Stories tagged "1942-1943": 97
Stories
Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP)
“They said, well, the Army just started a new program called Army Specialized Training Program, ASTP. And if you prefer that, we'll send you to some college to take courses in engineering. So, I said, 'well, going back to some college, that sounds…
Long Distance Flight
“It was our final training preparation in Pyote, Texas. We were to take a long flight across the States. What we did was board the plane around mid-afternoon. It would be a 3,000-mile flight, equivalent to the flight to Japan. And we still didn't…
Children Under Her Wings
“Their mother died and so, when these children (Monica and Tonneke) were left motherless then someone fostered them, and they were sort of offered to my mother and my grandmother…So my grandmother said ‘well sure we’ll take them’ because that means…
Banjoe Biroe Responsibilities
“I had different duties as (a) ‘healthy’ prisoner. I had the kindergarten in the morning while the mothers were working in the fields. If the children were tired from sitting, we would make a walk, looking for pretty stones, count the leaves on the…
Banjoe Biroe
“We spent our first few weeks in Banjoe Biroe in Block C. Banjo Biroe was a real prison. My mother and I slept on a little Persian carpet which kept us free from “bugs,” except when the bugs dropped from the ceiling. We had smugglers in our camp-I…
Drafted into the Army
"My dad entered the war in President Roosevelt’s first peacetime military draft. The family appealed to the draft board because he was the breadwinner of a family he cared for since age ten, but he shipped out. Dan was gone for…
Joining the WAVES
"I am not sure how Mother was recruited. She may have seen a poster or heard an advertisement on the radio. The WAVES primarily used newspapers, radio, and personal contact to recruit. Mother wanted to be a flight attendant, but…
World War II Work
“Well, I was in the recruiting duty when I was in the Wac’s. I did public relations; I tried to recruit other Wacs. And I think perhaps there that it was an asset, being able to speak easily like I do. I suppose that might have had something to do…
The Journey to Japan
"We were stacked in the hull of the ship. We were just stood up in there with no bathroom facilities, no nothing. A little food once a day, if you were fortunate enough to get some food, if not, you waited until the next day. We were packed in…
Journey's End
"I believe they [Carl, Selma, and Ilse Simon] only were there [at Westerbork] a night or two before they were sent to Poland, to Sobibor concentration camp. And on the 21st of May, they were asphyxiated. And my mother and her sisters did not find…