In the spring of 1945, the US Army was closing in on Cologne. I was an intelligence agent, a member of Interrogator Prisoner of War Team no. 66, a part of an intelligence unit called T-Force, 12th Army Group, with a mission to follow the infantry into large cities as they were liberated and to secure vital intelligence targets. As an additional duty, we performed curfew enforcement.
On the third day, after entering Cologne and while on curfew enforcement, my driver and I noticed a figure running across the street in the distance. We went in pursuit and soon caught up with a young girl. She was very frightened and, by questioning her as to who she was, she told us her name was Ellen, and she did not possess any identity papers. I asked her what she was doing on the street after curfew. She said she was hungry and looking for food, and she was living with two other people who also were hungry. She explained that when we Americans approached, they lost the ability to secure food from their ration card, and the supplemental black market supplies also dried up, since all of the Nazis and government officials had fled the city to the eastern side of the Rhine. I then asked why they only had one ration card for three people. She hesitated and finally declared that she was Jewish. I was absolutely astounded. She then explained that she and another Jewish girl had been sheltered and hidden by a kindly Dutch lady, who lived in a house on Stadtwaldgürtel no. 49, who had shared her legal rations and had paid for the supplemented black market purchases. Now she was out, trying to locate places where she might find some food.
We took the girl into our jeep and proceeded to the address she had given us. We entered the house and, as she had explained, we met the Dutch lady as well as another young Jewish girl. They all told us that they were very hungry. We had some rations in the jeep, and they happily consumed them immediately. The Dutch lady explained how she had hidden the girls for over two years, how they had existed during that time, and how many close calls they’d had but managed to avoid the discovery of the two Jewish girls. The Dutch lady also told us she was so happy that the Americans liberated the city because she had worries about the future, since she had been diagnosed with cancer and didn’t know what would happen to the girls if she were to become disabled. It was all a very enlightening and moving story.
After we left the residence, we drove to headquarters, where I found Lieutenant Levy. I told him the story of the two Jewish girls and the Dutch lady and their need for food. He told me not to worry, he would take care of it. A few days later, I wanted to check on the people in the house. I particularly liked Ellen—she was a very pretty girl, just a year or so younger than me, and Jewish, just like me. She had dark brown hair, sparkling brown eyes, and a smiling bright face—she was simply cute, and I surely wanted to see her again. But when we approached the house, to my complete surprise and consternation, there was a large “Off Limits” sign posted in the yard. That meant that members of the US forces were not allowed to enter. I was furious. I told the driver to take me back to headquarters.
There, I stormed into Lt. Levy’s office and challenged him about why he had placed an “Off Limits” sign in the Dutch lady’s yard. Lt. Levy told me to calm down and that he had no idea what I was talking about. He got into our jeep, and we returned to the Dutch lady’s residence. When we entered, we were greeted warmly by all three, as if we had been their longtime friends. We immediately asked them about the “Off Limits” sign. The Dutch lady laughed. She said Lt. Levy had done too great a job. She explained that at first, there came a truck with food, as directed by the lieutenant. Then, more and more trucks came to deliver more food. Soldiers apparently had heard the story about how a Dutch lady had saved two young Jewish girls and that they all were hungry—the GIs were going to fix that. Soon the cellar was filled with food, and more trucks were arriving. In desperation, the Dutch lady went up the street where an infantry unit was quartered. She told the unit commander about her plight and asked him how she could stop the food convoys. He indicated that he knew how to fix it and, thus, the “Off Limits” sign. The sign worked, and the food traffic finally stopped.
I visited the house a number of times while we were still in Cologne. Of course, it was Ellen I really wanted to see. We had started a registration system requiring all in Cologne to register with the occupying force, and the registration card demanded answers if the registrants had been a member of the Nazi Party. Nobody ever admitted to that, but in all fairness, the Nazis had certainly fled the city. The registration called up the citizenry in alphabetical order to receive a new identity registration. Since the two Jewish girls did not have any identification, I helped to get them registered immediately. They now could produce identification.
On one of my visits, the Dutch lady asked me if I could help her beat the cancer; she had heard of a wonder drug called penicillin, and she thought this drug might work. I had not really heard much about the drug and had no idea if it would cure cancer, but I wrote to my mother and asked her if she could find it and send it to me. Probably a month later, we were far away from Cologne by then, a package arrived. On the outside of each package there had to be a declaration of its contents, and sure enough, among the list of goodies that my mother had sent, there was a line reading: “penicillin.” However, it was obvious that the package had been opened, and when I checked, every listed item was in the package, except the penicillin—someone had apparently needed it more than me. By then, I also had learned that penicillin was useless against cancer. By the way, I left Cologne when our registration reached the letter “D,” and we turned the project over to the military government. I said goodbye to Ellen, the Dutch lady, and the other girl and promised to stay in touch.
The war ended, the occupation started, and I received another assignment. I was placed in charge of a squad of German prisoners of war, placing sensitive documents into crates for shipment back to the States in support of war crime prosecutions. This job provided me with a jeep, since I had to travel each day from Oberursel near Frankfurt, where I was billeted, to Fechenheim on the far side of the city. I looked for a break in my workload, since I had promised Ellen that I would stay in touch, and I was anxious to hear how the three were coping.
A free day came in the fall of 1945, and I took my jeep and headed toward Cologne. The autobahn had many detours, and some of them were quite tricky. Sure enough, in one of the muddy detours, my jeep started to slide, and it fell on its side, throwing me into the grass. I was lucky I was not hurt, and some German drivers who had seen my accident stopped and helped me flip the jeep back onto its four wheels. The jeep was still working fine, and it was not damaged. At this point, I started to realize how lucky it was that there was no evidence of an accident, since I had not asked for permission for this trip. It was a very close call, and I could have been in a lot of trouble, because I was now in the British Occupation Zone, where I had no reason to be. However, I was very close to Cologne, and there was little sense to turn back, so I proceeded. But my bad luck continued. I arrived at the house, and there was no one at home. I started to check with neighbors and found a lady who knew everything. She told me that the Dutch lady had died, and that she had left the house in her will to the two girls who had lived with her. The girls were currently at work and would be home after 5 p.m. It was close to noon, and I was afraid to wait that long. I asked the lady to tell the girls that Frank, the American soldier, had come to see them and wish them luck on their new jobs. I headed back to Oberursel without incident. I never took another chance to drive to Cologne, and I never saw or heard from Ellen again.
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