Holocaust remembrance day
In the Truscott family, we never forget and this is why
This is the Displaced Person identification card for Moses Fruchter, a survivor of the Holocaust who was housed in a DP camp after the war.
My grandfather, Gen. Lucian K Truscott Jr., was military governor of Bavaria and commander of the 3rd Army after the war in 45-46. He was in charge of all the DP camps in Bavaria and was responsible for the first Passover held in Europe since before the war. All temples in Europe had been destroyed by the Nazis, so grandpa ordered it held in the beer hall where Hitler first held a rally in Munich. He had 500 copies of the Talmud printed on the presses where Hitler's Mein Kampf had been printed, on paper that had been intended for Hitler's book. He also brought Rabbis over from the US for the DP camps where Jewish survivors stayed. He held the Munich war crimes trials and sentenced many camp guards and other Nazis responsible for the Holocaust to death. I grew up with this history in my family. We learned the truth of what happened as children after the war, and in the Truscott family, we never forget.
"My grandfather, Lucian K Truscott Jr., was military governor of Bavaria . . ."
Whoa, that got my attention. I'm probably the only person reading your article, Lucian, who didn't get shocked by the subject matter, but these few words stopped me dead in my tracks.
You, my good friend, have some amazing heritage. Before I subscribed here, after finding out about you from TC (TCinLA is his Substack handle), I did a quick Wiki review and saw that your grandfather lead the US 3rd Army, but I was thinking Italy, not Bavaria. I had no idea your grandfather was the military governor of Bavaria after WWII.
Wow. I came to the right place. What a family you have.
Here and on Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) and on Greg Olear, I have been writing about the similarities, and differences, between Trump and Hitler.
My heritage is German on both sides. Both my parents were born in Great Depression-era Germany and lived through probably the entirety of Hitler's political career, and certainly through the entirety of the National-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, the National Socialist German Worker's Party, the NSDAP, otherwise abbreviated as the Nazi Party. "Nazi" = the first 2 syllables of "National" as pronounced in German, the Socialists for example were called "Sozis" for short.
My father was born in Munich and his childhood home, which was not sold until the 21st Century, is in a suburb of Munich. Our family lived in Germany in the 70s, and we visited that family home every major holiday. Munich, Bavaria, is where Hitler came to power. So my dad and his family had a front-row seat. It's the location of Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch, also called the Munich Putsch, Hitler's failed coup d'état. During my teens, I visited Dachau, the first concentration camp, which is also nearby and which was where Hitler sent his opponents. The more famous Jewish concentration camps came later, the ones that everyone has heard of. This first prison was primarily for people that Hitler wanted to silence, no matter their ethnicity and heritage.
As a first-born child of immigrant parents whose entire childhoods took place in that society, I have done my due diligence and studied the period and the history. It is my heritage. Not pretty, but it's mine and my family's, so I own it. I'm not a history expert, otherwise I might have known about Lucian's grandfather, but I do speak German, I do know the main points of the history, and I have parents and grandparents who lived in it and through it. I have family mementos from that period.
The biggest event in my father's childhood was probably when the U.S. Army entered their small town outside Munich. And now, if I am not mistaken, I know who was leading the U.S. force which set up a small supply company base at my family home in Neu-Esting. I can tell you stories about that U.S. Army supply company.
Like I said on HCR, Trump's family is also from what was then Bavaria. Both of Trump's grandparents were born, and met, in Kallstadt Germany before emigrating to New York City.
Thank you Lucian. You sure got my attention.
On the Displaced Persons card, we are looking at a 2-year-old.
In German, "Name" = first name and the term "Nachname" is normally used as surname. In this case, the person's last name is just printed at the top. Fruchter.
Moses Fruchter was 2 years old, 80 cm. tall (2 feet 7 inches), and weighed 13 kilograms (28 pounds).
He (I presume it's a boy, there's no gender designation on the form) was born May 2, 1944. In Europe, incl. English-speaking nations like the U.K., dates are: "2nd day of May, 1944."
The signature says "Meir Silberreich." I presume that's a relative or guardian signing for the boy. If the boy lost his parents or was separated from them, that person might even have been a complete stranger.
"Herzog Hess Lichtenau" is the issuing station, the issuing location. I searched it. A Wiki entry appeared in German. Sprengstoff-fabrik Hessisch Lichtenau. Translation: Spreng-stoff-fabrik, literal translation "Spring-stuff-factory," means explosives factory. They probably manufactured bombs and other explosives for WWII Germany. Hessisch = Hessian, in the German state of Hessen.
Our family lived in Hessen in the 1970s, in the main city of Frankfurt. Lichtenau is the town in Hessen where the explosives / munitions factory was located, 20 klicks (kilometers)m SE of Kassel. It's 120 miles by car from where we lived in Frankfurt.
So "Herzog Hess. Lichtenau" is the Herzog Munitions Factory in Lichtenau, Hessen, Germany. It was clearly a forced labor camp, like many of the factories in Nazi Germany. Factory owners, CEOs, were legally allowed to acquire slave labor to work in the factories. Jews could be purchased, or acquired, for forced labor, in this case to manufacture bombs and munitions for the war effort.
The card is dated 25. 12. 1946, December 25, Christmas Day.
Wow. That sent a chill down my spine. So since Moses was born May 2 '44, he was about 2-and-a-half at the time the card was filled out.