outhouse. my dad was an abusive alcoholic. our farm field and we went bankrupt and lost everything. i started over with my mom and younger siblings and go to the american dream. i was so fortunate, so lucky. now i have a public servant and give back. working in addiction, in mental health, work on the systemic racism we have in our country. work on climate change. at this, in turn, i have also been given a chance as a cancer survivor. i am still here. here to be able to make big changes in nati

>> that is the opening scene of triumph of the will, taken at a 1934 nuremberg rally for adolf hitler. jochen “jack” wurfl, when you were six years old, you attended a heckler rally -- hitler rally in berlin. what you remember? >> i remember our teachers telling us to be sure to go there and see him, he is coming by on his birthday, april 20, and we did the best we could. peter: and you and your brother

went up to the front to get a good view? mr. wurfl: yes, so we could see him. we were told to do that. peter: you were six years old at the time. do you remember how you felt about that? mr. wurfl: i felt kind of strange about it because i already knew from my parents that hitler was not someone we really wanted around or wanted to be with, but our teacher at school encouraged us very strongly to go and try to see him. peter: in your book, "my two lives" you talk about joining the hitler youth. why did you do that? mr. wurfl: in order to survive. if you didn't, by then i was

already in the summer camp in northern germany by the north sea and if i would not have joined the hitler youth, my brother and i, people would say, why aren't these boys doing it, everyone else is doing it? we were afraid they would find out we were jewish at that time. peter: your father was catholic and your mother was jewish. did that interdenominational faith protect you? mr. wurfl: that is correct, my father was from a very catholic family. he had two sisters who became nuns. he had four other brothers who left before hitler came into austria. they were very wise. they went to spain and then cuba

and then ecuador, where they lived for the rest of their lives. peter: where were you raised? where were you born? mr. wurfl: i was born in dresden, germany. my grandparents happened to live in dresden. myself and my brother and my parents lived in austria. but when my mother was pregnant with me, she decided to go to her mother's house in dresden, and i was born there. peter: and that was in 1932. what memories do you have of austria, being raised in austria, if any? mr. wurfl: i certainly do not have any memories from 1932, from dresden at that time, but i do have memories of living outside of vienna in austria with my parents.

it was a good life. they were still very nice times for us. that was of course before hitler came into austria. peter: what did your father do in austria? mr. wurfl: he worked for the government. he worked for the president of austria at the time. peter: what kind of position did he have? mr. wurfl: i don't really know. i just know that he worked for him, he knew him very well. when hitler came in, the president of austria and my father were arrested together, put on the same train and taken to a concentration camp north of berlin. peter: your father was catholic. why was he arrested and taken?

you say he was an incorrigible enemy of the state. mr. wurfl: yes. he was a political prisoner. peter: what was his crime according to the nazi regime? mr. wurfl: because he was with the austrian government and they were not in favor of becoming part of germany. so the hitler people took all of those people and took them to camps or whatever they did with them who did not prefer to be part of germany. on my father and the president of austria certainly didn't. peter: you wrote that our life in berlin was calm and stable but in the 1930's, jews and berlin were not entitled to a completely normal way of life. how is it that you moved from austria to berlin in 1936?

mr. wurfl: because my grandparents lived there. they thought i would be safer in berlin at the time because it was very strange, but berlin was one of the later places that was taken over by hitler as far as getting rid of jewish people. they were everywhere, hospitals, teachers, so one so the jewish were a big part of the commerce and part of the education and so on in berlin. so there were many other parts of germany where hitler took the jews before berlin. peter: you lived with your

maternal grandparents. they were jewish, correct? mr. wurfl: that is correct. peter: were you identified as jewish at that time? mr. wurfl: i would have been, yes, because if your mother is jewish, you are considered jewish. peter: did you have to wear the yellow star? mr. wurfl: no i did not. peter: why not? mr. wurfl: because another thing that my parents did when they took me to berlin, they took me to a catholic church and had me and my brother baptized catholic . so whenever someone would ask us or -- if we had the complete documents, we were always catholic on our document. that is what helped us a lot. peter: do you have memories of

berlin and what it was like in the 1930's? mr. wurfl: yes, i remember very much being with my grandparents. my grandmother, my grandmother were wonderful people and i loved living with them. my grandfather took me every sunday eight blocks to go to the berlin zoo, he took us for ice cream and things like that. it was a wonderful life for us, the first couple of years in berlin. peter: what happens to ferdinand and lena, your grandparent? mr. wurfl: ferdinand, all of his partners and family were taken by the nazis. he knew exactly where they were going on what was going to happen to them. so he took some pills and killed himself.

i have a death certificate that shows that he died in the berlin jewish hospital. peter: and lena? mr. wurfl: lena lived for a few more months and then died also. what she did after my grandfather died, i really do not know, but she lived a few more months and then she also died. peter: as the 1930's went on in berlin, did regulations become more tight? did you have to be more careful as you went? mr. wurfl: i personally did not, but of course my parents, my mother, my grandparents, they all had to be very, very careful

because people working for hitler were becoming stronger and stronger and did more and more of these terrible things that happened in the 1930's, especially the late 1930's. after we left austria, my father was sent to an concentration camp, my mother left and went to czechoslovakia and she lived in prague for a year or two and she was very safe there until hitler came into austria, i mean into czechoslovak, and took over czechoslovakia and then all of the jewish in czechoslovakia were in the same bad situation and my mother came back to germany and came back to berlin. peter: do you remember how she

got to berlin or how she escaped being taken prisoner in czechoslovakia? mr. wurfl: she was not taken prisoner in czechoslovakia, she came on her own and i am not sure, but i somehow have memories and my brother seemed to remember better than i did that we made somehow arrangements for those to come back on a coal train, a train that was carrying coal, and she somehow got on the train and came back to berlin. peter: the last time you saw your mother was in 1942 in prison. what happened? mr. wurfl: yes. after my mother came back to berlin, she rented an apartment

and wanted us to be with her for a while. so my brother and i went back to berlin and we lived with her mother. one day, my brother and i were sent on a mission by our mother. she gave us an envelope and she gave us direction of what subways to take, and we went on a trip where we had to change subways and when we got to the destination, a gentleman was there and he gave us this passport and once he gave us the passport we were supposed to give to him the envelope, and we did. and he gave us an envelope.

and we took the subway back home. and as we got out of the subway, which was right around the burner from where my mother lived, where we lived with my mother, i saw all kind of gestapo and ss had -- water in front of the building. this was a large building and there were many families in their -- there and my brother and i decided instead of going in, we waited on the corner and watched and we decided to ask her mother why these cars were there and what the gestapo was doing there once they would leave. we would go home and ask our mother. after a while, to our surprise, it was our mother.

they were waiting outside of the building and one of the gestapo cars took her away. peter: do you remember why she was arrested? mr. wurfl: number one because she was jewish, number two because of these letters that were being exchanged. she was in some kind of communication with my father, who was at a concentration camp, and they some how had a person who helped them to get these letters back and forth so there was communication all this time between my mother and my father. and of course when they came from my mother they probably

already knew about that. peter: do you think she was bribing someone to get to these letters to her husband? mr. wurfl: yes. peter: did you read the letter? mr. wurfl: no. but we did it after my mother was taken away by the gestapo, my brother and i decided the letter we was -- we were carrying was dangerous and we went back down into the subway and tore it into 1000 pieces and threw it in the garbage can. peter: how often in berlin did you see signs of the gestapo and nazi signage when you were growing up? mr. wurfl: did i see what? peter: gestapo like you saw outside your apartment building, and signs of nazi-ism? mr. wurfl: yes, when they arrested my mother, our

apartment was locked and they put a big sign up, no civilian was allowed to go back into this apartment at all, that they would be subject to death if anyone would take off the nazi sign off the door and enter their apartment. and this was done by the gestapo, of course. peter: did you and your brother go into the apartment? mr. wurfl: now, not at that time at all. my mother told us before come up weeks before, if anything should ever happen, that she had an attorney. she gave us his name and his telephone number and she said, if anything happens to me, call this gentleman and he will make sure that you will have a place

to live and to make further decisions. peter: before we got to that story, i want to ask how you got into the nazi prison to visit your mother after she was arrested. mr. wurfl: it took us three days to find out which prison they took her to and we found the prison and my brother and i went there to see our mother. because we were kids, i guess they just let us go into the prison and nobody paid any attention to was at that point. we saw as we looked out of the window, we saw a yard below and people walking and we recognized one of the people walking in a big circle down below outside, that was my mother. we watched her for a little

while and then they had to go in. so we needed to find out which cells she was in so we walked the prison floor by floor and found our mother. there were guards everywhere but they did not pay tend to do with. we found our mother cell and she was very poor -- very surprised to see us. she said, boys, you should not be here. do me a favor, be good. i am not going to come home right now, so you go to school, pay attention to your teachers, and make sure you get a good education. that is the main thing. be good and leave the prison because sooner or later, they will find you here and they will keep you and you will be in the same situation as i am, so leave.

we did. just before we got to the exit of the prison, an ss guard became suspicious and grabbed us. we tore ourselves loose and together we ran out of the prison, into the street. he followed us, but we were a bit faster than he was and we disappeared in the street. we got away from him. peter: what ended up happening to your mother, gretel? her name was gretl. mr. wurfl: my mother was taken to auschwitz and she was killed there. so we never saw her again. what we saw her for that short moment in the prison, that was

the last time we ever saw her and talked to her. peter: in the subsequent years, were you able to find her grave or find records about her death? mr. wurfl: we do not know for a long time what happens to her -- happened to her. later on, when we were in this summer camp in northern germany, the lady who took care of us who became like my second mother, she finally told us one day, it was on christmas day, as a matter of fact, that she had heard that my mother was killed in auschwitz, that she did not live anymore. peter: you talked about the lawyer, mr. grossman. did you and your brother peter

call him after your mother told you to? mr. wurfl: yes. peter: and what happened? mr. wurfl: he found a place for us to sleep which was near where he lived. we were only there a few days, four or five days, and then he put us on a train and we went back to the summer camp where we had beenefore. the summer camp was being run by a wonderful german lady, irma. she took care of us here and she knew we were jewish. she had two children of her own. if they would have ever found out that she was taking care of us, she was really endangering

herself and her own children but she took that chance and she took care of us. and we lived with her for many years. i got there when i was six years old, the end of my sixth year, and i did not leave there until i was 17 to come to the united states. peter: you call her aunt irma. here is a quote from your book. from your mother to irma. i tell you honestly and openly that i have many doubts whether it is correct to leave the boys an entire year in the country and to let them attend the school. but then i say to myself, it is much more important to know that my boys are in an atmosphere in which they will continue to grow and they will be kept alive. how did your mother get that

letter to irma? mr. wurfl: my grandfather was really the one who made all the arrangements for us to get to the summer camp. my grandfather when he was younger was in the german army and he fought for germany in france, he was there fighting and he got the iron cross for that, for his heroism in combat. he was at one time, according to military text, which i have, he was stationed also in an area 6 miles away. so he knew about the summer camp and he knew evidently and that

is where he sent us. he paid for us a certain amount of money to our mother, so to speak, -- money to irma, our second mother, so to speak, until he died. peter: your father was in a prison camp, your mother was in auschwitz. were you able to talk about the situation with people? mr. wurfl: i did not talk to people about it, but i talked to

some of my relatives who later were taken just like everybody else, take into camps where they were killed. so we really had no when we knew , no one we could really talk to, except i had a wonderful teacher in the summer camp and we would go to school every morning at 8:00 and he would teach us until 1:00. he was an ss officer. but he would teach us and then at 1:00 we would have to go to work and our teacher would put hahn -- put on his black ss uniform, get on his motorcycle, and go to wherever, we do not

know where the nazi meetings were being held. peter: that was eto peel? mr. wurfl: yes, that was my teacher. did he know you were jewish -- peter: did he know you were jewish? mr. wurfl: yes, he did. he on my second mother, irma, knew each other and they talked about it. they both do -- they both knew. they saved us. peter: why do you think that your teacher did not expose you? mr. wurfl: it is a good question. i don't know. he had three boys of his own.

we became good friends with them, his sons. his younger son was my best friend and then during the war he was unfortunately killed, a terrible loss for me, but we were extremely lucky. number one, what protected us was the fact that we were baptized catholic. number two, that we were in dunga's -- dangas with irma who protected us, and number three, she had two children, a daughter and a son, and they were both in the hitler youth. she told us as soon as we got back that we should also be in the hitler youth and if we would not be, people would question,

what are these children doing, why aren't they in hitler youth? so in order to be safe, all of us, you and your brother should join the hitler youth, which we did. peter: we are going to show a little bit of a hitler youth at video here and get your reaction. >> by 1950 -- 1936, thousands and admiration for the führer. they saying the him -- hymn. ♪ >> [speaking german]

♪ peter: does that song sound familiar to you now? mr. wurfl: the german sounds familiar to me, i do not know exactly what it was meant, but as far as singing was concerned, we had the same nazi songs every morning when we get to school, it was the first thing we had to do. and the songs were like, here we are, the nazi, we are a group of people who are aware and will decide the danger of the jews. there were several songs like

this that we had to sing every day. peter and i sing those songs with the rest of the children in the school. this was a very small country school. we only had two classrooms. one room was for grades one through four on the other was grades five through eight. and that was usually the end of the education in germany at that time. peter: do you remember when the war started? mr. wurfl: yeah. 1938 the germans invaded poland. peter: 1939. mr. wurfl: 1939, ok. 1939. it is all we heard on the radio, constantly the propaganda from the germans and how the war was

going, that they were doing a blitzkrieg, i do not know if you know the word but it means a very fast war, as fast as lightning. and this is what the germans did with their airplanes and tanks. they had an amazing army, amazing weapons at that time. peter: so listening to the radio, to german radio, you write in your book about listening to this man on the radio. we are going to play a little bit of audio.

>> [speaking german] peter: do you know who that is? mr. wurfl: the propaganda minister. peter: what do you remember about listening to him on the radio? mr. wurfl: we constantly listen to him. we had no choice. even in school, in class, if he gave an important speech, we all had to listen to that. peter: during the war, first of

all, was therein -- was there an air of suspicion during the war that you might be outed as jews? mr. wurfl: yes, there was suspicion and some people from ss and gestapo came to see us several times to ask about us and to somehow irma was so clever, she always talked her way out of it and convince them to leave and leave us alone. but this happened several times. but she simply said she adopted us and we were her children, and it worked. we were very, very lucky. very, very lucky. peter: one of the things you write about is that your father escaped from sachsen house and twice to come visit you. mr. wurfl: yes, he did.

peter: how did that happen? mr. wurfl: i do not know exactly how the escape happened but he came to the school to see us and he brought my mother at that time. this was right after she came back from czechoslovakia, before she was arrested, before we lived with her in berlin. peter: did he get in trouble for that? mr. wurfl: yes, he did. peter: what happened? mr. wurfl: the second time, i think in my book i have notes from the commander of the concentration camp who personally sentenced to my father to run in shoes.

they had a big circle inside the concentration camp and he had to wear shoes that were three or four sizes too small for them and they had to carry a big bag of rocks on their back and they continuously had to run in a large circle until they died. it sometimes took one week, two weeks, three weeks. my father was sentenced to that. how he got out of thought, i never know. he did not die there. he got out of it and eventually he was teno batts houston, a coentration camp in southern germany, right near austria, right where his home was, and

lived. he was in a concentration camp there and it was worse. peter: did he? ? die in that concentration camp mr. wurfl: no, he did not. he was freed in 1945 by the american army. they freed everybody. he was taken to a place where people took care of him and were trying to get him healthy again because he only weighed a fraction of his original weight. he was very, very skinny. nothing but bones. what happened to him was both of his lungs were totally gone and were sick. so he lived with this farm family after he came out of the

concentration camp after the war . he lived there for about two months and they tried to bring him back to life, back to health, but they didn't and he eventually died. i went there later and met the people and talked with them and tops with the doctors who treated him and so on. and that i looked for his grave but i never found his grave because there were so many people who were dead when the army came in and people who died right after so they were probably all buried in a mass grave somewhere and we have no idea where he was buried. peter: during your time with irma in northern germany, did she give you warnings on a regular basis about how to behave? mr. wurfl: i think peter and i

knew what to do. we were very, very careful. we talked to her about that sometimes, what we did and how careful we were and that we would go along with everything we had to do in school. she knew what we had to do. we talked about it, and we told her how we disliked it but we had to do it in order to stay alive. it was either that or we would be taken somewhere and killed. my brother and i decided we would do anything we had to do in the hitler youth to stay alive, and we did. peter: your daughter found a picture of you in time as a hitler youth. mr. wurfl: yes.

i was six years old. first grade in berlin. i made some pictures of it, i would like to show it to you later on. peter: how did she find this picture? mr. wurfl: it is amazing what happened there. this was the year 2000. the war was long, long over, as we all know. and then the year 2000, my daughter lisa decided, tried to decide what she was going to give her father for christmas. she went to a bookstore and she saw this book from time which

showed all of the important things in pictures that happened in the century. so she bought the book because she thought come my dad likes history, he would probably enjoy this and see what else happened in the century he lived in, he probably knows a lot of it. she gave it to me for christmas. it took me two or three days, one evening i would took the book when i was going to bed and i decided to look at it, and i see all of these pictures about president nixon and famous movie stars and marilyn monroe and on and on and on. and all of a sudden, i come to a page and i look at that first

glance, that is all of my friends that i started school with. what happened is we had just come out of class and when we came out of class in the back of the school, we always had to march, learn how to march, stand in formation, raise her arm and say heil hitler, they were teaching us then since we were six years old to be hitler youth. this was already the hitler youth, it was their philosophy, hitler velocity -- philosophy. and that was in this book. it is an amazing, amazing thing. i did not think it would happen in one million times again that my daughter would go to a bookstore to find a book for her father, she buys the book she

thinks he would like, she gives it to me, and there is a picture of me, 80 years later. that the picture was taken. it's amazing. peter: during the war, were you able to get information besides propaganda from the german radio? mr. wurfl: yes, we did. we got information from the british broadcasting company. we would turn that on occasionally at night and listen to what was really truly happening in the war. peter: was it dangerous to listen to the bbc? mr. wurfl: yes, if you got caught, yeah. you are not supposed to do that, of course. but we did.

i remember so well when i watch bbc and i finally see the americans landed, dj in normandy, -- dj -- d day in normandie and they got a foothold and they were on the beach and they finally, we were so happy because we felt now the americans are coming, finally the war will probably come to an end and there will not be any hitler anymore. how old was i then? i was 12 years old at the time. later on when i came to the united states and i was drafted into the united states army three years after i was in the

states, i was drafted, and i was sent to germany rather than korea during the korean war because i spoke german and they needed interpreters to train the german army, we were training the german army again. i was in the army in one day my company commander sent someone out and said i was supposed to report to him, and i did, and i reported to the company commander and he said, i watched you several times when you walk from your village to your office where you work. you have very good posture. he walks very straight. and i would like for you, if you would, if you can, to be in they division colorguard. it is the first infantry

division, 20,000 men, and they were asking me to carry their flag at all of the parades and whatever. it so happened that one day they told me i was going to go to normandie to take the colors to go to normandie for the 10 year anniversary of d day. and i went and it was the most amazing experience for me. amazing to be on the beach and to walk all of these places where we lost so many people, but where the americans finally succeeded and got finally into germany and it was amazing and i will never forget that one morning they asked the colorguard to come out and we

went to president roosevelt's grave. one of his sons was a general and he was killed on omaha beach and buried and his grave was there. so we went there, just the colorguard and the bugle to play his trumpet and the sun was rising over the british channel and we looked out over the british channel and tipped the flag in honor of general roosevelt and the bugle was playing. it was an unbelievable experience for me, and i was so proud, so proud to be in the american army. so proud. and that i was able to be at

that beach those few years later after i had heard it it on the british broadcasting company that d day had taken place. peter: when you were in the u.s. army and back in germany, you went to visit irma and your old teacher, the ss officer. what was that like? mr. wurfl: i did visit irma, of course, and spend time with her. i went there two or three times while i was in the army. but my teacher, because he was ss, he was in prison or whatever, i do not know, it was a prison, i think at this time it was a canadian, the canadian army had taken him prisoner as

an ss officer and he was still a prisoner at that time and we did not know where he was. but later irma found out where the prison was and she went there and told them what he had did and -- what he had done and the type of person he was, that he saved us when he knew we were jewish. and he got out of the prison on account of that. but i did not see him again until many, many years later when i went there for a visit and i took my two children, dana and lisa, and went to germany to show them they camp and to show them where irma had her house

and where we lived during the war and what we did during the war. we went to visit him. he lived in a nice little apartment in a nice part of the city, 8 miles away from where irma was. we visited him. he was 91 or 92 at that time. when he opened the door and saw me, tears were rolling down his cheeks, he was so happy to see us and to see me with my children, and that i was alive and doing well. it was also a very special moment in my life, of course. peter: what was your life like in the united states?

in the subsequent years? mr. wurfl: my life in the united states? peter, when i got to the united states, i was the happiest person in the world. i did not know anybody, i had nobody come i had no money, but i was in the united states. where there was freedom and democracy and people could do what they wanted to do and coming out of hitler country and suddenly being in the united states, it was unbelievable. i was the happiest kid. i was only 17 but god, i remember i was so happy. it was amazing to see the skyscrapers and millions of cars everywhere. i came to new york. it was just amazing.

as soon as i got to the united states, the first thing i needed to do was learn the language. actually i was in new york for about six months, waiting for my papers, which the american army said, we will get you your papers, we made arrangements for you to fly to new york. so we did with the united states committee care of european children, which was financed by the catholic and jewish people. the catholic already paid for my brother and myself. this is how we came to new york. peter: it is now 2024.

you were born in 1932. why did you write -- why did you wait so long to write the book? mr. wurfl: that is a very good question and, i cannot tell you how many times people have asked me, jack, they call me jack here, i gave myself the name jack because no one could pronounce jochen. they said jack, why don't you write a book about your life? it is interesting. to me, it was just my life. it was not that special because i knew there were thousands of people who had similar lives as i did in germany and then hopefully some of them got out the way i did and went to other countries. i kept saying, let someone else write the book, i am not a

writer. i do not know how many people asked me to do that. and then to and a half years ago, my daughter dana, who is sitting here next to me because she helps me with the computers, dana and her husband tom set me down and said, jack, you have got to write a book about your life. this is for the family. someday, we have to know, and our grandchildren and their children, and their children, and their children, have got to know what happened to our family, how did we come to the united states, where we were from, and so on and so on. there is one person the world that i cannot say no to, and that is my daughter dana.

we have a very special relationship and i just could not say no and i finally said ok, i will try it, i will write the book. so i did. it took me about three years to finish it, and it happens to be published about exactly the same time as hamas and israel got into this terrible war, where hamas killed 1700 jews and killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children on the horrible things that they did. peter: do you identify as jewish or catholic today? mr. wurfl: you know, my family, eventually i got married to a

girl from el salvador and she was very catholic. she wanted to make sure that her children would be raised catholic, so i had to go and sit with the catholic priests for about 10 hours, 10 different times, before they said we could get married in the catholic church. we could not get into really the inside of where the priests do the things's for mass, but we were married right outside of that but inside the church. so i was married catholic. i kind of had to promise that my children would be raised catholic because they were my

wife's wishes and so on. so my children were raised catholic. how i felt about it, well, i learned a little bit about the catholic religion and i would go to church with my children and their children on special father days and i would go to the catholic church. as far as the jewish part of my family is concerned, i was never raised jewish. i had jewish friends, very good friends, as a matter of fact, my

good friend who is my accountant, we went to israel twice together and i was amazed at what a beautiful, wonderful country israel was and i was very happy to see that. that is probably one of the most important trips i ever took, and i took many trips in my days when i was in the insurance business. peter: let's leave it there. jochen “jack” wurfl, "my two lives" is your book. thank you for spending an hour with us on c-span. mr. wurfl: has it been an hour already? >> all q&a programs are available on our website or as a podcast on c-span now.

>> weekends bring you book tv, featuring leading off with -- authors discussing their latest books. the author of family unfriendly argues modern parenting is producing children with record rates of anxiety, depression, and lonely us and believes a more old-fashioned approach is needed. and then susan haig's recounts the life and career of barbara walters. she is interviewed by and compton. watchful tv every weekend on c-span 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch any time online on tv.org. -- book tv.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more,

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