An Interview with Willy and Erwin Frank

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Interview with Willy and Erwin Frank

EDITOR's NOTE: This interview was done by Ray Kuehne and Shirley Saxey. It will be part of the future Frank-Schloss history to be published in hardcopy at a later date. We used a tape recorder. Ray typed it up, using their own words whenever possible. A copy was sent to Willy and Erwin for review. They made a few changes.

Willy and Erwin Frank (Interview April 1998)

Question: Erwin, what did you do around the time you left school?

Erwin: Most people go to school for 8 years and then when you get out you start learning a trade when you are 14. That’s what I did. I learned the galvanizing and metal plating business, ie., working with chrome, silver, etc. We did a lot of automobile bumpers. I worked for Kirchner in the Lindenstrasse. That’s where I was an apprentice. I worked there for about 3 and ½ years. Then I got a call to go to the Arbeitsdienst. This used to be "voluntary," but later you had to go for six months. It used to be work - you were trained with a spade so you could work on the highways and fields, like on the Autobahn, etc. But when I was drafted in 1941, we had already traded the spade for a rifle. [The German army invaded Poland in 1939, and by 1941, had moved into France.] So we were trained and sent to France to watch the airplane hangers, ie., stand guard duty on the airplane hangers. As a 17 ½ year old boy, it was scary.

I stayed there for six months and then I was drafted right into the Air Force, in Luftnachrichten [communications]. I left France for training in Germany on Morse Code and related equipment. Then I was shipped out to Italy. We were stationed in Sicily and Sardinia, Corsica, and Elba. I had malaria a couple of times. When the Allied army landed on Elba with 30,000 troops, mostly French troops, I had malaria and I was away from my unit, in a hospital. They landed right there were my unit was. We had our positions up on a church tower with our equipment. But when they landed on Elba, I was on the opposite side of the island in a hospital, so I didn’t see any of those 30,000 troops. I just heard the shooting going on over the mountain on the other side of the little island. Then I was sent to the mainland in one of the last transfers of troops. We had a notice from the Fruehrer to keep the island until the last man. But at the last minute we were picked up by a ferry, just a few who were left there, about 300 out of about 3,000, and went to the Italian mainland. The rest were captured. That was our first encounter with the Allied troops.

Earlier in Sicily, we were supposed to be shipped over to Africa. We were supposed to have some new radio equipment for new tanks that were built for Gen. Erwin Rommel’s army in Africa. We were sitting there on the south coast of Sicily. In good weather, you could see over to Africa. But the tanks didn’t make it. They were sunk, so they never needed us. From Sicily we just went from one island to the other, and finally to Elba.

When I returned to the mainland, there was this practice of taking men who had been separated from their units and putting them into the "Pioneer" units, which were building bridges and cleaning minefields, etc. So I went with them. Of course, we didn’t have any military activity. We were just retreating. By May of 1945, the war was over. I was in Germany by then and all of a sudden we got the information that the war was over. We were supposed to stay together as a unit. But our leader said, if any of you have a way to get home on your own, go ahead. I can’t give you any release papers. You are completely on your own. If you think you can make it, you’re welcome to it. So I went into town, in a small village, and got my uniform exchanged for some civilian clothes and a bicycle and pedaled home. [Anna Marie said that Erwin gave her the bicycle a few months later.]

I had to be careful without release papers. Oma and Opa lived in Neugraben. That was across the Elbe, and I couldn’t go over there because of the checkpoints. So I had to stay in hiding. I stayed with Ruth’s parents. Then in August, they said that everybody who didn’t have official papers should go to the Hamburger Kunsthalle (art gallery). So I got my proper release papers in August. From May until August I had to stay underground, so to speak. The unit that I was put into in Italy (after returning from Elba), I found out later, was sent to France to clear mine fields. I didn’t have any training at all in that. I would have stepped on a mine right away.

Ruth and I married in August, 1945.

Question: What was it like at that time? Was there food to be found? Did you have any money?

Erwin: We had some food when we left the unit. I was home the next day. At that time, it wasn’t so bad. It got very bad in 1947.

Question: Willy, let’s shift to you for a while.

Willy: I am eight and ½ years older than Erwin [born in 1915]. When we were young, there were eight kids. I was the third. Of course, we had a hard time. Mother had to work always. In the morning she delivered newspapers with Elfriede and Otto. Later with me when I was bigger. One day, Elfriede went into a house to deliver the paper. When she tried to come out, somebody was holding the door from the outside. Didn’t let her out. Of course, my parents were looking for her, and they went back where she ought to be. In the process, the police came by the house and said that our mother couldn’t let her daughter deliver papers in the morning. It was okay at night, but not in the morning before school, because they would be too tired to do their school work.

But my brother Otto and I had another job. When I was 6 and he was 8, we went out and collected potato peels. In Hamburg, we had a big basement and we could bring the potato peels there and they would check them to see if they were clean, no rocks, etc., and then they would pay us. A penny a pound, or 1½, depending on how many we had and how many they needed. Otto went up in one house, and I was staying down watching our peels, because everybody wanted to steal them from the wagon. We went door to door and asked people if we could collect their peelings, and then we came back every second day and picked them up. The next house, I went up and my brother stayed with the wagon. We took them to the place and they paid us and we came home with one or two marks. My mother asked how much we had earned and how much we had spent. We only spent a penny or two. She said, you should spend a little more. Don’t be so stingy. You worked hard. But we (my brother and I) always bought our own clothing at six and eight years. Our own clothing, from that day on until we left school. We never had a problem. All the money we saved, we bought clothing with it. And then when we had birthday parties, my brother and I bought all kinds of cake. And one day, we went to a certain cafe and they made a nice big cake, a torte, and we had only one. My dad, he looked and said, hey, don’t you make any money anymore. Yes, we said, Well, how come you’re so stingy. One cake. We said, Dad, let’s first eat, and if you can eat more than one piece, then we’ll get you some more cake. And he had one piece, and he said, boy, what a cake that is. One piece and I’ve had enough. Before, I always had a cheap cake, and I could eat and eat. So that was a surprise for my dad.

When I was twelve years, I went from the school to a store. They had all those uniforms for the people that worked on the ships: cooks, stewards, etc. They had special shirts and pants and uniforms. And that store sold that. It was just around the corner from the school. I went to the boats. I had to go through the customs first and show what I had, because if I brought it back, they wouldn’t charge me for it. So I went on all those ships that went to America. I was a real fancy job, delivering those things. That was the biggest fun I ever had, going on those big ships.

Then, later on, after two years, I went to work for two years for DKW Kuhlerwagen and then for two years for Olympia Typewriter. The DKW put refrigeration in hotels and restaurants. I worked in the office there. Then they went broke and I went to Olympia. While there, the Nazis came and I had to go in the Arbeitsdienst. This was still "volunteer" work, but if I went as a volunteer, I would have a better assignment later in the army. I was 18 then. But when I was there for 5 months, they changed it from volunteer to required for everybody. So we were really lucky that we could leave after 20 weeks. When I came back, I worked for a short time at Olympia and then in 1936, I had to go in the Army. This was only for one year. Then they changed it to two years, so I had to stay another year. Luckily, the second year, I sneaked into the office as an office worker. After the two years were over, there was a problem in Czechoslovakia, and we marched into the Sudetenland. The Germans there were so glad to see us, they gave us all flowers. Of course they were all Germans in the Sudetenland. When I came home from there, I got released. That was 1938. I was off for one year until 1939 when the war started.

Anne Marie and I were just married on Sept 9, 1939, and a week later they wanted to take me to the war in Poland. I was working then in the Post Office. Everybody got a card that said you had to come on a certain date. My card, and I knew this because I worked in the Post Office, was the only card that had no date on it. So what would you do?

Anne Marie: We wanted to get married in October. The war started in August. So he came once to pick me up and said, "we have to get married." We had to get married to get his salary from the Post Office. I got that. I didn’t get money from the Army. The money from the Post Office was more than I would have as a wife of a soldier.

Willy: And she could count on it coming automatically. So, I didn’t go at first, and in Poland our company - they had losses. They were first line and they had a hard war. I wasn’t there to help them. It was bad. So, one day I got another card, this time from the military’s general office, and I had to report. The first guy I spoke to there asked me, why didn’t you come earlier? I said I was waiting for my date, on my card. He said, let me see your card. If he had known I was working in the Post Office, and that I had checked all the cards with their dates, and only my card had no date, he would have said, go to jail for a year. But he didn’t ask where I worked. I don’t know what I would have said. So he said, next time if you don’t know what to do, you better check. Yes Sir, I said, and out I went.

So we went to West Germany and waited there to go to Holland, Belgium, and France. This time, we were not in front because we had too many losses in Poland. Of course, they filled in all those losses, but still, if they go through that once, then they put them in the back. So we were third line. And we went to Holland, Belgium, and France as third line. We tried later on to get us bicycles because we could not follow the companies in front of us that had cars and trucks. Then in Paris, we marched in under the Arc d’Triomphe and all the people went with hand wagons out of Paris. They left Paris because "the bad Germans" were coming. You know how it was in those days. But they gave up Paris because we asked them, or told them, they better give up because otherwise it would be destroyed.

And when we came to Paris, we saw the soldiers (French) still exercising in the barracks/camp, because we were so fast they didn’t know we were there. They were surprised when they saw the German soldiers, and they said, oh, I’m glad they’re in. Now we don’t have to fight.

The interesting thing in Paris is, they don’t have restrooms. They only have holes and you have to stand there where the hole is. So I was three months in the occupation army in Paris. We went one day to Versailles. And then the doctor came and checked us all and said, I should go to the hospital. I had a hernia, the bellybutton was still out. My mother could never get it in. They tried to fix it in Paris, but finally sent me to Hamburg to the hospital. After I was there a week, the doctor said, we’ll send you back. I asked if I could get vacation or recovery time, because if I go back, I’ll have to wait so long to get it again. Okay, he said. So I had two weeks at first.

When I went back, they said they needed somebody who can work in the office. I told them all the experience that I had. They said they wanted to take me, but everybody who was able needed to go to Russia. But whenever the SA or SS came to check the doctors’ records, they always saw my file that I was not okay for duty. And then one day, the Lt. said we cannot keep you here any longer. We can’t have anybody here who has two legs. Everybody has to go out. I said, I will, but my wife is expecting a baby. The Lt. said you can take a course as a supply sergeant. That takes three months, so we’ll keep you three months here. That’s an order. And then you go out as a supply sergeant. And you can go wherever you want to go. Perfect, I said. He knew me. And liked me. So I did it and made my examination. So I went out to pay the soldiers and arrange for the food and clothing. I tried to go to Greece. At that time we opened up the prisons and took all the boys out that were prisoners (only light cases) and they had to have leaders. Luckily I didn’t get even one day in prison for not going to Poland. Otherwise I could not have taken that job. They had to have perfect leaders.

So we went by train over Yugoslavia and over Greece to the island Limnos. I was there for over a year. In the morning, we had an overcoat on and by afternoon we had short pants on. We changed our clothing three times a day because of the heat. After a year, the English soldiers wanted to move in. And we wanted to move out, because they wanted to go in. We agreed that there would be no fighting. We would leave and they would come in without fighting. That was near the end of the war and we had to pull back. So we went from Greece to Yugoslavia toward Austria. At night, Tito’s soldiers were shooting at us. During the day, they came down and wanted uniforms and weapons from us. It was like Vietnam. You never knew who was on your side or who was against you. So, we had a hard time. But we made it almost to Austria when they told us the war was over. We were glad. We knew we were not winning, but what can you do. There is always one loser and one winner. So we put our guns down. We had a whole army there, with generals, trying to go home. Then they told us it takes a little longer before we could go home. That little bit longer lasted 3½ years. Of course, we had to fix up and build houses and do repair work.

Question: Were you held by Yugoslavian soldiers, Tito’s soldiers?

Willy: Yes, well, not really. Actually, as I found out later on, the Allies were concerned that if all the soldiers were allowed to go back to Germany, they might have started another war, because they didn’t like losing. Also, there was not enough food for everybody to come home. There was no food. And besides, they wanted us to fix up all those countries where we had done damage. So we had to work, under the control of the Yugoslavians. For three and a half years we did everything. They took us back south in Yugoslavia. We walked for days and days, and we had no food. Luckily, I had some bread and some lard and I put that away, so that they wouldn’t take it from me. I munched it, the bread and the lard together, and put it in my eating utensil (mess kit). And I was always hiding my ring, because they were always after gold and silver. One day they took my nice long German boots away, so I was barefoot. But it didn’t hurt me because when you go for years and years as a foot soldier, you have strong feet and good leather under you. But of course I ordered some shoes again, and I found shoes. I found a left shoe from one pair and a right shoe from another pair.

I was near Sarajevo and in so many places. We went from one place to another. We did our work and got shipped out to another place. The last place was close to Sarajevo, and the leader there in the saw mill said he wanted a guy who can do some office work. I said I could do that, so I went in the office there. They had no typewriter, no machines, nothing, after the war. So the director said, here is a list of what the workers should have earned. So I checked it. There were fifty or a hundred mistakes. Everything was wrong. So the director said I should do it right. So I made a better system to record how many hours each worker worked and how much they earned for the hour. So there were no more mistakes. It was very easy for us to do that. So they got paid much easier and much earlier with us than ever before.

Question: You say you were a prisoner, but you weren’t living in a camp, where you?

Willy: Yes, we were sleeping always in straw. We were living in small groups, about fifty of us. And we did all the unloading of the wood that came in by train. We did the loading. We cut the wood. We had a stove there where we burned all the stuff that came off from the saw. It was a saw mill, and the whole mill got power from what we burned. And ourselves, we had only a can, big metal can, with a hole in the bottom. We put in the top all the stuff from the saw mill. Below we put a match in and it burned slowly. That was the only stove we had. And then each week we put our old clothing in another metal container and got it heated up to kill all the lice. But of course, we then went back to the straw again. (Willy then explained that one day the German soldiers made a deal with the director of the saw mill that when overtime work was required, it would be done by the soldiers so that the Yugoslavian farmers who also had to work in the mill could go home on time.)

We ate mostly corn there. We had corn soup, corn meal, corn drinks, and corn coffee. Luckily, when the Americans sent us some white flour, we mixed it with corn. And we also had some barley. Of course that was much better than corn. The main thing about the corn was they took all the oil out before we got the corn. So that was bad. And then besides we had no salt. In Yugoslavia and in Greece they had no salt. They only have rock salt. And rock salt is very expensive and very hard to get. Of course, as long as we were soldiers, we always got our rock salt. They had to give it to us. But for us, we didn’t get any rock salt. So we had to eat our soup without salt. We had to eat everything without salt. Of course, you cannot put any sugar on it either. That doesn’t taste good without salt. So it took me a half an hour in the morning to eat my soup. Most of the guys would not eat it. So what we didn’t eat, we gave it to the director and he gave us some pigs. So we made a deal with him. We made good deals with him. He liked us and we liked him. We got paid ten cents a day. But for overtime, we got more, and I had to keep tract of the hours my boys worked.

But you could not buy anything. If you went to the store, one pound of sugar was 100 marks. So we had to work ten days for a pound of sugar. And when you go to the store, that was a funny thing. All the people came there. There’s only a big room with a counter and they advertise what they have. And somebody says, how are the apples? He said only one thing - do you want them or do you not want them? You might ask, what is that? Those are potatoes. You couldn’t see the potatoes. They were black with dirt. And so you could not ask any questions. You buy it or you don’t buy it. They got shoes. They got jackets. They got shirts. Everybody had the same. When they came, you didn’t ask what size they had. They gave you one and if it was too little, you had to go outside and trade with the neighbor to find the right size. Shoes the same. Everybody had the same shoes and shirt.

Question: How did you finally get released from that?

Willy: Finally, they started after three years to send us home. And in Germany, you would hear on the radio which company is coming. But you had to pay for your transportation. We had to earn the money through our work. Everybody who wanted to go home had to pay for the transportation. So they took us in third class to Germany.

Once, before I left, they told me I could stay right there. We like you. We know what you can do. You can let your family come here, and we pay you whatever you want. I said I cannot, because I have to first go home and see what my wife wants. We came to the border, and here was first class on Germany’s trains. We did not think that we could even go in the first class, we were so dirty. Then they gave us right away the powder for lice. That was 1948. My mother wrote me and said, Willy, I guess we should wait until you come home before we go to America. I wrote back and said, no mom, I’m married and you can go and we’ll see you some day. Don’t wait for me. Go, please.

When I came home they gave us 50 marks. For all my military years and for all prisoner of war time. 50 marks. I could just buy a pair of shoes. If we would not have the DI send us stuff to Germany... I had pants with patches all over. We had one guy who found a red carpet and he put all red on his pants. We called him the general. I came home in 1948, October. Three and ½ years after the war ended. I was gone for twelve years. I left when I was 21 and came back when I was 33. And then I went back to the Post Office. When I left for America, they said why do you want to go to America. You have a good job here.

Question: A question about the war. Both of you said that if you had a chance to stay behind or do office work, you’d prefer to do that. That’s natural. But how did you feel about the war itself?

Erwin: Not many people liked to go anyway. They all had families. But they didn’t have much choice. You either went or you went to jail.

Willy: I think it’s a little bit different when you are LDS and when you are going to church. You have different things in mind than those guys, those boys who don’t go to church.

Erwin: Then you have to think that you have an uncle and a sister in America and you don’t want to do anything against America.

Willy: My sister [Elfriede] went to America in 1929. My brother Otto wanted to go to America in 1932 and I in 1934. We already had our papers. But Hitler came in 1933, so everything slowed down.

Erwin: We were already being checked in our church meetings during the war. We had Gestapo come into our meetings and make sure that we didn’t preach anything against Hitler.

Willy: Sometimes we had to tell them in advance what we were talking about.

Erwin: Because the Jehovah Witnesses were very outspoken. They closed them all down.

Anne Marie: Our church was only written up as a club, not a church. It was not an official church.

Erwin: We had in Hamburg 1,500 members at that time, before the war. Alfred was drafted in 1943, when I came home on furlough. He was sent to a short training and then right to Stalingrad. We never did find out what happened. He was declared missing in action.

Anne Marie: (While talking about members who died during the bombing in Hamburg, she explained what happened to her oldest daughter, Marianne.) My neighbor took our daughter, she and her husband. Her husband was a soldier home on furlough. They didn’t have any children and I had a baby, Rainer, on my arm. The neighbor said, "I’ll take Marianne," who was then two years old, when the bombing began. We had to go out of the cellar since our house was bombed. The bombing continued and all the houses were on fire. With the heat of the day plus the bombing, there was such a firestorm like it was snowing. It was all fire. We had to run someplace, and we didn’t know where to run. I never saw my neighbors and Marianne again. I don’t like to think about it, but later on I got a letter that there was found in the street where we were living a girl’s body, a child’s body. They could not identify the child. And the neighbors were never found again, either. In Germany, when you move from one place to another, you have to go to the police station, for registration, and tell them where you are going, and do that again at the new place. So you can go to a police station and find out where someone lives. The address can be old, fifty years old. They can find it. And we did that all the time and the news always came back that the neighbors never recorded themselves at any other location. She was a school teacher, and she was never recorded again as a teacher. And he never reported back to his unit. Both disappeared. [Anne Marie’s father also died in a similar bombing atttack.]

Question: Where did Willy and Anne Marie meet?

Willy: In the church. I was MIA president and my mother was the Beehive teacher. Anne Marie was in the Beehive class. They had a party and Oma said, you are the MIA president anyway. I cannot go. It is too far away. You can go by bicycle.

Anne Marie: My father had a small summer place where they planted a garden. So, I invited them there. Oma could not come, so Willy came. From that day on, it started. I was just 16 then. Then he was two years in the military and one year we saved our money to get married.

Question: Erwin, when did you meet Ruth?

Erwin: I got home in July 1943 for furlough and that’s when I met Ruth. She was 16 years old. I was 19 ½. The air attacks against Hamburg started right after I left Hamburg and returned to Italy.

Question: What ward did you attend in Hamburg?

Willy: St. George, before the war. After the war, Anne Marie and Oma went to Wilhelmsburg. Erwin went to Eppendorf.

Question: Did Anne Marie live with Grete?

Willy: No. I had a friend in the army. When I told him about my wife, he said, why don’t you send her to my parents. They are lonesome. They don’t have grandchildren. They had a farm in Landsburg/Warthe.

Anne Marie: So I went there, until the Russians came. Our son died there. He got diphtheria. That was Reiner. When he was 14 months old, he got diphtheria. In the morning he started to cry. The doctor came and gave him a shot. The next morning he was dead. Then I went back to Hamburg when the Russians came and lived about a year with Grandma/Grete. Then I got myself a little room.

Question: I’ve heard stories about potatoes shipped to Church members from Holland after the war. Were they stored in someone’s apartment?

Erwin: We had potatoes stored in the Altona church. All of the contributed foods were stored there. And we took turns taking the watch at night. I was there with Opa one night, when they wanted to break in. They had double doors with a big iron brace, so they can’t break in. Opa had to use some rough language to scare them away. That was 1947 or 48.

Shirley: Walter said that they were asleep and something woke him up and he went to check and they had a saw and they were sawing a panel out in the door, and Opa went and got a pipe and when they stuck their head through, he hit them on the head with the pipe.

Willy: There was no room to store elsewhere, because houses were down. If you had an extra room, you had to let someone in to rent it. Everybody had to rent. So you couldn’t store stuff in an extra room.

Question: When did you come to America?

Erwin: 1950. Willy in 1951. It helped that we could say that our uncle, our sister, and our mother are there already.

Question: What were your first impressions of America?

Erwin: It was out of this world. When we were on the ship, we couldn’t believe all the good food that they served, and we couldn’t eat anything. We were sea sick. Nine days on the ship. It was January. I couldn’t eat. Wally was two years old and he was just running around. Somebody asked me how much I wanted for that boy. They wanted to buy him.

Question: Tell us about your experiences in America, getting a job.

Erwin: I went out with Uncle Otto Schloss looking for a job. Otto did all the talking. And they said, can you speak English. No. Well, let him learn English and then have him come back. I don’t remember where that was. Then I started to work for Whitmore Oxygen. First, we lived with the Schloss’, then we moved to Sandy. We got a home from Dr. Stobbe. He had a ten acre orchard in Sandy. We rented that house from him for $20 a month. One day, Dr. Stobbe came out with his wife. She looked around and said, where is your furniture? Well, we didn’t have any furniture. Just had a bed to sleep in, and that was it. We had a kitchen table and a few chairs. So she brought some furniture to us.

So, I started with Whitmore Oxygen. That was just a few months after we arrived. The reason I got the job up there was because Walter Menssen had a job up there. I got a job making chicken grit. Whitmore Oxygen leased property that had granite rock that was used for the Salt Lake temple. They blasted the rocks and we had to split them with a hammer into smaller pieces so we could lift them into a dump truck. They were hard to split. Then we just lifted them onto the truck and got them down to the mill where they would grind them. They put them in different sizes for chickens, smaller chicks, and turkeys. They put them up into 100 pound bags and we had to sew the bags together and stack them up about twenty feet high. We made some steps with the bags and had to stack them by hand because there was no machinery. Farmers would come and buy chicken grit. The chicken and some turkeys were kept in coops and didn’t get out to scratch for rocks that they needed to digest their food.

Question: Did you have any trouble with people, without knowing the language?

Erwin: It was nice because they were all members of the church. They were mostly English-speaking. This is where I learned English and where I learned to drive. They had a truck up there. They were nice guys up there, really helpful.

Later, I had to get some transportation. I never had any transportation at home. The only transportation we ever had was the street car and the bicycle. I had never driven a vehicle in Germany. I had just been in America a short time and went with Erich Kuehne to get a car. There was an ad in the paper for a 1934 model. It was 16 years old. It sounded good to me. I had just practiced a little bit on the Whitmore Oxygen truck up there in the mountains and I could drive a little bit. Of course, it was a little easier to drive a truck. You sit up a little higher and can see better. So I bought that car for $50. That was a week’s wages. I made $50 a week. Paid cash for it. So we went out to Sandy, where we were living at the time. Erich and Elfriede followed me. Elfriede asked, does he know how to drive? I didn’t have a driver’s license. We went up to Sandy, up to our place. We had some big trees in front of the house. I parked the car right next to the tree. And I got a little bit too close to the tree and put the first dent in the fender. And it was such a heavy tree that it made a nice round dent in the fender. I didn’t sit up high enough to see it. Ruth was with me. Oma was always afraid when we drove. She always wanted to sit in the back seat. We went up to Saratoga one time and had a flat tire and she always worried.

Question: Willy, where did you first work?

Willy: I worked for a company, Fetzer, that made church benches. Alvin Brey was working there, too. But by Christmas they laid us off. No more work. My uncle, Otto Schloss, told me about some job openings. I went to Hostess Bakery, first, but my uncle said that a ward was looking for a custodian. We were staying for a while at Uncle Otto’s house. So we met with the counselor and the bishop of that ward and they hired me. Every time they gave me a raise, my uncle could go to his bishop and say my nephew is getting so and so much. In the church it is so, you have to go and ask or you never get a raise. And so, what I did was, if I ever saw an ad in the paper, I went there and asked what they pay, and then I told my bishop I want to leave because the other pays more. And he would say, we’ll give you some more. I worked ten years as custodian in the Yale ward, and then we bought the house here, and I still went back. I took my kids on the bicycle. My uncle was right. He told me, Willy, never buy a car before you buy a house. And I did it. I got me a bicycle. The Primary gave me a bicycle. They collected money from the teachers. We lived next door to the church, so they always knew where I was if they needed something.

Willy: [There was discussion about having Otto Schloss and Erich Kuehne here to help out other family members upon arrival.] Oma said at the beginning, all the husbands should go to America and work and send money back home for the family to come over. But nobody agreed on it. After being separated during the war, we didn’t want to be separated again.

Erwin: Another thing, we didn’t have any money in Germany. We didn’t have any property we could sell. We didn’t even have any furniture. When we got married we lived with Ruth’s parents. We had nothing. So when we came over, Uncle Otto Schloss, who was already in America, was gracious enough to take a thousand dollar loan out of the credit union. He then handed me the passbook so I could pay it off. We paid it off in one year. [Everyone agreed that the credit union was very important to the family then.] I still have the little booklet that shows the payments.

Erwin: When we moved from Sandy to Salt Lake, I started working at P.I.E., so we were looking for a place to live in Salt Lake. We found an ad in the paper. A man was renting a house at 931 W. 2nd North, for $38 a month. When we got there, the guy was standing out with a book and was just writing everybody’s name down. He had about sixty names down, of people who wanted to rent that house. He asked for some references. We gave him the name of Karl Ebert. And he was Karl Ebert’s friend. So we got the house from all those people who had signed up.