Alice “Litzie” Trustin Shoah Foundation Testimony

One, two, three, four, five.

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Rolling.

I think he's disconnecting the other line.

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February 16th, 1996. Interview with survivor, Alice Litzie Trustin. My name is Ben Nachman, N A C H M A N. Interview being conducted in Omaha, Nebraska, language, English.

Can you give me your name please?

Alice Trustin.

Have you always been known as Alice?

No, no. I've always been known as Litzie, which is really a normal derivative in Vienna of the name, Alice, which there is pronounced Elise.

And when were you born?

September 15th, 1926.

And your age today?

69.

And can you tell me the city and country in which you were born?

I was born in Vienna,V I E N N A, Austria.

Can you tell me something about your growing up years in Vienna?

Well, as I think all Jews in Vienna at the time thought they were very, very devoted Austrians and completely immersed in the life there and very comfortable. I was a quite a small minority in the class at school as far as Jewish children were concerned, but was very, very good friends with everyone. And everyone was delightful. I mean, I never felt any reason to be uncomfortable. And we had friends, Jewish friends, non-Jewish friends. Participated, I know my parents participated in all kinds of things and I was just, you know, going to school. But the shock that came on that, it was a Friday evening and we were at dinner when Hitler walked in in the spring of' 38. It was like you, even my sister and I, and I really didn't understand enough about it at first. You almost choked on everything that you were having right then and there because it obviously was a horrendous thing. There was no, not one shot was fired when the Germans crossed the border into Austria. There was no objection by anyone for this takeover. And immediately, the city changed. There were friends of my parents, non-Jewish friends, who all of a sudden became known to us as illegal Nazis. They had been illegal Nazis for, I don't know how long. And it seemed absolutely impossible that this could be true that these people could be this way. And I suppose it's what, we all tend to do this. Nobody wants to believe that these things can happen. My father was absolutely couldn't believe it. He kept saying, this is gonna blow over. Don't worry about it. It's ridiculous. People are not like that. But unfortunately, very quickly, things changed very fast. I went to school, so did my sister, for a while. And then one day, we were told to leave school early and there, as we came out of school, there were two rows, one on each side, of parents, and outside that, were, I don't know, I don't remember, it was very scary. It was full of HJ which was the name of the youth Nazi group. These were kids our age-

How do you spell that?

in uniforms. You know, I don't even know how you spelled it. It's really short for two names, I think, but nobody ever called it anything else. It was HJ. And they came to beat up the Jewish kids. And somehow, my mother had gotten, somebody had called my mother. Somehow she knew, and she got a lot of parents together, Jewish and non-Jewish at that time. And they came and that's how we were able to leave school and go home because we all, you know, schools were quite close to it was not like going to private schools. This was public schools. And after that of course, there was no more school because nobody wanted to go to school and have this happen again.

Prior to this happening, how was your relationships at school?

Wonderful, great. In fact, there were now for the most part, of course, these children were all Catholic. We had one evangelical Christian in the class who was the one that was picked on all the time. They didn't pick on the Jewish children. I don't know why. And this is probably why we felt so secure. And I used to feel so sorry for that girl. In Northern Germany, there are a lot of evangelicals, but in Southern Germany and in Austria, they were practically unknown and obviously ostracized, which was awful. But until all this happened, really our relationships with the children in school was great. And even after Hitler and after I stopped going to school, there were a couple of the girls in my class who would come and visit me and bring me little things which was very sweet and very thoughtful. And this is what made it so difficult to accept that up to one day, you were a part of everything that was going on and with that one event, it was entirely different. And you were a non-entity. You were not an Austrian citizen. You were not allowed to participate in anything community-wise.

Did any of this affect your father's work?

Oh, yes. My father had a men's clothing factory with two other partners. And I don't remember how long after the Anschluss, which was the beginning of the change in Austria that happened, but it didn't take very long. And they had a manager. The manager was put in charge of the whole operation. The partners were out of it entirely. The bank accounts were closed. You couldn't go and draw a check. Fortunately, this manager for a while, and I know he would've done it much longer had he been able to, but the Nazis were watching him. It was a whole total matter of who was watching who and how much fear there was involved. And it was terrible. And for a while, he was able to bring some money to us, but that didn't last very long either because obviously, he was afraid of being caught. And you could understand that. And things became pretty desperate, pretty quickly. And the family, we were such devoted Austrians, every one of us. My father had been born in Hungary but it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And my mother's family had originally come from Germany a couple of generations before. And all of them considered themselves very, very devoted, complete Austrian who happened to be Jewish. So we had no relatives anywhere with whom to get in contact. And yet, we knew somebody is gonna have to do something if anybody is getting out of there. One thing the dear old Austrian government also of course never wants to admit to, but I remember very well, I think it was on every Friday afternoon on every corner in the city, you could buy a newspaper called Der Stürmer, and that's spelled S T U R M E R. And it had little umlaut on the U, which was all pictures and articles that were 100% antisemitic with horrible pictures. And there is no way anyone can tell me that nobody in Vienna knew what was going on, where people were being sent to, what they were doing to them. This was propaganda that they published every single week. It was complete hate writing.

Do you recall who published this paper?

No, I don't know. I don't know. But it was certainly available every week on every corner. And then, of course, they started all these horrible things where the Austrians were just as organized as the Germans in keeping records of everything. And since I didn't realize this until I saw the copies of my report cards from Vienna. On every report card, it not only gave your name, address, et cetera, it also gave your religion. So in their records in the city, they had all the addresses and names with religious affiliation. So they knew immediately where a Jew lived and where he didn't. And they would come, this was the beginning of it, on Sunday mornings. They would have, I don't know who did it, but they obviously were delegated it to do this. They would paint huge swastikas in indelible paint on street corners. And then they would knock on Jewish homes' doors, get the men, and no matter what age, what condition, and drag 'em out to these corners and make them scrub with buckets and scrub brushes. And this was the Sunday morning entertainment. And of course, you couldn't erase those things 'cause it was indelible paint. And I would stand at the window in our apartment and I would watch them dragging these people. I couldn't see the street corner but I know that this is what happened. And it was so cruel and it was so mean and the Austrians loved every minute of it, loved every minute of it. It really irks me so that to this day, the Austrian government still has not admitted that they were as much at fault of creating the horrors for the Jews as the Germans were. In fact, it was really in Austria that it picked up speed. And they came up with these creative ways of humiliation and hardship and misery for the Jewish population, which then, went back to Germany and of course, was taken up there with glee too. The worst thing of it was that you woke up every morning and you were very afraid because you never knew what on earth was going to happen. You didn't know if they were gonna come and get you or your parents or your other members in your family. And I guess I should say we were very lucky because, in our family, we lasted for quite a long time except for one uncle who was unfortunately picked off the street one day. And the family got notification that he was in Buchenwald. And he unfortunately, or fortunately really, he didn't last very long. And the family, this was my father's sister and her family, wanted to leave and had no idea how to do it. And of course, there developed a black market. And at that time apparently, you could buy permits to go to Shanghai, and believe me, if you lived in Vienna or anywhere else for that matter probably in Europe in those days, and you thought of going to Shanghai, that was probably worse than anything else you could think of because whoever thought of going to China. And anyway, they did manage to pool their resources and they started on the road to Shanghai by boat.

Were these the parents of this cousin that was taken away, or was this an uncle?

This was the mother and the sons of the father who was taken away.

What was his name, do you remember?

His name was Yosef Goldberger, and his mother was Tanta Etilka, and the boys were Rudy and Walter. Rudy is now living in Vienna and Walter is in Miami with their families, but they ended up in Siberia where the Russians took them, and they were not mistreated. They just, you know, were worked like animals but so was everybody else. Not because they were Jewish, it's just because they were in Siberia and they were cheap labor. And that's what they were used for. But eventually, my mother realized something had to happen. And she had been a nurse in World War I, and the Germans and the Austrians recognized that someone who had served in the military or as a nurse, which was part of serving for the military, was able to try and apply for a job outside the country.

Had your mother worked as a nurse in Vienna up to this time?

Well, she was actually at a field hospital in Trieste, which at that time was Austria, which is now Italy.

This was during the war?

This was during the World War I.

After World War I, did she work as a nurse?

No, no.

She didn't.

But it was a fact that during the war she had served for, I don't know, I have no idea how long, but for whatever time it was, that allowed her, that made it possible for her to apply for a nurse's job in England. And England at that time made it possible for people to apply. So my mother applied and she was granted a permit to come to England as a nurse. And of course, my mother was only 42, you know, I'm 69 now, when I think of when I was 42, if such a disaster had happened, it's unthinkable, it's unthinkable what she went through. And I remember there was this family get together. And my mother said to the rest of the family, now I'm gonna have to go and leave Berthold, my father, and the children and all of you, because if I don't go, nobody is gonna get out of here. And she was absolutely right. And the family didn't want her to go. They were dead against it, but she did. And it was, she was the only one that was the cause for my sister and I, for one of her sisters, and two of my father's sisters to get out of Vienna. And they were the only ones who made it out alive.

Can you tell me something about your extended family in Vienna during these years prior to the war?

All right.

When the Germans first came in.

All right. My mother had, I remember my grandmother very well. My grandmother was alive and my mother had two sisters and one brother. The youngest sister was the one my mother was able to get out to England. The other sister, Tanta Greta, and her husband ended up in Theresienstadt. And that was, they never came out of it. Her brother, Fritz, and his wife, Lily, they were taken and nobody ever knew where they went. We just never heard a thing. This happened after I was already in England, but there were letters. I don't know how the system worked. You couldn't send this information through the normal channels, but people would smuggle letters to Hungary or to I don't know what other countries, because Hungary was one of the few countries that wasn't at that point taken over by Germany. And they would mail letters on to people in England or probably the states or anywhere else. And this is how we found out what happened to the family at certain points because my father wasn't taken until January 1941. And he was sent to, the German name is Litzmannstadt. The Polish name is Lodz, which was the ghetto in Poland. And we never heard anything more from anyone about that.

What were the circumstances of your father being picked up?

Well, that was the very, he was one of the very last Jews in Vienna to be taken. They had it down to such a system. They had their lists. They could tell exactly what Jews had been already sent to concentration camps, what Jews had left, and who was still in the city. My father had meanwhile moved into a very small apartment on the top floor in the same apartment building, hoping that nobody would notice him there, but of course, everything is down in black and white and very organized. And he was in that last group that was sent outta the city.

Do you remember when they came to take your father?

Well, I wasn't there. You see, I left in '39 and my father wasn't taken out of Vienna until 1940, January 1941.

Was he living by himself at that time?

Yes. Yes. And on my father's side of the family, fortunately, which I had mentioned the one aunt, my father's sister, Etilka, and her two sons and the wife of the older one had gone and ended up in Riga. And then in Siberia. But the other sisters, the youngest sister, my mother was able to get to England and the next youngest sister, she was also able to get out of there. The one sister and her husband, Tanta Greta, and another Uncle Fritz, which was a very common name in Vienna, had gone to Israel in the thirties. He was an engineer and they lived in Haifa, but the next to oldest sister, Tanta Eran was married to an un-Jew. They never had any children, but when this Hitler thing kept going on, her husband who at the time of course was probably in his middle forties. And she knew he was gonna be called up into. He was not Jewish. He was be called up into the army. She hid him in the coal cellar in her apartment building. They lived in another district in Vienna. And I don't think anybody ever knew that she was, obviously, they couldn't have known that she was Jewish because they never even tried to reach her for that reason. But she had her husband hidden in the coal cellar and took care of him throughout the war.

This was so that he avoided going into the army?

This is so he wouldn't have to go into the army. And she was the only one left in Vienna. [clears throat] And I had one cousin who was at the university at the time in Vienna when Hitler walked in and he was a very well-known communist. And the moment the Germans walked in, the first thing they did was go after the communists before they even got their things organized about the Jews. And he literally was hunted down and he could not stay in his own home. And he would have to change his living, his night time arrangements every night. He stayed with us sometimes and other members of the family. And he shortly, probably five, six months after Hitler came, he fled illegally to Belgium. His name was Hans Luvid. And his girlfriend who had also been at the university there, followed him. And they were married in Belgium. And in due time, had a son who was named after his grandfather, Otto. And the Germans when they got into Belgium, found him and he was sent to the Pyrenees, a slave laborer. He escaped there and came back to Belgium somehow. But unfortunately, they got him again and that was the end. But an interesting part of that story, the little boy was given by his mother to a family, a farming family in Belgium, and she joined the underground and stayed in the underground till after the war. And when she tried to reclaim the child, they didn't want her to have it, but she went to the courts and she was given the child and they now live in Israel. And we hope to go next year as a matter of fact, and I will look forward to seeing him and his family.

Have you been in correspondence with them over the years?

Not with him, not with him. I have kept in touch with everyone else but I never knew him, but I hear about him from my other cousins who have seen him in Israel, who have gone there several times, the one who lives in Vienna and the one who lives in Miami. So I'm sure I will have a way of getting in touch with him.

Trustin, can you tell me a little about your home in Vienna growing up?

Well, we lived in an apartment, as most Viennese people do. And it was a, it is a beautiful city, and it was a beautiful city. I loved school. I loved everything I was doing. Funnily enough, I was very interested in theater, and I was able to go to a wonderful, special school, it was called the Schubert Konservatorium for acting. And that was really my big outlet. And, you know, life seemed so pleasant. We would take vacations every summer, like everybody in Austria does. And it's such a beautiful little country, it really is. And no one ever thought that these same people that you saw every day and with whom you spent time would act this way. And I know many didn't want to. I know it was tremendous fear. It was this, like a pyramid that they built that everybody was spying on everyone else. But it came to a very abrupt end. I mean, you didn't dare go out in the street. If you went to the grocery store, you know, it was a horrendous affair because is somebody going to catch you? If you were not Christian, all Christians had to wear a swastika automatically. So if you didn't wear a swastika, they knew right away, you are not a Christian, you must be Jewish. That's fair game. They could do anything they liked. How on earth my parents, you know, as a child you are afraid, but you forget about it too, but not as an adult. And it's really... You know, if any Austrian would hear some of these things, and I'm such a lucky person, I got out, but for all of those whose stories are so much worse than mine, if they would really hear this and could put themselves in my place, or someone else's place, I think that they won't believe it. Well, they've been in the state of denial [chuckles] ever since, and I can understand that too. But it was a very pleasant life. You know, we loved music, my parents loved the opera. And even though, you know, the depression was probably just as bad as anywhere else, in fact, I'm sure it was, somehow the Viennese had a much happier way of looking at things always. They were, I think, compared to the Germans, they were always easier going and happier people. And even though the times were bad, somehow people managed to rise above it, until that fateful day. But, you know, we would go to the park every day and play. And my mother we, like everyone else, we had help in the house, and she was probably our dearest friend and biggest help afterwards, although she had been married and had a child, and we had just seen her but not really regularly. And it, in fact, so many people came back to Vienna. My uncle and aunt from Israel came back to Vienna.

This was after the war?

This was after the war. They wanted to finish their life there. My two aunts that my mother was able to get out to England went back to Vienna. It was still home, you know, they just... When you were in your 40s, as they all were, I suppose, or somewhere around there, a foreign language is a very difficult thing. Not having a real profession for these women, you know, what could they really do in England? Nothing. And my mother, of course, came to the States, we brought my mother over here. So the little bit of the family that was left went back to Vienna. And I think they felt more comfortable there than England. I loved England, by the way, I just adored England, and the English and everything about it. They were the most wonderful people in the world.

Was your family very religious?

No. My father, I think probably was, because I remember once seeing him laying tefillin. And I really, I don't know how I knew what it was, but he must have explained it to me. But we had, it was a strange sort of arrangement. We belonged to a conservative synagogue in Vienna. I think it was Pazmanitentempel. And my father had a seat there, but you see, the women still stayed upstairs in those days in a conservative synagogue, in Vienna anyway. And the children had a whole different program. We had a lesson in our public school once a week given by a Jewish teacher. And we would, you know, learn things out of the Bible. And I frankly don't remember much. And we must have learned some Hebrew because when I go to temple now, there are certain prayers I can still reel off by heart, and I must have learned them then, because that's the only way I would know it. And that's kind of nice. That kind of makes me feel good. I learned something. And then on Saturday morning, we would have to go to the big synagogue, and then we would get a card, on which was printed what the lesson was for that day. And then we would have to bring that the next week to our teacher in public school. And that's how he knew that we attended, [chuckles] you know, instruction. And this is all really that we did, except on the high holidays when I know we all went. But my mother was not too religious, although I remember my mother praying every night, as long as she was alive. Then a little incident. I was on a street car once in Vienna, and across from me is this middle-aged man. And he looked familiar, but I had to, I couldn't quite, I couldn't quite remember the picture exactly because he looked different. His teeth were knocked out. And I realized, after a few seconds, it was my teacher from, my Jewish teacher from school. And he just barely acknowledged. And you see, this is the sort of thing that happened all the time. They would pick up people off the street, and there was nothing wrong when they would punch you and kick you and knock your teeth out. I mean, that was just fair game. And obviously that's something that on that order that happened to him. And, but, you know, the Jewish population in Vienna, I really don't know exactly what it was, but obviously it was minuscule in comparison to the total population. And then of course there was that famous Kristallnacht in November when all the books and temples were burned. And then, of course, you couldn't go to temple 'cause there was nothing left.

Were you still in Vienna at the time--

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And we could see the fires burning all over the city. It was really horrible.

Can you tell me more about that?

Well, see the trouble is that made you even more afraid, that made you withdraw even more because you knew that, you know, each time one of these things occurred, it brought it closer home to yourself, to your own family. And it just, it just, you felt like an animal that had to burrow in a hole somewhere. It's so inhumane. And it's hard to realize that people can really go to that level, but they certainly did. They certainly did. Anyway, my mother was able through, this was a Quaker organization in England. English people would apply, give their names, to be willing to accept children into their homes. And eventually it was in May, 1939, that my sister and I, on a train of 150 children, left Vienna. And I remember, my father and the aunts who were still in Vienna, come to the train. And, of course, that was the last time I saw my father. And when we got to England, by the way, the train was quite an experience. They sealed the train until we got to the German border, the German-Dutch border. And we were all scared silly, but nothing happened. And we were allowed one suitcase each. And when the Dutch police came in, it was so wonderful, and they brought us hot cocoa. I'll never forget that. And from that moment on, you know, you could breathe and realize that they can't get you anymore. And then we took the boat train to England, and my mother was there.

How long before you got England did your mother arrive in England?

My mother left in January 1939. And we left in May, and it took all that time. She literally stayed up night and day at the, what would be the Jewish community center in London, and just knocked on every door and every committee and every organization and put our name down, you know, everywhere that there was some hope that the children might be brought out. And if she hadn't been there, we would not have made it. Nobody would've.

Was she working as a nurse at this time in England?

Yes, but she took a little time before she did that because she just had to stay in London. And fortunately, there was a, you know, I don't know the details and, unfortunately, I never talked to my mother about this. But fortunately there were Jewish committees that were helping people like herself to get in touch with the right organizations and people. And fortunately, they were all sort of congregated in the same area, and so she did that. And then she went to Manchester, but she came to London. Was it London? Yes, I think it was London, where we were met by her and this wonderful Mrs. Richie, who is the family with whom I lived in England.

Did your sister and yourself stay together?

No. The Richie family were wonderful in accepting both of us to come out, but my sister was already 15 at the time. And she had had, you know, some, she had been in Gymnasium, which is like our high school, private high school. And they just couldn't take both of us, and I was 12. So my sister, unfortunately, had to go to work. And I stayed with them in Manchester. And my sister went to a lovely little town called Dorking in Surrey where my mother's youngest sister, whom my mother had got out of Austria, was living and working at the time, so she was there with her sister, I mean my mother's sister. But I was very fortunate in living with this wonder, wonderful family. He was a college professor at Manchester University, and she was a marvelous, ah, talk about the greatest, you know, I can never thank enough, thank them enough for being so fortunate of and being with them. And they had a daughter and a son, and the daughter and I became very good friends, Claire, and we still are, and we write, and we see each other occasionally. And their son, Jay, was in the military during the war. And he's now a college professor. And it was such a contrast. Of course, I knew practically no English. My father was able to get a teacher for us, a college student in Vienna, Jewish college student, and she came once a week and gave us lessons, my sister and I. But, you know, it was pretty limited. Not only that, it didn't last very long. And when I got to England, I started school very quickly, and the teachers were absolutely marvelous. And the only thing I got out of doing was Latin because they had already had a year of Latin, and I was starting French and English all at the same time. So, but you know, children can pick up languages very easily, especially when you hear it around you, I didn't hear any German, you know, it was essential. So it wasn't hard to do. It's much harder for older people, but it's not hard for children to do.

At the age you were when you got to England, having left your father behind and your mother was living in another city, what were some of your feelings at that time?

Well, there was so many new things to adjust to. I got there in May, and I didn't go to school until the following fall. And, actually, my mother was in Manchester also. And I quickly learned how to bicycle, and I would go and visit my mother. And that was wonderful, but she was very busy. And everything in England is so completely non-European, their habits, their food, you know, the afternoon tea that we had every day. It's so different from a big city life, you know, that I was used to. And, of course, I try terribly hard to fit in and learn and understand. And pretty soon, of course, the air raids started. We were in Scotland, as a matter of fact, when war was declared. It was September 3rd, 1939. And it was so, you know, it was expected, but you really never thought it was gonna happen, but of course it did. And then we had to start school, and that was my beginning of school, which was marvelous, 'cause I loved every day of it. In fact, that really became my whole life, was school. And then, of course, the bombing started. And for some reason they hit Manchester very hard. I don't really know why, but it was an industrial city. And fortunately, it happened to be Christmas vacation, but our school, our high school where we were, this is a private school, which had been a hospital in World War I and had a lot of buildings and they probably thought it was still a hospital. And, of course, to them, that was fair game. So the whole thing got bombed pretty badly, but nobody was there. But we spent a lot of times in very makeshift shelters. I remember at the Richies' house, under the stairs, it was a two-story house, under the stairs was a closet, like, you know, we have it right here in this house. That was our shelter. And Claire and I, there wasn't room for any more, would lie in this little hole because that's the best protection we had. And we were never hit directly at all, so, you know, we were very lucky.

Well, when you got there, you probably had a bit of a German type accent.

Well, you know, oh, when I got there, [chuckles] I don't know what on earth I sounded like, and, of course, I could speak so little. But was what was rather amusing, there was a German-Austrian club in Manchester for young people. And this was sometime after, you know, maybe six months after I'd been there, and I could speak English, you know, quite well. And I went, I thought I'd go to a meeting and see what's going on there. Maybe I'll find an old friend, you know, who knows? So I went there, and I ran into the teacher who had taught me in Vienna, this young college student, who was a lovely girl. And when she spoke to me, I couldn't believe the strong accent she had, and I didn't have one. I sounded terribly British in those days because, you know, that's what I heard and that's what I kind of grew up with. But she had, you know, a Viennese college German accent, and it was really kind of flabbergasting. It was kind of funny. But anyway, strangely enough, I went a couple of times, and I didn't like it very much because I felt the general tone of the people there, the young people there, they were rather communistic. And I didn't like that. I was much too British by then. And I felt, you know, that's a betrayal, and I didn't want to participate in that. And I'm sure it was just a small group and they were, you know, considerably older than I. And so I really stopped having any contact with my own group of people. And I just, I had very good friends at school.

At any time during this period, did you feel that having come from Austria, you were considered the enemy?

Never. Never, never, never. The English people were absolutely marvelous. You know, there's such a different psychology. Their whole thinking, their whole way of life is so different from Europeans, it really is. I can't see any connection there. It's unfortunate that they were fooled for such a long time with Chamberlain, but you know, this is how they are. But they were marvelous. They were absolutely marvelous.

How long did you spend with these people?

I lived with them until I, I'm trying to remember the dates. Let's see, the war was over in 1945. Somewhere along the way in there, I went to school and I went to a secretarial school, and then I got a job, and then I joined my sister in Dorking. And then, the American military was recruiting in London for linguists. And I applied, and I got the job. And then my sister applied, and then a friend of ours from Vienna, whom I ran into accidentally in Manchester, applied, and the three of us went back to Germany in October '45. They had to wait till I was 19. I wasn't quite 19. So they held us back. And at that point, the three of us went to Frankfurt to work at G2 in the IG Farben Building.

Was it difficult for you having, your family life was disrupted in Vienna, and then moving in with the Richies in Manchester, was that difficult leaving them?

Well, at first, of course, it was very strange, and I cried a lot. [chuckles] And, but the people were so marvelous that, you know, and we were still hearing from my father. In fact, my mother had sent two permits to him. One they said got lost and who knows, you know, it was so chaotic by that time in Vienna. It's hard to know what went on. The second one was after the war or just before the war started, and there was just no way he could get out anymore. But we still, you know, periodically would hear from my Tante Eran and we would get these strange letters, you know, from somewhere, and eventually they would get to my mother. So we heard when my grandmother and my aunt and uncle were sent to Theresienstadt, you know, this was all sort of piecemeal. And somehow, when you're a child, you can't help but get interested in what you're doing. I loved school. I loved learning. I loved sports. We had lots of sports in school in England, which you didn't have in Austria. All we had was gym, you know, and swimming in Vienna. But, and I was good at it, and I loved it. And I was very busy, and Claire became a very, very dear friend and we would take walks every day and talk. And of course, you know, one thing I was never a teenager. You know, when I think of teenagers and our children becoming teenagers, I became an adult at age 12. That's how it was. It was too, life was too serious. We had maps, we all kept maps in each room, you know, and we would check where the troops were and what was happening. And we listened to, and each child did that. It was so important, you know. There were no dances. There were no parties. There was nothing. It was nobody even thought about it. It was unimportant, the war, we were in this war, and it was awful, and it was England, and they had a very bad time of it. And this just took you, you know, and you grabbed it and you, you just, that was every day. And if things didn't go well, it was dreadful. And when things got better, you know, it was, everybody could breathe. There were years that, you know, I hadn't thought about that in so many years, but when you think of all the blackout. And when I was working in London, actually we were bombed out of London. But before we were bombed out of London, you would have to take a bus. And the bus, you know, the lights were so dim, you could hardly see, and when you get off the bus, it was pitch black. And you'd have to go and get to the train. And it was, it was a whole different life. You lived in the dark the whole time. And the moment you got inside, you had to make, before you turn a light on, you had to have your blackout curtains on. And so many things became so important that, you know, I hadn't thought about it. And of course the rationing, and the cold and the little heat that we had. I mean, life was pretty grim, but it didn't really bother us. You know, we were young and you can handle those things. This was, of course, in England I'm talking about. But of course I was in touch with my mother all the time, one way or another, wherever I was. And so, it was bearable.

A. Trustin. Litzie, can you tell me a little bit about going to school in Manchester?

Well, the most important thing I can tell you is I loved every minute of it. The contrast with the teachers in England versus the teachers in Vienna, it was like 180 degrees opposites. And I want you to know I was very happy in school in Vienna. I loved school. I always did. I was a strange kid. My kids can't understand that, but. But they were very authoritarian in Vienna. And it was, I mean, you wouldn't dare say something out of line, or if you weren't supposed to. I mean, it really, you were afraid of your teachers. You had to be. That was the system. And in contrast, the teachers in England were such "Menschen." They were so humane. They were so interesting and interested. They really loved what they were teaching. They enjoyed passing this onto their students, and it was marvelous! It was the most wonderful experience. I loved every day, even though we wore awful-looking uniforms. But that was all right, too. The first day, I decided I'm not gonna wear them. But you do it 'cause everybody else does it too. But, school, as a whole, was wonderful. Much more interesting, In Vienna, school was taught a lot by rote, a lot by memorizing. And if you were good at memorizing, you did extremely well. It wasn't so important whether you retained what you learned. And it was so, so different. And, of course, I was a little older then, and then it was in high school and so on. But it was, and the fact that we had sports, and I learned tennis and rounders, which is like softball, and, of course, we had swimming and, what else did we do? Oh, hockey. I loved hockey. I was on all the first teams. I had a wonderful time. I had a wonderful time.

Were you able to finish school in Manchester?

I finished high school. And then, I went to a secretarial school for three months, and I learned bookkeeping and typing and shorthand. And then, I started working for Sun Life Assurance Company, which is a Canadian, a big Canadian insurance company. And, we lived in, that's when, and I moved to Dorking, which is in the southern part, in Surrey, not far from London. Very pretty area. Where my sister was living and had been living for most of the time. And, by that time, my mother was living there, also, and her sister. And so, that was the first time we were near each, really near each other and could see each other. And, of course, that was all during the war. And... It wasn't until, I guess it must have been the, it must have been after the end of the war, that the, I think I mentioned that just before we finished, the American Army was recruiting for linguists. And, which was a marvelous opportunity. And I also thought, in the first place, I thought, "This is a way of maybe finding out what happened to some of our relatives."

Had you begun to hear any stories about what took place in Europe?

What to what?

Hear any stories about what took place?

Oh, well, of course we knew what took place. Of course, we knew what took place. We knew what took place before we ever left. That was the horrible thing. Even though everybody was saying, "They didn't know." It was ridiculous. Everybody knew. What we didn't know is how they died. I mean, we knew they were dead. There was no question in my mind that they didn't survive because we would've heard something by then.

While you were in Manchester, still in school, did any Jewish organizations look in on you?

No.

You were completely independent?

The fact that I lived with a non-Jewish family, I suppose they really didn't try to contact me for that. Well, which seems kind of foolish, too. They probably, might have been a good idea. But, they didn't. And to be quite honest with you, I became, very much, a nonbeliever. I wasn't, the Richies asked me to attend services with them. They were Episcopalian, and I wasn't about to do that either, but I really, I really lost any sense of religion at that point. And I won't go into this now because I think you wanna touch on this later when Yale joins us, but this is really how we met is when I was talked into going to a JWB service that was held in somebody's apartment in Frankfurt. Mostly for the survivors who were in camps. Who were the remnants of the concentration camps, who were in DP camps at that time. And some of them would drift into this little apartment for services on Friday night. But we'll talk about that later.

Tell me about your job. Were you trained specifically for a specific-

Well, actually, it was kind of funny because, supposedly, we were going to be linguists and we were going to be translating German mail. That's really what we were supposed to do. But I had good secretarial skills. I had been working for the insurance company and I was a good typist and a good stenographer. And so, I ended up as a secretary to the adjutant of G2, which was kind of fun. But most of the people, like myself, like my sister and her friend, and worked with G2, but in the censorship division, which is where they opened every piece of German mail, and scanned it for possible Nazi information or other information that would be detrimental to the United States. So this is what most of them did. And, but there again, what a whole new experience. First of all, being in Germany where I had never been, in Frankfurt, which at that time, Frankfurt was bombed quite severely. But the IG Farben building, which was this huge conglomerate, huge German company offices, was untouched. And I think, maybe, the United States Army decided they're gonna leave that alone. They're gonna need it for headquarters. And that's what they did. And, after, this sounds ridiculous. But after this very meager wartime diet in England, here we were in Frankfurt, and we were considered civilian employees, but we were able to eat in the officer's mess. So the food was very nice, but very strange. I mean, they served you things like cottage cheese with pineapple. I couldn't look at it. I thought that was the most awful-looking thing I'd ever seen to eat at lunch or dinner. But anyway, those are just little funny things. But, it was a great camaraderie. There were some marvelous people we met. There were French and Belgian and Danish. Most wonderful people, Danish.

These were military people-

No, these were all civilians hired for the same purpose as most of the German and Austrian people were hired for: to translate. This was a huge operation, this censorship division. And it was delightful. And, of course, I had never met any American people before. And everybody was so nice and so easy. I couldn't believe it because I was still, English people tend to be a little more formal too. And I kind of adopted that, and Europeans are more that way. They don't mean to be standoffish, but they just, they just think it's kind of rude to be, otherwise. And it was just amazing to-

In your work, did you ever come across anything significant?

Well, no. I must admit no. I think the people who did the translating probably ran into far more interesting things than I did. I was secretary to the adjutant, so it was really mostly headquarters' machinery that kept going. And my own experience didn't produce anything of any excitement, really.

What was this adjutant's name? Do you recall?

Well, yes. One was Colonel Paul S. Reinke, who was a wonderful, wonderful man. He was a West Point graduate, and his father was a West Point graduate. And his father wrote one of the West Point songs. Of course, I can't think now which one it was, but he was such a dear man. I mean, he was very short and he had a wonderful family. He always was talking about his beautiful wife. He had a lovely picture of her and children. And he was such a good representative of the United States. It was a wonderful way to begin a friendship with people. And then, there was, in contrast, there was a Major Getman. He was not very nice. He gambled most of the time, and drank most of the time, and wasn't at the office most of the time, but they sent him home pretty soon. But you know, that's all part of life. And then-

What were your feelings at this time, being around the German people?

Well, it wasn't, I have never found it very easy. And I'm sorry about that because I don't want to blame the people who are there now for what their ancestors did. I think the Germans, especially, have made great efforts to make the younger generation understand what a terrible fiasco and disaster they created, and how wrong they were. But at the time, of course, these were not, I was dealing with people who knew very well what had been going on. But we had very little contact with Germans, very little contact. We were in a compound. We were all American, or "allied civilians" as we were called. And we really did not have an opportunity, other than like, we would go to concerts or the opera, which was done in German for Germans, and the population there, of course, was German. But they were not people you really talk to. They sort of, I don't think they particularly wanted to. And frankly, I didn't want to either. It's only since our son, Mark, after law school, met his good pal from law school who, at the time, had joined the Judge Advocate Corp in the Army and was stationed in, near Bremerhaven, in Northern Germany. And Mark decided, Mark and Freddy decided they're gonna take a trip together. And Freddy Privel lived with his German family on the German economy. And he had told them that Mark was coming to visit, and his mother was Viennese and Jewish. And, by the way, Freddy is a good Catholic and a wonderful kid. And, the wife of the family was a little apprehensive, but it worked out very well. Mark said, "Really, they were very nice." The father, especially, had taken his son to Israel twice. He, and I'm sure this is not the usual, but for some reason it affected him that way, and he really has tried, since the end of the war, to come to grips with what had happened. And he did not want his children to ever follow in those kind of footsteps. And he wanted them to know how he felt, which I thought was marvelous. And, so Mark, and I never really talked much about this, except on very rare occasions when somebody would ask a question about any of my own experiences. And the children really don't have that problem of feeling that way about any group of people. But I had the same problem when I went back to Vienna. I have a hard time with, I think even more so than the Germans because I feel so aggravated by their reluctance in admitting their part in the whole scheme. And it was a very big part. They started a lot of it, especially against the Jews. Not the Germans. It was the Austrian Nazis who did that.

When you were first in this job, did you make attempts to locate any family members or try to find out

Oh, yes.

what happened?

Yes. I did, through the Red Cross. And by the way, the Red Cross, in recent years, contacted me again. And I, again, gave them whatever information I had, and nothing has ever come of it. My father, when he was taken to Lodz, the ghetto, he was in his middle-50s by then. And we knew he had developed a heart problem. And, of course, there was no medication. And I like to think he didn't last very long at all. I really think, and I hope, and I keep, that's what I always told myself that he died quickly. He was not well. And with those extreme conditions, my father was not an athlete in any sense of the word. And it was a typical city person. I don't think he would've done very well at that age, under those conditions. And my grandmother was in her 60s when she, and she had terrible asthma, always had had. And, of course, no medication, and I'm that sure that, that didn't help at all. And why the others didn't make it, I really don't know because they were fairly young and they were healthy. But they didn't. They didn't. The only ones who survived were the ones who were in Siberia. Despite the little medication that was available to them, they, at least, weren't mistreated. That was the difference.

While you were working in Germany, was your sister with you, at this time, also doing the same type of work?

Yeah, well, she was doing the translation work, and we went out in the same office. But, of course, we'd see each other quite a bit, off-and-on. We also had very busy social lives, and we didn't live with each other. So, we would see each other usually at lunch or at dinner or something in the mess hall. Or, we, well, and we're different. She dated different people. I dated different people. I'm younger than she is. And we didn't really run around with the same groups. We never did. So that sort of made a difference. She, subsequently, married a very nice young man, and whom she met there, and they live in Washington, D.C.

Do you see her very often?

Not too often, but I just saw them. And this is nice. Her daughter, who was not raised Jewish, but married a Jewish dentist, nonetheless, a nice young fellow, and this, their oldest son just had his bar mitzvah. And I went to her daughter's son's bar mitzvah. And so, did my daughter and son. So we were all there to join them, and it was lovely. It was really lovely. And in fact, I asked my sister if she remembered our cousin Rudi's bar mitzvah in Vienna, which was already during Hitler. And I remember it very well. She doesn't remember anything about it. So she has, she has done different. She has taken a different route. And obviously for her, that was necessary. And, but anyway, it's nice that her daughter is carrying on the tradition.

And how long did you stay on this job?

I worked in Germany from 1945, October '45 'til July '48. And then, I went back to England because I was coming to the States to get married.

Did you meet your current husband while you were in Germany working?

Yes, I did.

Can you tell me about that?

Yes. In fact, I alluded to this. A mutual friend of my sister's and mine, who was from Vienna, had gone to services in Frankfurt. The three of us were stationed in Frankfurt, and it was the Jewish Welfare Board who held these services in a little apartment, somebody's apartment. I have no idea whose it was. And there was several rabbis at the time, military, in Frankfurt, who would hold services. And I had sworn I was never gonna go to services again. But they started telling me about the type of things they're doing. They were working with the displaced persons in these camps, and they were, and I can say that now, and, of course, Yale knows more about this than I do. They were getting funds together and smuggling people out. Paying the Germans to smuggle people out to Israel. All the time. We didn't know about that. And I thought, "Well, they sound like good people. I think I'll go." So I went to services, and whom should I meet at services? Yale Trustin. And so, that's how we met. And then, we would, another wonderful program they started, the Jewish personnel and anyone else who would care to. We would go to the PX, like every Friday, and buy up soap, toothpaste, cigarettes, towels, whatever we thought these people really needed desperately. And then, one of the officers would get a truck and we'd all pile in, and we would go to one of the camps. And we would deliver whatever we could bring to them, and talk with them, and play with the children. There were lots. Surprisingly enough, there were quite a few children. In fact, I have some pictures of that, too. We did that every week. In fact, a wonderful story. There was a young fellow who was on one of the highways, and was trying to wave Yale down. He needed a ride. And, of course, being a typical, clean-cut, nice American kid, he stopped. And it happened to be a Jewish DP resident who needed to get back to camp. And his name was Jacob Stern. And he was going back to camp because his brother and his girlfriend were there, too. So, of course, Yale took them back, and he met the brother and his girlfriend. And I'll, if you want to, he'll tell the story. But the beautiful thing is we have been in, Yale was instrumental in getting these people to the United States. They settled in Hartford, Connecticut. They started working in a cleaners business, and eventually, built their own little business, and built several other little businesses. We saw them the last time, a couple of years ago. We went to visit them and met their son and daughter, who are two wonderful people. And it's really a beautiful story, and it makes you feel very good.

Well, what was Yale doing in Europe at that time?

Well, he was a pilot with the Air Force, and he was stationed at Rhein-Main, which was Frankfurt, in effect. And he had a civilian job as a civil engineer, which was his college degree, actually. But he also flew a lot of missions wherever they had to go. And so, he had a desk job as well as a flying job. And he got there shortly after the war. He was supposed to go to the Far East, but then, they had enough in the Far East and he was diverted to Europe. Otherwise, we wouldn't have met.

And his background, his educational background is what?

Well, he grew up in Omaha, and he finished high school here. And then he went to, he had an appointment to West Point. And he started, they were on a three-year program at that time because of the war. And, of course, they were all hoping they would still get in the war. And he entered in '42 and he graduated in June '45, which was right after the end of the war. And I don't know what month it was, probably June. He went to Germany, in Frankfurt, and he was stationed there the whole time. Well, while I was there and he was there.

Can you tell me about your first meeting with Yale?

Well, I remember the first time that preceded our first date. We were at one of our little get-togethers of this little Jewish military group. And somebody, somebody yelled out, "Buzz leaving for D gate." The D gate was what got you into the compound, where we all lived. And I thought somebody said, "A bus was going." So I said, "Well, I'm going." We had no transportation. So I'm going, and I see this funny little German car. And there was another young fellow in it whom I knew quite well. He was a German-Jewish boy who was in the military, and he says, "Oh, are you getting a ride with us? You wanna go to D Gate?" I said, "Sure." So, Buzz said, "Oh, I don't think I've met you." Or something. And so, we introduced each other. I don't think we had really met up to that point. And got in the car and were driving to the D gate. And on the way he said, "By the way, there's a party out at the club, Saturday night. Would you like to go?" And I thought, "Well, he looks like a nice fellow. Sure. Why not?" So what I found out after was there was no party at the club. He then had to go back to the base and quickly drum up a party, which was not hard to do because everybody wanted to have a party. Anyway, that was our first date. That was kind of funny.

Did you see each other often after that?

Yes. I think we started dating more often, quite soon after that. And we really dated for almost a year. And unless he was on a flight or something, we probably saw each other two or three times a week. And on the weekend, of course, too, because, then, he didn't have to work. He also played baseball and football on the Rhein-Main team. So, we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of, and lots of good friends, all his classmates and their wives and friends. And we did a lot of wonderful, happy things together. Took some very nice trips. And it was a lovely three years after the war years and the Europe, it was, it was great.

Number four, interview with Litzie Trustin. Litzie, can you tell me a little more about your thoughts during that period of time when you had first met Yale, you were going together, taking into consideration your background and his background?

Well, I'll tell you, the biggest impression was that I couldn't believe there really could be someone as kind, as good, as caring, as thoughtful as Yale. You know, one thing about over there, there were probably 50 men to every girl, so dating was a headache. And because it was, you know, it was much too much of a good thing. And I met a lot of people, and I met a lot of nice people, but when I met Yale, from the very beginning on, I always said he should have been a rabbi or a teacher. He really should have been, because he has such a heart and soul. And I really didn't think that there could be someone in this world that could be this wonderful. And I just kind of played it cool because I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't. [phone ringing] But we had such a good time because we both loved music and singing. And I remember we used to be in the car 'cause he had this little German Adela, which was a disaster of a car, really, but it was cute and it ran sometimes, and we always had a friend or two along, most of whom also liked to sing. And we used to sing in the car, and, of course, he plays the piano, and wherever we went, if there was a piano, we would be around the piano, singing. And I love to dance. Now I must tell you this, Yale is not a good dancer. But I tried. And [Litzie laughing] after many years, we do quite well. But, you know, it was such a happy time because, for once, you were free of worry, you were beyond, unfortunately, doing anything to help anyone anymore. And maybe it was catching up with being a teenager that I never was, you know? Finally, I was allowed to have fun, and I could do it and and I could enjoy it and there was nothing wrong with it. And, you know, on the weekends we would go to the DP camps. And on Saturday night there was always a party somewhere. And we had wonderful friends. They were all American, I must say, because I really didn't see anybody else. And they're very dear friends to this day. We see them, we visit with them, sometimes they come through here, sometimes we see them wherever they happen to live. And it's our military life, which didn't last that long, and it lasted until after Korea, when he came back from there, was a very, very good time of our life. Yale just felt he could do more in civilian life than he he could do. And I'm not so sure that's really true, but anyway, those are the decisions that were made. And it was a very, very happy time. We did a lot of traveling. We knew some great people. And coming back, of course, coming to the States, that was a shock, too.

Well, let me go back. When in this relationship did you start thinking seriously?

Well, this is funny. Now, you see this shows you my negative nature. I never allowed myself to. And that goes back to my childhood and my fear. I never dared wish for anything because it couldn't possibly happen. That was my attitude. It couldn't happen, so I'm not gonna think about it.

Did you dream of the tomorrows?

I don't think at that time, because we were so busy having such a good time, really, and I enjoyed working and I enjoyed the people with whom I was working and so on, but Yale was, you know, at a certain point, I think it might have been like June or July, he was transferred back to the States. And, this was kind of funny, he actually asked me if I would come to the Consulate with him and fill out some forms in case we should decide something serious, you know? So, we went to the American Consulate and I filled out all these forms. But, you know, I left it right at that. And then he got to the States and he had a leave and he got home to Omaha. And the next day I had a cable. [Litzie laughing] "Will you marry me?"

That was his proposal?

That was, yes. The day after he got home. So when I got the cable, I had no doubt in my mind at all, but I really did not allow myself to think it. And, you know, I still have that tendency. You know, I go to meetings and things and people will discuss certain things and they will come out with these terribly positive attitudes, and I can't believe what they're saying. How can they think that way? They don't even know what they're saying. They're just going by their own egos. And I don't know if that's good or bad, but anyway, that's how it affected me. And I'm sure it isn't good, because I think it's better to be positive. I think you're a happier person for it, even if it doesn't always work out. But this is how it happened. And so then his mother was the next one to be very surprised [Litzie laughing] because I sent a cable the next day. It took me a day. I sent a cable the next day and all I said was, "I will. Love, Litzie." And Mother got it over the phone and she couldn't imagine what this was all about. [Litzie laughing] So that's how it was decided. And we were married in Omaha.

How long did it take before you were able to come to this country?

Well, I had to end up getting a lawyer in England because of these stupid, Austrian, long-winded things. And once I got a lawyer, it worked very quickly. And we were married, then, in Omaha. Buzz will remember exactly what month he came back. I think it was something like early summer, and then we were married in August. I came here a week before the wedding, in a heat wave, of course.

You came over as what? As a displaced person?

No. Well, no. See, I was not a displaced person. I was, what do they call it in England? That's another thing that I had to send to Vienna and I don't have anymore. What on Earth did they call us? See, we were considered stateless. That's what. See, the British were a little concerned, too. They weren't sure, you know, if some of us might have been possibly Nazis or communists or who knows what, so they didn't want to give you citizenship, especially during the war, naturally. And then right after the war, I went to Europe, I mean, back to Germany. So I didn't apply for British citizenship. And so, I got this funny thing [Litzie laughing] and that was sufficient. And with that, I was able to get to the States, and I filled out these papers in the Consulate, whatever they were. And it wasn't too, too horrendous, but, obviously, a lawyer had to get into the picture. And so then we got here and we had this beautiful wedding at Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Fred Sprotki's house, in their solarium, which was so lovely. It was seven o'clock at night and there are all these beautiful candelabras and it was so hot, the candles melted [Litzie laughing] and so did we. But nevertheless, that's where we were married. Yeah, that was very, very nice.

Was Yale still in the service at this time?

Oh, yes. He was in the service and he was in uniform where we were married and he stayed in the military, in the Air Force, until after Korea, '53. After we were married, we were stationed in Dayton. And then we were at Wright-Patterson. And then we were stationed at Miami International Airport where he trained to fly C-119s, which are now antiques, but that's what they used for dropping material and troops over the front lines in Korea. And, from there, he went to Korea and I thought I could go to Japan. Oh, I was so looking forward. I love traveling. I love traveling. And I was so looking forward to going to Japan, but they decided that they wouldn't allow families. It was his combat tour, so I never got there. But after Korea, he decided he'll stay in the reserves, which he did. If they ever wanted him, you know, they can recall him, but he then went into business in Omaha with his Dad and then started his own business here.

And when did you begin your family? And tell me about your family.

Well, that's a funny story, too. We were stationed in Dayton, at Wright-Patterson, and we lived in this little summer cottage where the kitchen slanted and the stove slanted with it. And I, who couldn't cook anyway, had a terrible time, but it was funny. You know, everything was funny then. And I wanted to get a job, a civil service job, which, you know, I had had in Germany. And I thought, you know, this would be a great thing to do for a while. And Wright-Patterson is a big base, lots of jobs. And I had, you know, some qualifications. And, unfortunately, because had I been a British citizen or had I been a German citizen, I could have gotten a job. They didn't have a payroll. You see, they had payrolls for different nationalities. There was no payroll for stateless. I couldn't get a job. So after that, we decided, you know, if I can't get a job, I am going to go bananas sitting here in this little cottage, 'cause we had one car and, of course, he had to have the car. We might just as well have our first child. And so we decided that's what we're gonna do. And that's when Bonnie came along. And she was born in Dayton, Ohio. So that's how that came about. And we made some wonderful friends there, too, with whom we're still in touch. In fact, one of the wives with whom I became very friendly, they were just here last fall. The first time we had seen her since Dayton, Ohio. So that was really nice. And, I enjoyed, you know, I suppose having moved so much and not having a family base, the military really provides a wonderful umbrella for you. It surprising. They're very close. They're very helpful. Nobody has family with them, so they become your family, and those friends whom you choose to become your good friends are so supportive and so good that they're your friends for life. And I found it very comforting.

When were your other children born?

Mark was born in Dayton also.

While you were still in the service?

While we were still, yes. [Litzie coughing] And Mark was three weeks old when we were transferred to Miami, Florida Internationally Airport there, but there was no military housing there, so we were very lucky. Mother and Dad Trustin had friends who had friends who were out of town, and it was a duplex. And we were able to rent the duplex. We were only there for six weeks before he went to Korea. So we were very fortunate. And poor, little Mark, you know, it was cold when we left Dayton, Ohio. It was hot when we got down to Florida and then the hurricanes hit and, you know, we were there in that season, [Litzie laughing] but you know, when you're young, you don't let these things bother you. It's all part of the game. And it was interesting. We had some cousins, Yale had some cousins there, so that was really wonderful. We got to know them and their children. And they've been very dear throughout all these years. Still living there, and we saw them a year ago, the last time. So that was interesting. And then came the shock, because then I came to Omaha with the children, and of course, I didn't know anybody. And Dad Trustin was absolutely marvelous. And I know where Yale gets this. Dad would come every single morning at 7:30, before he went to the office, to say hello to the children. Every morning, you know, rain, shine, hot, cold, whatever it was. But it was a very hard time, because I really didn't know anyone. And you know, it's hard to get to know people when you have two little children and no car. Oh, I had a car then. I had a car then because Yale didn't have the car. But, you know, it was a whole different world. I had never been in a Jewish civilian community. And I really, to say it quite honestly, I had very little in common with them. And it was a tough time. Yale was gone from December '52, '53 to, I think it was about October '54. No, '52 to '53. And I think that was the toughest year for me, by far. But survived that, too. You know, all of a sudden you had to be an adult with two children all by yourself. And I often wished I had stayed at Wright-Patterson, where I had friends who were in the same position. And really, this is what people should do, unless they have their own family, you know? And Mother and Dad were wonderful, but they were, you know, Dad was in city politics and very busy and had his business. And Mother was one of the most wonderful women I've ever known, Trustin, but she was very busy. She was like Dad. I mean, she was so involved in so many organizations and so many events and she had so many things going, she really didn't have much time for all of this. And it isn't something you express, either, you know? You don't want to be a burden, so you take care of it.

And when was your last daughter born?

Lisa was born in Omaha. She was a surprise. [Litzie laughing] A lovely surprise. And that's when we realized we really have to build a house or something. And we, in due time, built this house, which is now 35 years old and left our old Dundee neighborhood. And now, of course, the children are scattered all over. Lisa's in San Francisco and Mark is in Durham and Bonnie is in Honolulu.

So none of your children live at home now?

None of them live at home.

And how many grandchildren do you have?

We have, really, four. Mark has two sons by his wife's previous marriage. And we have two granddaughters, who are Lisa's children. And so that's really very wonderful. It'll be fun to get them all together.

Well, I want to thank you for allowing us to come into your home and to tap into your brain and thoughts that you probably didn't wanna bring back again.

Well, you were very, very nice in how you handled this. I don't know how you do it, you did a marvelous job. You really did.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

On behalf of Spielberg, survivors of the Shoah, "Visual History Foundation," I would like to thank you.

Well.

Is there anything that you would like to add in view of your lifetime?

First of all, I think it's one of the grandest things that this foundation is doing. No matter how much denial there is going to be, and it will keep coming up, and it's coming up right today with Buchanan's right hand man, I don't know if you heard this in the news yesterday, who is, well, they're not calling him a member of, but he certainly has spoken to a lot of these dreadful organizations who are very antisemitic, that there is an organization that is doing this. And also, I hope that people will continue to foster understanding with people who are not like them. One thing I didn't mention, and I'll just quickly insert it, for five years, I was a member of a panel of American women which was made up of a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Black and a moderator. And this was before there were any Civil Rights laws passed. This was in the early fifties. And we spoke from our own viewpoints to groups all over Nebraska and Iowa. And I know it did some good. And this is really what it is. You have to make people aware that as different as we may be in religious beliefs or philosophy, whichever bend you take, we are all humans and we need to work together and we need to touch each other in thought and in mind, and in touching and understanding. And this is bound to be a wonderful help in that direction. And I'm really delighted about it. And I thank you and the Spielberg Foundation.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Litzie, can you introduce this man for me?

Well, I've only known him for almost 48, oh, really 49 years, 'cause we dated for almost a year.

Mm-hmm, right.

This is Yale Francis Trustin, my husband.

And Yale, can you tell me how these times changed your life, from the time you met Litzie, being a graduate of West Point?

I was stationed at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany, right after graduating, and I was in the Air Force. And so I was stationed at Rhein-Main and I had heard of the Jewish Welfare Board having a center in Frankfurt, and so I then became acquainted with their activities. And lo and behold, a young lady named Alice Singer had also been active. We would make trips to various DP camps and assist in their giving clothes and so forth. And also, we had Friday evening services there. And so at one occasion, I saw this young lady from kind of a distance, but it turned out that they decided we would all go to a local circus. And so we did, and I ended up sitting very close to Litzie, and I had not really been introduced formally to her before. And just in glancing over, it just struck me from the time that I saw her that she was quite unusual and a beautiful, young lady that I wanted to know more intimately. And I guess that started our, and just very fortunate that I had an occasion to be able to invite her to a party, and from there on-

A nonexistent party.

But [Yale laughing] yes, I then created the party. But we dated on a Saturday, I remember, and then I called and we dated the next Saturday. And then it was finally every evening we went out together for one year until I was sent back to the States. And as soon as I got home, Litzie says, the next day, it was probably a week.

No it wasn't.

I sent a telegram asking if she would marry me. And I didn't wanna wait until I got home because it was two and a half years since I had left the States, and I thought, "Well, maybe I had forgotten "what American young ladies were like, "and I that's why I was so infatuated." But as soon as I got back, I knew that was the one. And my Mother, immediately, when the wire came back, "I will. Love, Litzie," the next day we planned a wedding and our family not only accepted her, but were really-

They were wonderful.

Very elated that she became a part of our family. And it's been that way ever since.

Can you tell me how these years of marriage, what they've meant to you and you two together?

Well, it's been a wonderful time. 48 years, I believe.

It will be 48 years in August.

[Litzie coughing]