16th in Las Vegas, Nevada. My brother John sponsored for us too, and we came over here to this country from Germany, from Brunswick, right here to Las Vegas, Nevada. And we was living — I was living in Las Vegas, Nevada for 19 years.

It was quite a big change for me to come from Germany to Las Vegas, Nevada. The reason here in Nevada, it’s all desert, not very much green. Today it’s different, but when I came over in 1953, the town was not even a fourth what’s today. There was lots of desert, and here we came from Germany, there’s everything green, every square foot it’s cultivated. The reason they have to cultivate — the living room in Germany, it’s not so big, they have to cultivate every square inch, I would say, to be able to make their living over there. And it was quite a change to come to a big desert like this. I’ve never seen something like this in my life. But I got used to it fast and I enjoyed it.

It really wasn’t easy for me to start out in Las Vegas. I didn’t speak one word English. I have a lot of things to tell, and if I would want to bring all this up — I had a hard time to arrive. I didn’t speak one word English. When I came over on my trip, I came over on the Queen Mary. I had to go from Germany to Holland, from Holland on a ferry over to England, and when we arrived in London, I had to go to Southampton to the harbor. And there we was laying for two days. The reason, the Queen Mary was laid back from United States on account of the weather condition. So we was laying for two days in Southampton in a hotel and enjoyed it. We had a good time there.

And our trip from Germany to United States on the Queen Mary was one of my nicest experiences in my life. We had a wonderful time on this ship. Myself, I didn’t have any problem, and two of my boys didn’t have any problem either, but the other two boys and my wife, they got for the last three days very seasick. Our trip lasted six days. We arrived the sixth day in New York. And the last three days the weather condition was very rough. We came in March and that’s quite a rough month to come over an ocean like this. But otherwise we enjoyed that trip very much, but a lot of complications with reading menus, the reason nobody spoke English. But we did contact people what could read English and could talk German so they helped us out with a lot of things.

And when I arrived here in Las Vegas — one thing I would like to mention, when we arrived in New York, it was a great experience for me. I must say it was a great experience. I heard a lot of this land, a lot of America, and a lot of beautiful stories. There were some things, sure enough, I was wondering. But the big cities — for instance, we stopped in Chicago. We came on a Greyhound bus from New York to Las Vegas. We stopped in Chicago, and it was quite different in cleanness, let’s put it this way. Germany, to that time, it was quite a while after the war, was back on their feet and everything was clean again. And here, when you go in Chicago, somewhere on the side streets, on the alleys, oh, it was a garbage pail. But this didn’t bother me too much. Sure enough, I was disappointed to see things like that, but we mostly seen the good things to enjoy it and I am grateful for that.

It was very hard for me to start out here. I had four boys and family and you have to make a living. The money what I had, I couldn’t get it exchanged. I had somewhere around 9,000 marks what I had to exchange, but I still brought with me what was left over after I paid my fare for my whole family. But still it took a while, this had to be sent through the bank to San Francisco, and till that came back I think it took more than a month, something around six weeks. And I didn’t want to depend on anybody else, so I made sure to get out to work. My wife too. And it is not easy when you come to a different country where you don’t know the language, to go to work and get acquainted with things what you never knew before. But things worked out. When I look back today, things worked out a lot better than I would think.

I started out in Las Vegas first at the Swiss Village. It was a restaurant — I think they call it the Barbaskins — a small place, and the guy, the owner there, he was a Swiss guy. And he was so grateful that he could get me, then he almost forgot his German. Most Swiss, they speak German, and he forgot that German. He wanted very fresh German, so he was happy to have me, and I was happy that he spoke German. But after a few months I found out that’s not good for me. I never gonna learn English if I keep on working with him. So I told him, Walter Wolfinger was his name, I told him, Walter, I’m gonna have to quit. I have too much problem with my language and working with you, this don’t help me at all. He says, you’re right, I seen this, but I didn’t want to tell you to quit. But I was very happy to have you up till now so that I refreshed my German, and you’re a very nice fellow, and I hate to see you leave. But I had to do this on account of learning English.

So I did go from him to the Desert Inn Hotel. Now this was a big change. There was not one person that did speak German. I had a hard time, I’ve been honest with you. I never would try this again, to go to a different country and to another language, especially when you have your whole family with you. When you’ve been alone, somehow you manage things, but if you have a family, you have responsibilities, and you better be aware of these things. So I had a hard time. Every time when I drove to work, I liked to read the signs, especially on the motels — vacancy, no vacancy — till I knew what I was doing. And I ordered the newspaper. I always loved to read the newspaper. I didn’t know what I was reading, but I kept on reading. I didn’t give up. Every night I was sitting for hours and was studying the newspaper. And believe it or not, little by little, it came, one word with another. I really enjoyed it later on to read.

And people was helpful and they understood. I had some sad experience with some nutheads that thought they know everything and they gave me sometimes a hard time. But I would say it didn’t take me more, oh I would say not more than two years, then I was on the top and nobody could play around with me. My language was not the best, but they knew what I told them, and they knew what I wanted.

I enjoyed working in the hotels. I worked in quite a few of them. When I left the Desert Inn, I did go and open the Royal Nevada. The Royal Nevada didn’t last for long. They did go broke. But it was a nice place. I was only there 10 days. The reason, I quit. They didn’t have the facilities what they promised me. And then I walked up one day in the office and I told them I quit. And they told me, you can’t. The manager was right there, and he says, we appreciate you for the work you’ve been doing, and you can’t quit. You can’t leave us here alone. I said, I did already. And I walked out. He promised me then again he’s going to give me that icebox for my stuff to put in, things like that. But I said, you promised me too long, and I’m tired of it. So I turned around and walked out.

Walked from the Royal Nevada right over to the Riviera Hotel. The Riviera, that was 1954. The Riviera Hotel was opened a few days ago. When I came over there and asked for a job, there was the executive chef and the manager, both was in the office, and they grabbed me right there. That’s the man we were looking for, and you can start right away. I said, I’m sorry, I worked eight hours already and I’m tired. Can I come back tomorrow and start? He says, didn’t you look for a job? You look for work, right? I say, yes. Alright, you start now. So there was nothing I could do. I quit there and I did go over to Royal Nevada again and got my tools and came back and started in the Riviera Hotel. And I worked there for over three years. I really liked it, enjoyed it, but one day I quit. The reason I quit, there came things up I didn’t like, and I quit. There was no problem in Las Vegas. You quit in one place and go and work in another. There was no problems at that time whatsoever.

When I quit the Riviera, I did go to the Sands Hotel. I was in the Sands Hotel four years. And when I quit the Sands Hotel, the executive chef from the Tropicana called me to come to the Tropicana. That’s where I did go. In the Tropicana, I was only for two weeks. The reason, when I started at the Tropicana, right three days after they fired that executive chef, and he did go to the New Frontier. And when he was there, he called me up if I would come and work with him in New Frontier. So I liked him quite. He was a nice fellow. He was a German guy too, and I liked him. And so I quit Tropicana and did go to Frontier.

When I gave the new chef in the Tropicana the notice that I’m going to quit, he knew right away that I’m going to go over there. And he offered me more money. And I refused. He didn’t offer me that what the guy offered me in the Frontier, and I would quit anyway. I wanted to work with the German guy together, and that’s what I did. So I worked there, I think it was only somewhere around a little bit over a year. And then I didn’t like the whole conditions there, was kind of messed up, this whole place. It was messed up right from the beginning but it got worse, and I didn’t like it. And then I quit there and did go back to the Sands Hotel. I worked another year in the Sands Hotel, and then I quit the Sands and did go in my own business.

I love gardening. That’s one thing I really enjoyed all my life, and I love it. I quit the Sands and started my own gardening business. I had very good customers. I had only 14 customers, that’s all I took. The reason I couldn’t take more, I didn’t want to hire any help. And the help over there, it’s not very much work. Today they work, tomorrow it’s payday, they’ve been drunk and been gone or something else. And I wanted to keep my business in good shape. So I said, I take only that much I’ve been able to do by my own. But I couldn’t go too much longer on with this business, to the reason on account of my leg. It was too hard for me. It was too hot on the outside in the first case. Second, I need even and a hard floor to walk good so that I don’t hurt my leg. And this was not good for me.

Before I go on to tell you where else I worked, I want to tell you something else what I forgot to start out. When I still was working at the Sands Hotel, there’s something very special happened to me, and I want to let you in on this. I worked in the Sands Hotel. My wife and myself, we separated. The reason for this, it’s a family affair I wouldn’t want to talk about. She left me. She did go to Chicago. And I was living by myself.

And one day I got very sick. I got very sick that I couldn’t stand, and when I bent down I couldn’t stay that way either. I had something in my back. I had to have a doctor. I was crying like a baby, it was so painful. Anyway, I had to see a doctor, and I called up my doctor. I wanted to make an appointment with him that he should come and see me. Then his nurse told me that he’s out of town. So I did open the phone book to find another doctor. And my eyes pointed to Dr. Gerald Jones. I picked up the phone and called Dr. Gerald Jones. The nurse answered, and they accepted me and told me to come out to see the doctor. It was hard for me to go out, but I put all my strength together and got over.

When he examined me, he ordered therapy. He had a therapy room right there, and one of his nurses, she took me in this room and put me on a therapy table to give me a therapy treatment. So she strapped me on this table and put the heating plates on my back and I was laying there and she started the therapy. So she asked me, like this she says, listen, what do you know about the Mormons? I said, about the Mormons? I don’t know much. I said, one of my boys is married to a Mormon girl. And I say, I know that. Another thing I know, they have six or seven wives. Now that she didn’t like too much, I know, but that’s what slipped out my mouth. That’s all I knew about the Mormons.

So she says, alright, would you like to know some more about the Mormons? So I thought for sure she gonna tell me right there on that table more about the Mormons. So I say, oh my golly, it wouldn’t hurt. She says, alright, can I make an appointment with you for the next few days, so I come out with my companion and visit you? Now that shocked me quite a bit. I wasn’t prepared for that. I didn’t think that she would ask me to come to my home to visit me there and tell me more about the Mormons and the Mormon church. But again, I was laying there, and I was not strong enough to say no.

I said alright, I think I asked her to come out on a Wednesday. And I was all kind of excited for this moment, and I wanted to get rid of them both girls as soon as possible. So I did make them a dinner and invited them for dinner. I had some seafood, I think. I think it was stuffed avocado with seafood or something. Anyway, they enjoyed the dinner and had a good time. We had a good time at the dinner table.

When we was ready, I thought, oh my God, they’re going to leave. But no. So they asked me if we could go to another room. They would like to tell me some more about the Mormons. So nothing I could do. I got up and we got to the other room, and sure enough, they started to tell me more about the Mormons. They started out with the first lesson. And they came both, came another time with the second lesson. And I think they came in with the third lesson. Oh, then she had a different companion with her. And so they gave me the third lesson.

After this, the doctor’s aide, or nurse — she was a college student. She did only work on the summer months there with Dr. Jones. Otherwise she did go to Brigham Young University of Utah here in Provo and visited the college there. During the summer months she didn’t have any semester there, so she worked herself through college. And in the meantime when she was ready with the third lesson, she told me that she couldn’t come no more. She has to go back to school. And she would send some other missionaries out to give me the rest of the lessons and let me know more about the Mormon church.

Sure enough, this happened. So she returned to school. And didn’t take long, they came two missionaries out, two men missionaries. And they came out and gave me one lesson. And that was the end of them two boys. I didn’t see them no more.

In the meantime she wrote me and asked me how I come along with the lessons. When I wrote her back in German, I explained a lot of things. I had a very hard problem to accept Joseph Smith. So I wrote her a letter in German and explained that I have a hard time accepting Joseph Smith. And I thought it’s going to be probably the whole thing going to come to the end, you know. But no, that didn’t work. She wrote down to her doctor where she worked, and this doctor, he was a stake mission president. And this doctor and his companion, they came out and visited me and gave me a lesson.

And in the meantime Thanksgiving came up. So this nurse, she came back to visit her folks in Las Vegas. They was living in Las Vegas. So she came back for her Thanksgiving vacation. And then she and the doctor and his companion, they came out and gave me another lesson. And when it was through, they asked me to pray. And pray in English. Before, when she came with her female companion, they asked me to pray, but I always prayed in German. But this time they asked me to pray in English. And when I prayed there, she told me right there, and the doctor too, that the Spirit of the Lord was there like you could touch Him. So that was a wonderful experience for myself too. Then I realized the truth of the Church and of the Gospel.

When I was ready, so I was ready to be baptized. After my prayer, I felt that I was ready, and I asked to be baptized. So she had to go back to school again, and when she came back for Christmas — in the meantime, I asked her, she was a single lady, and I was single. In the meantime I had my divorce with my first wife. And I asked her if she would marry me. She accepted my offer. I was grateful to her.

When she came back, we got married on the 20th of December. And also on the 20th of December, I’ve been baptized. Baptism took part two o’clock in the afternoon, and our marriage took part the same day in the evening. I must say, this was the greatest experience of my life. Regina and myself, we’ve been married now for quite a few years. And at this marriage, we have two children. Danny Wallace is the oldest. He is our boy, and we love him. And Mariana is our second child, and we love her. They are both wonderful children. We have a beautiful family life with each other and enjoy each other. We pray that our Father in Heaven might be always with us and give us the strength that we can prepare our eternal family for a celestial kingdom here on this earth.

Now I would like to go back to my job opportunities in Las Vegas. I worked for the last nine years then in the Dunes Hotel. The last year where I worked there, this was in 1971. My vacation was due in July. And we like to go up to Flaming Gorge. This is located partly in Utah and partly in Wyoming. So we did go on our trip and we made it to Salt Lake.

When I came through this valley again, I really loved it very much. And Regina asked me a few times before if we should move up to Utah. I was always concerned about the financial opportunities in Utah. The pay in Utah is not very high. I knew this. And expenses are going on, great like anywhere else. So I was quite afraid to change my job opportunities from Nevada to Utah. Then in Utah, I wasn’t very familiar with the conditions, how things look and so on.

But when we arrived in Salt Lake and I seen everything so beautiful, green — and that made me homesick. Like in Europe, we have everything green over there. And I said to myself, we have to make a change, and we better make it now, otherwise we’re never gonna make it. And I was sick of the conditions in Las Vegas — the racial problems, they tried to put our children in racial affairs, what I didn’t like. They tried to bus our children from one side of town to another side where we lived close to school. And I didn’t like this. And I got finally sick of Las Vegas. And then I realized how beautiful it is here in Utah.

So I said to Regina, I said, Regina, let’s move. She looked up and asked me, where? Here to Utah. She couldn’t believe what I said. But I meant it. And we didn’t go no more further on our vacation. We stopped right there. We looked around for a house, looked around for a job. Finally I found a job opportunity here at BYU in Provo. So we looked around for a house and found our house here in Spanish Fork where we live right now.

I’ve been thankful and grateful to my Father in Heaven for the guidance he gave me to this valley. We enjoy it here. I enjoy my work. It’s a great privilege to work at BYU. The working conditions comparing to Las Vegas, there’s no comparison. I would say it’s like day and night. In Vegas I didn’t have no complaints. I didn’t care about the gambling. I didn’t worry about those things. It’s the only thing, that I worked there. But it’s different in the environment here at BYU compared to Las Vegas. You have here no swearing, no bad influence whatsoever. And that makes a big difference for a person that likes to live the gospel. It helps you in your daily life to go along, to try to live right.

And I think what’s more important than this, I think there’s nothing else there on this earth. People here in Spanish Fork and in Utah are great. They are very friendly, very helpful. And they treat us great. We are very pleased and very satisfied. After we lived here for a while, we bought our apartment in Springville. So that gives us a little side income beside what I make. And I don’t make it so hard quite if I would have to make my living on my salary alone. The salary was directly cut in half what I made in Las Vegas. But I wouldn’t complain.

The good Lord looked out for us. He helped us. He provided us with food and provided us with a home. And He gave me opportunities here in the church to work. I’m thankful and grateful for it. Right now I’ve been a first counselor in Sunday school presidency. Before that I was a clerk in a bishopric and so on. And I enjoyed every day and every moment of it. And I pray and hope that I try my best to serve my Father in Heaven here in this valley.

Especially wonderful what we have here — the temple so close. We can go and do temple work. We don’t have to drive 130 miles like we had to do it when we lived in Las Vegas. From Las Vegas we had to go to the temple to St. George. That was quite a distance. I didn’t have too many opportunities to do this. But now the opportunities are here, great. And it’s only if we are willing and try to go in the Spirit of the Lord. The Lord leads us, so we go and do the work we’ve been able to do.

And it is a lot easier here to raise the children than in Las Vegas. And I hope my children can see an example in me that I set them, and that they would follow this example and would serve the Father in Heaven.

Last night we had Johnny Wendell’s farewell here in our chapel. It was great. I was asked to speak to it. It was a real honor to me. And Johnny had a great farewell. There was a lot of people there, a lot of visitors, a lot of friends. And we had a beautiful farewell. Sister Wendell, it was quite hard for her. But I know our Father in Heaven is going to look out for her. And that is her last child. Johnny is the youngest. And now he goes out of the house. It’s kind of hard for her to take. But she is grateful and thankful that he chooses to go on a mission. He goes to the Oregon Mission. And we all pray that our Father in Heaven would bless him and give him the strength to fulfill a mission what our Father in Heaven wants him to do.

I go now and conclude my talk for tonight, my report. Today is Monday the 10th of January 1977. And I try to do my best to continue my history from me and from my dear family, ever so often, to keep this up for my later generation, that they would realize and see what we’ve been doing here. I think this is going to be helpful. And I hope and pray that all my later generation would follow the Lord. That is the greatest work on this earth, to walk uprightly and honestly before people, and especially before our Father in Heaven. This I say in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

D.4 Personal History, Volume 3 (1977)

When I quit the Sands, the executive chef from the Tropicana called me to come to the Tropicana. That’s where I did go. In the Tropicana, I was only for two weeks. The reason, when I started at the Tropicana, right three days after, they fired that executive chef, and he did go to the New Frontier. And when he was there, he called me up if I would come and work with him in the New Frontier. So I liked him quite. He was a nice fellow. He was a German guy too, and I liked him. And so I quit Tropicana and did go to the Frontier.

When I gave the new chef in the Tropicana the notice that I’m going to quit, he knew right away that I’m going to go over there. And he offered me more money, and I refused. He didn’t offer me what the guy offered me at the Frontier, and I would quit anyway. I wanted to work with the German guy together, and that’s what I did. So I worked there, I think it was only somewhere around a little bit over a year. And then I didn’t like the whole conditions there, was kind of messed up, this whole place. It was messed up right from the beginning, but it got worse. And I didn’t like it. And then I quit there and did go back to the Sands Hotel.

I worked another year in the Sands Hotel, and then I quit the Sands and did go in my own business. I love gardening. That’s one thing I really enjoyed all my life, and I love it. I quit the Sands and started my own gardening business. I had very good customers. I had only 14 customers, that’s all I took. The reason I couldn’t take more, I didn’t want to hire any help. And the help over there, it’s not very much work. Today they work, tomorrow it’s payday, they’ve been drunk and been gone or something else. And I wanted to keep my business in good shape. So I said, I take only that much I’ve been able to do by my own. But I couldn’t go too much longer on with this business, on account of my leg. It was too hard for me. It was too hot on the outside in the first case. Second, I need even and a hard floor to walk good so that I don’t hurt my leg. And this was not good for me.

Before I go on to tell you where else I worked, I want to tell you something else what I forgot to start out. When I still was working at the Sands Hotel, there’s something very special happened to me, and I want to let you in on this. My wife and myself, we separated. The reason for this, it’s a family affair I wouldn’t want to talk about. She left me. She did go to Chicago. And I was living by myself.

And one day I got very sick. I got very sick that I couldn’t stand, and when I bent down I couldn’t stay that way either. I had something in my back. I had to have a doctor. I was crying like a baby, it was so painful. Anyway, I had to see a doctor, and I called up my doctor. I wanted to make an appointment with him that he should come and see me. Then his nurse told me that he’s out of town. So I did open the phone book to find another doctor. And my eyes pointed to Dr. Gerald Jones. I picked up the phone and called Dr. Gerald Jones. The nurse answered, and they accepted me and told me to come out to see the doctor. It was hard for me to go out, but I put all my strength together and got over.

When he examined me, he ordered therapy. He had a therapy room right there, and one of his nurses, she took me in this room and put me on a therapy table to give me a therapy treatment. So she strapped me on this table and put the heating plates on my back and I was laying there and she started the therapy. She asked me, like this she says, listen, what do you know about the Mormons? I said, about the Mormons? I don’t know much. She said, one of my boys is married to a Mormon girl. And I say, I know that. Another thing I know, they have six or seven wives. Now that she didn’t like too much, I know, but that’s what slipped out my mouth. That’s all I knew about the Mormons.

So she says, alright, would you like to know some more about the Mormons? So I thought for sure she gonna tell me right there on that table more about the Mormons. So I say, oh my golly, it wouldn’t hurt. She says, alright, can I make an appointment with you for the next few days, so I come out with my companion and visit you? Now that shocked me quite a bit. I wasn’t prepared for that. I didn’t think that she would ask me to come to my home to visit me there and tell me more about the Mormons and the Mormon church. But again, I was laying there, and I was not strong enough to say no.

I said alright, I asked her to come out on a Wednesday. And I was all kind of excited for this moment, and I wanted to get rid of them both girls as soon as possible. So I did make them a dinner and invited them for dinner. I had some seafood, I think it was stuffed avocado with seafood or something. Anyway, they enjoyed the dinner and had a good time. We had a good time at the dinner table. When we was ready, I thought they were going to leave. But no. So they asked me if we could go to another room. They would like to tell me some more about the Mormons. So nothing I could do.

I got up and we got to the other room, and sure enough, they started to tell me more about the Mormons. They started out with the first lesson. And they came both, came another time with the second lesson. And I think they came in with the third lesson. Oh, then she had a different companion with her. And so they gave me the third lesson. And after this, the doctor’s aide, or nurse — she was a college student. She did only work on the summer months there with Dr. Jones. Otherwise she did go to Brigham Young University of Utah here in Provo. During the summer months she didn’t have any semester there, so she worked herself through college.

And in the meantime when she was ready with the third lesson, she told me that she couldn’t come no more. She has to go back to school. And she would send some other missionaries out to give me the rest of the lessons and let me know more about the Mormon church. Sure enough, this happened. So she returned to school. And didn’t take long, they came two missionaries out, two men missionaries. And they came out and gave me one lesson. And that was the end of them two boys. I didn’t see them no more.

In the meantime she wrote me and asked me how I come along with the lessons. When I wrote her back in German, I explained a lot of things. I had a very hard problem to accept Joseph Smith. So I wrote her a letter in German and explained that I have a hard time accepting Joseph Smith. And I thought it’s going to be probably the whole thing going to come to the end. But no, that didn’t work. She wrote down to her doctor where she worked, and this doctor, he was a stake mission president. And this doctor and his companion, they came out and visited me and gave me a lesson.

And in the meantime Thanksgiving came up. So this nurse, she came back to visit her folks in Las Vegas. They was living in Las Vegas. So she came back for her Thanksgiving vacation. And then she and the doctor and his companion, they came out and gave me another lesson. And when it was through, they asked me to pray. And pray in English. Before, when she came with her female companion, they asked me to pray, but I always prayed in German. But this time they asked me to pray in English.

And when I prayed there, she told me right there, and the doctor too, that the Spirit of the Lord was there like you could touch Him. So that was a wonderful experience for myself too. Then I realized the truth of the Church and of the Gospel. When I was ready, so I was ready to be baptized. After my prayer, I felt it that I was ready, and I asked to be baptized.

So she had to go back to school again, and when she came back for Christmas — in the meantime, I asked her, she was a single lady, and I was single. In the meantime I had my divorce with my first wife. And I asked her if she would marry me. She accepted my offer. I was grateful to her. When she came back, we got married on the 20th of December. And also on the 20th of December, I’ve been baptized. Baptism took part two o’clock in the afternoon, and our marriage took part the same day in the evening.

I must say, this was the greatest experience of my life. Regina and myself, we’ve been married now for quite a few years. And at this marriage, we have two children. Danny Wallace is the oldest. He is our boy, and we love him. And Mariana is our second child, and we love her. They are both wonderful children. We have a beautiful family life with each other and enjoy each other. We pray that our Father in Heaven might be always with us and give us the strength that we can prepare our eternal family for a celestial kingdom here on this earth.

Now I would like to go back to my job opportunities in Las Vegas. I worked for the last nine years then in the Dunes Hotel. The last year where I worked there, this was in 1971. My vacation was due in July. And we like to go up to Flaming Gorge. This is located partly in Utah and partly in Wyoming. So we did go on our trip and we made it to Salt Lake.

When I came through this valley again, I really loved it very much. And Regina asked me a few times before if we should move up to Utah. I was always concerned about the financial opportunities in Utah. The pay in Utah is not very high. I knew this. And the expenses are going on, great like anywhere else. So I was quite afraid to change my job opportunities from Nevada to Utah. In Utah, I wasn’t very familiar with the conditions, how things look and so on.

But when we arrived in Salt Lake and I seen everything so beautiful, green — that made me homesick. Like in Europe, we have everything green over there. And I said to myself, we have to make a change, and we better make it now, otherwise we’re never gonna make it. And I was sick of the conditions in Las Vegas — the racial problems, they tried to put our children in racial affairs, what I didn’t like. They tried to bus our children from one side of town to another side where we lived close to school. And I didn’t like this. And I got finally sick of Las Vegas. And then I realized how beautiful it is here in Utah.

So I said to Regina, let’s move. She looked up and asked me, where? Here to Utah. She couldn’t believe what I said. But I meant it. And we didn’t go no more further on our vacation. We stopped right there. We looked around for a house, looked around for a job. Finally I found a job opportunity here at BYU in Provo. So we looked around for a house and found our house here in Spanish Fork where we live right now.

I’ve been thankful and grateful to my Father in Heaven for the guidance he gave me to this valley. We enjoy it here. I enjoy my work. It’s a great privilege to work at BYU. Working conditions comparing to Las Vegas, there’s no comparison. I would say it’s like day and night. In Vegas I didn’t have no complaints. I didn’t care about the gambling. I didn’t worry about those things. But it’s different in the environment here at BYU compared to Las Vegas. You have here no swearing, no bad influence whatsoever. And that makes a big difference for a person that likes to live the gospel. It helps you in your daily life to try to live right.

And I think what’s more important than this, I think there’s nothing else there on this earth. People here in Spanish Fork and in Utah are great. They are very friendly, very helpful. And they treat us great. We are very pleased and very satisfied. After we lived here for a while, we bought our apartment in Springville. So that gives us a little side income beside what I make. And I don’t make it so hard quite if I would have to make my living on my salary alone. The salary was directly cut in half what I made in Las Vegas. But I wouldn’t complain.

The good Lord looked out for us. He helped us. He provided us with food and provided us with a home. And He gave me opportunities here in the church to work. I’m thankful and grateful for it. Right now I’ve been a first counselor in Sunday school presidency. Before that I was a clerk in a bishopric and so on. And I enjoyed every day and every moment of it. And I pray and hope that I try my best to serve my Father in Heaven here in this valley.

Especially wonderful what we have here — the temple so close. We can go and do temple work. We don’t have to drive 130 miles like we had to do it when we lived in Las Vegas. From Las Vegas we had to go to the temple to St. George. That was quite a distance. I didn’t have too many opportunities to do this. But now the opportunities are here, great. And it’s only if we are willing and try to go in the Spirit of the Lord. The Lord leads us, so we go and do the work we’ve been able to do. And it is a lot easier here to raise the children than in Las Vegas. And I hope my children can see an example in me that I set them, and that they would follow this example and would serve the Father in Heaven.

Last night we had Johnny Wendell’s farewell here in our chapel. It was great. I was asked to speak to it. It was a real honor to me. And Johnny had a great farewell. There was a lot of people there, a lot of visitors, a lot of friends. And we had a beautiful farewell. Sister Wendell, it was quite hard for her. But I know our Father in Heaven is going to look out for her. And that is her last child. Johnny is the youngest. And now he goes out of the house. It’s kind of hard for her to take. But she is grateful and thankful that he chooses to go on a mission. He goes to the Oregon Mission. And we all pray that our Father in Heaven would bless him and give him the strength to fulfill a mission what our Father in Heaven wants him to do.

I go now and conclude my talk for tonight, my report. Today is Monday the 10th of January 1977. And I try to do my best to continue my history from me and from my dear family, ever so often, to keep this up for my later generation, that they would realize and see what we’ve been doing here. I think this is going to be helpful. And I hope and pray that all my later generation would follow the Lord. That is the greatest work on this earth, to walk uprightly and honestly before people, and especially before our Father in Heaven. This I say in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.