Browse Interviews

Barbara Hermes was born in 1938 in Cammin Pomerania, Germany. She tells of her life on a farm prior to World War II and exploring the Baltic Sea where her father worked at a coastal resort in Dievenow. She details the horrors her family experienced in 1945 when they evacuated their hometown to flee the advancing Russian forces. She describes surviving an air raid, hiding in ditches to avoid the Russian military, barely making it to safety, reconnecting with her father, and her mother’s heroism…

This interview details the lives of two sisters, Barbara Hermes and Erika Wagner, from their time spent in Niedersachsen, Germany, at the end of World War II to their immigration to the United States in 1954. Their story continues with a transatlantic journey and travels across the American Midwest to Cleveland, where they both live today.

Helga Schlothauer was born in 1937 and was only seven years old when she and her mother and younger brother escaped from their hometown of Neu Schowe (now called Ravno Selo) in what is now modern-day Serbia. Schlothauer tells of her childhood travels across war-torn Europe to Austria and finally, in 1956, to the United States. She also describes her life in the U.S. as a native German speaker.

Hilde Hornung was born in Neu Schowe, Yugoslavia, and lived with her father, mother, and two siblings. At age 2, she and her family were forced to leave their home, and they endured horrible conditions in three starvation camps. They were finally able to flee into Hungary and then Austria in the late 1940s. Hornung and her family immigrated to Cleveland when she was thirteen. In Cleveland, Hilde participated in a local organization where she was able to connect with fellow Germans through…

George Hornung was born in 1940 in Yugoslavia. At the age of four, he and his family were forced to flee his home on horseback with only a small portion of their belongings. They took a train into Austria, where they worked on a farm for an Austrian family for two years. After the American troops arrived to occupy Austria, Hornung and his family were relocated to refugee camps that housed more than seven hundred people. They stayed in the camp for eight years. While in the camp, George passed…

Margaret (Gretl) May Rein and her brother Leonhard May were born in Velimirovac, an area of Croatia and Slovenia which was in the former Yugoslavia. Leonhard was born in 1940 and Margaret in 1941. Their journey west began in this western part of the Osijek-Barnaja County, near the town of Nasice. Their father, Emanuel, as a German speaker, volunteered with the German army after serving in the Serbian army. They journeyed west by wagon with their mother and grandparents to the town of Pecs in…

Brigitte Kiemschies was born in 1948 in Roth, Germany, and recalls a relatively idyllic childhood. She tells of her journey from an interesting perspective, describing her life living between the two divided societies of East and West Germany. Her travels at the age of 26 took her to the U.S., where she married, raised a family, and continues to reside in Cleveland, Ohio.

Elsa Arsic was born in 1936 in Grutschno, West Prussia. Arsic describes her time in Germany, constantly moving to survive the war, with her younger sister and mother. Her father served in the German military, was wounded in the battle of Stalingrad, and killed in battle in Hungary in 1945. After the war Arsic's mother wrote to her aunt and uncle, who lived on a farm in the United States. In 1956 the family was sponsored by the Lutheran Church and her mother, despite Arsic’s displeasure, moved…

Born in 1939, Hertha Hetzel grew up in Bavaria and immigrated to the United States in 1952 when she was twelve years old. Her father had been a prisoner of war in England and he had two maternal uncles in Cleveland, who sponsored her family to live in the U.S. She lived in a single, crowded apartment. Hetzel did not know English, so she was placed in school as a kindergartner despite having been in the sixth grade in Germany. She relates how she attended the German Festival in Cleveland where…

Ema Fuchs was born to a German family in Uruguay in 1939. She moved to Brazil at a young age and described her time growing up in a German town/community in South America and the blending of cultures, languages, food, and experiences she had. She moved from Brazil to the United States in 1964 while pregnant because her husband needed open heart surgery. She had her eldest child five days after arriving in the U.S. She discusses moving to the U.S., living with her husband, and taking care of her…

Frank Awender was born in 1924 in Neuburg, Romania. He is one of the founding members of the Society of the Donauschwaben in Cleveland which is now the Donauschwaben German American Cultural Center (DGACC). Awender served in the German army and tells stories about his service in the Third German Panzer Division. He was captured near the end of the war and eventually escaped and joined his mother in Kolberg, Germany. There he learned the construction trade. In 1952, Frank immigrated to Cleveland.…

Anna Welker was born in 1934 in Neu Schowe, Yugoslavia. In December 1944, her family, along with the remaining townspeople of Neu Schowe, were removed from the town and began their harrowing journey as refugees. Anna and her family endured many hardships in their two years at the Jarek internment camp. In 1946, she and her remaining family were moved to Krusevlje. In early 1947, she and her mother, aunt, and cousin escaped Kursevlje. Her family lived in Munich from late 1947 until 1950. In 1950,…

Reinhold Federmann was born in 1939 in Kischker, Yugoslavia. His father was a baker. Federmann was five years old when his family fled Kischker in 1944. He describes his journey from Kischker to Flattnitz Austria and his eventual placement in a refugee camp in Salfelden, Austria. His family was then placed with a farmer near Salzburg, Austria, where they stayed for four years. When the refugee camp in Salzburg dissolved in 1950, his family was placed in another camp in Maxglan, Austria, where…

George Welker was born in 1934 in Schajkasch-Sentiwan, Yugoslavia, and died in 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio. He lived in Sentiwan until late 1943 when his family fled to Hungary as Russian troops advanced. His family eventually was placed in a working plantation with other refugees in Austria. They eventually settled in Buchenau, Germany. Welker immigrated to Cleveland at age 18 in 1952. He became active with the soccer club in Cleveland that eventually joined the Society of the Donauschwaben. He was…

Emil Wagner was born in 1938 in Landshut, Germany, but moved to Eger (now Cheb), Czechoslovakia. At the start of the war, he and his family were forced to evacuate to Vilsbiburg, Germany, where he remained until the age of nineteen, when he immigrated to the United States. This interview details his struggle to adjust to life in Cleveland, serving in the military, becoming a member of the Donauschwaben, and working as a master cabinetmaker.

Luisa Owen-Lang was born in 1935 in a small village in Yugoslavia and immigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen in 1951. In this interview, she discusses her childhood during the expulsion and subsequent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans. She also recounts her experiences as she was separated from her family and forced to endure harsh conditions in multiple concentration camps at the age of nine and her life after she moved to the United States. Owen-Lang also wrote a book about her…

Maria Huppert was born in Transylvania in 1942 but moved to Germany at a young age where she worked in farms until adolescence when her family was sponsored to immigrate to the United States. When Huppert arrived in the country she was suffering from mumps and had to be quarantined in a hospital. She did not speak English at the time. She and her family were active in the Lutheran Church. During her time in American schools as a child, she experienced verbal harassment from her peers due to her…

Born in 1965, Heike Haddenbrock grew up in Germany and currently resides in Copley, Ohio. She met her husband in Germany, who had gone to an American university and wanted to pursue an MBA in the United States. They moved to Nashville, Tennessee. She worked from home for a German automotive newspaper as a foreign correspondent. Her husband works for Goodyear and their relationship has given her the opportunity to travel throughout the country. In Dallas, Texas, she met teachers of a German…

Reverend Horst Hoyer was born in 1930 in the city of Gotha, in Thüringen, Germany. Initially, Horst was told he was unqualified to join the ministry because of his poor public speaking skills, but he went to Berlin and joined a church association. In order to study theology, he needed to be certified in the ancient languages and crossed from East to West Germany over the Iron Curtain by plane using a military pass. He reached the United States on scholarship in 1954 to study theology. After his…

Krista Fuchs was born in Poland in 1937 and lived in a Polish children’s home until she was five years old. Then she and her mother and stepfather moved to Germany. She worked on a farm in East Germany and studied agriculture until she was 16. Thereafter, she and her mother illegally traveled to West Germany where she worked in a hospital. She applied to the United States after being sponsored by her mother’s sister. Her aunt intended to adopt her because they had no children and her mother…

Born in 1961, Cleveland State University music professor Michael Baumgartner has traveled and worked around the world as a musicologist. He grew up in Zürich, Switzerland, but heard the music and experienced lifestyles of numerous cultures from around Europe. His experiences traveling and working in different countries showed him the significant privileges afforded to people of his identity, white men, versus the disadvantages and prejudice that people of color who traveled the world had to…

Ernest Biebel was born in 1941 in Uivar, Romania, and immigrated to the United States in 1955 to pursue a new life after World War II. In this interview, Biebel discusses his childhood experiences in Europe, his family's move to the U.S., and his life as a native German speaker.