"[Ruth] got home [from her trip to Oldenburg], and the first thing she noticed-- there were swastikas all over her house. And it had been a beautiful home, and it was prominently centered in the middle of town, and then she noticed that all the…

Editor's Note: On September 8, 1946, Eugene and his brother, Carl, sailed back to the United States on a Liberty Ship. They stayed briefly with their Aunt Mimi and then enlisted in the U.S. Army, hoping to return to Germany to be close to their…

“We had a lot of troubles with the Hitler Youth leaders since we were considered Americans. I did get into a lot of fights, until my father paid them a visit… The German law required all children to enter the organized German Youth, or Deutsche…

Editor's Note: In September 1939, Eugene's family went on a trip to Germany to visit Eugene's grandmother Johanna. The family was required to return to Germany periodically to maintain Johanna's property in Hannover. On the same day that their ocean…

"My parents met in South America where my father was working at that time and my mother was visiting. They got married and bought land in the interior to raise cattle. I understand that it was a day to a day-and-a-half ride on horseback outside of…

"But I went back three or four times. Like I said, I've been here for 23 years before I got to go home the first time. And my neighbors had a party for me. And we had some good eating and everything, because they knew that was my first time…

"We lived there for a year and then moved up here. My husband got a job with Lockheed. He was a flight line mechanic. [Marietta was beautiful.] It was quiet. No traffic hardly. The Big Chicken was there, and it was a Chick, Chuck, and Shake…

"He was from a tobacco farm, so I thought that would be like a regular English farm which is very green, and very pretty, with horses and the whole bit, and I saw my first mule at his house. I'd never seen a mule in my life. It was just so…

"I just fell in love, and I couldn't have asked for a better person than the one I married. And so, you know, at that age, there again, I was 18. I had a lot of friends when we first got to New York. We went to the New York Port of…

"Well, you know, we grew up watching Dallas. We think everybody’s rich and thin. And then you come to America and you’re going 'Oh. Oh. Okay. Huh.' But my first impression was like Snow White. I flew Eastern from New York to…