Escaped From Third Reich

J = Joe photo by Frizztext

Joseph “Joe” Winter (formerly a Stuttgart inhabitant, later a New Yorker) managed to escape from the 3rd Reich, from the Nazi-KZ’s [German concentration camps], left his hometown Stuttgart 1940, joined the US-Army, came back 1944 as an US-soldier (ritchieboys) [the RITCHIE BOYS], went to the Nazi photo-shop owner, who had robbed his camera 1940, got his camera back, and in the USA again he made many wonderful pictures and won prizes.

He even jumped over the Millenium border too; he liked to read his daily New York Times on his 80 acres-farm some miles north of NYC near the Umpachene Falls, Massachusetts – and encouraged my wife and me to love photography… (though we, Germans, talked that language of the murders); Joe Winter’s story is in the Steven Spielberg‘s Shoa Foundation

P.S.:

Sometimes he told us in a very humorous style about his adventures as a Ritchieboy, as a double agent, clothed like a German soldier (but working for the CIA) going into the German camps to spy during 1944-1945). But then always the same problem with friendly fire: trying to join his US-Army again coming back from the wrong side, dressed like a German soldier, talking very bad English …
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for to translate the German part into English
I’ve added an html-code (only google-machine):
translate good German to bad English

Die für mich vielleicht wichtigste menschliche Begegnung in meinem Leben war Joe Winter. Nicht nur, dass er mir den Spaß vermittelte, die New York Times zu lesen – und ich brachte ihm die Süddeutsche Zeitung wieder näher. Nein, allein, wie er schon frühmorgens um 5 anfing, seine Papiere zu ordnen, ab neun sein Netzwerk an Freunden durchtelefonierte, eine kindliche Freude an Foto-Wettbewerben bis ins hohe Alter von 90 Jahren behielt – dies alles war wichtig für mich – und es war uns eine große Ehre, dass er wieder die deutsche Sprache für uns benutzte, die Sprache derjenigen, die seine Familie im KZ ausgelöscht hatten …

About frizztext

writer, photographer, guitarist

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