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George Levy Mueller

George Levy Mueller was born in Lippstadt. He experienced
Kristallnacht. His father and uncle died after being released from a
concentration camp. After Kristallnacht his mother sent him on the
kindertransport to Holland where he later went into hiding after the
Nazis seized control. He was later captured by the Nazis and sent to
three concentration camps.
If you'd like to just start telling us your story, that would be great and we can interject with questions if we
have any.
The whole story?
Sure.
Wouldnt it be better if you asked questions?
Well if you want us to we can.
Well I was born in 1930 in a town called Lippstadt in Germany and I was a normal little kid. I
played soccer and was on the soccer team and track, and about 1937, oh and I lived there in a
house with my parents Lucie Hope and my father Max and one of his brothers and my sister
Ursula and she was five years younger than me. We lived there in this town called Lippstadt. You
see it's a little different for me doing it this way, not standing in front of a crowd, I mean I'll shorten it, I think. So I lived there and everything was normal until when I was seven years old, then I
noticed changes. Like there were signs on the streets, on the buildings about Jews and how bad
they were. People wouldn't talk to my mother anymore and she complained about that. Some of
the neighbors were afraid to talk to her for fear of what might happen to them. In school I was
told to leave class many times when they were talking about religion and there was a special
teacher who wore a storm trooper's uniform. The SA and you see there was the SS and the SA
and he was an SA and he would always talk about the Jews. I'd go out to recess and get into fights
all the time because they would call me dirty Jew and other names. Also I got kicked off the soccer team and I couldnt participate in anything. I felt funny so I asked my mother what was going
on and she said dont worry about it and that things will get better. One day we were forced out of
our house and everything had to be sold right away. We ended up in this place called a Juden
house which means Jew house. See in Poland and the Slavic countries they ordered the Jews into
ghettos. In Germany they didnt have ghettos, they put them in what they called Juden house,
which is Jew house which is somebody's house who was Jewish and they put all of the Jewish families in with them. So we lived there and this was 1938 and at that time I was eight and my sister
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was three and so we lived there for a few months and then in November, Kristallnacht occurred,
thats when the Nazi's beat up all the Jewish men they could find. They came in the middle of the
night to this Jew house where we were living and arrested all the men, although I didn't see this.
They took my father and his brother Ledwig and all the other men that were living there and sent
them to a concentration camp.
How many other families were you living with?
I don't know exactly I think maybe only one family,
maybe two. I think only one but it was very crowded and I had to sleep in bed with some girl. I
dont know how many other families. So in the
middle of the night they took my father and his
brother and all the other men who were living
there to a place called Sachsenhausen which was a
big concentration camp and today it's still in existence but its like a museum. Six weeks later they
released my father and most of the other men.
They released my uncle Ludwig and my father, I have here my father's release papers. They're in
German but it says here "de Jude Max Levy" which means the Jew Max Levy is here by released
signed by the SS commandant. The point I'm making is that they didnt refer to him as Mr. Max
Levy but they referred to him as the Jew Max Levy, like we were a bunch of cattle. So the Nazis
did everything they could to denigrate the Jewish people, like he was cattle. It wasn't just the
concentration camps and the beatings and killings and all that, it was every little thing. So I saw
the men coming back from the train and my uncle Ledwig walked back to this Jew house where
we were living, but my father came back on a stretcher. His legs were frozen and he was in very
very extremely poor condition. He was crying and different things like that, they put him in a hospital and then he died. Then my uncle Ledwig they found him dead right away too, up in his
room. Now my mother decided that she better leave Germany because my father didnt want to
leave. Oh, I left that part out, that my father didnt want to leave Germany. My father was advised
to leave by my uncle, who was not Jewish, who was married to my mothers sister and he went to
the united states. He was advised to leave Germany but he said he didnt have to leave because he
had won, during WWI he was in the German army and he had won the bronze star or the bronze
cross, and was some kind of war hero. He figured nothing was going to happen to him and that
was why he didnt want to leave he figured they werent going to do anything to him. All the men
on my mothers side were also in the German army and navy during WWI. Anyway, after my
father was dead my mother decided to leave Germany. And so, she befriended a man who was
some kind of city politician or city official and he befriended her and decided he was going to help

...they referred to him as

the Jew Max Levy, like we
were a bunch of cattle.

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her leave Germany. He wasnt able to help get her out but was able to get the two children out,
my sister Ursula and me and so in, February of 1939 my mother took my sister and me to the train
station and there in the town, there was a kinder transport, if you know what that is. Do you know
what a kinder transport is?
Im not exactly sure.
Kinder transport is a train of all children, Kinder.
They left Germany to go to neutral countries. So
most of these kinder transports ended up in
Holland, and then the kids got on a boat and went
to England. They were saved in England or
Switzerland. We went to Holland but then we
didnt go any further. We stayed in Holland. In
February of 1939 my mother took me and my sister
to the train station and she said to me take good
care of your sister and then Ill come to Holland and thats the last time I saw my mother. No
questions?

We went to holland but

then we didn t go any further.

Why didnt they send you to England then after you were in Holland?
I dont know, some of them went to England, I dont know why they didnt. My uncle had something to do with, my uncle in Chicago who fled Germanyhad something to do with us somehow,
he arranged for us to have a guardian.
How old were you at the time your mother put you on the train?
I was eight and a half when my mother put me on the train and my sister then was only three and
a half so I held my sisters hand on the train and we ended up in Holland, in this big place. A
place where they check you for diseases and things like that. We stayed there for about two
months and then we were sent to the south of Holland and we lived with the nuns and the town in
Holland where we lived then was called Eersel that was a small village of farmers and merchants.
It was a very nice town and we visit it to this day and so we lived with the nuns. Now we had a
guardian and I remember his name was Mr. Jos V. Mackelenbergh and he told the nuns what to do
with us. So then in 1939 when I was nine years old, we lived with the nuns and we went to the
local schools there. My sister went to one, and I went to the boys school. I made regular friends
there and Im still friends with some of them today, the ones that are alive. So, I was happy there
although I missed my mother. She actually wrote us some letters and different things and I was a
happy boy. I played with the boys in town. Then at night I had to go back to the convent and live
with the nuns. The next year was 1940, May of 1940, Germany overran Holland, and now the same
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problems started in Holland as there were in Germany. They made rules against the Jews first like,
teachers couldnt teach. Jewish doctors could only have Jewish patients. You couldnt go to the
grocery store except at a certain time of the day, everything was against the Jews. Now we couldnt
go to the movies and those kind of things but none of these things really affected me except one
thing. You had to wear, the nuns had to sew the Jewish Star on all of our outter garments and so,
youve seen the star?

...everyday you come in and

you sit in school and you ve
got this big sign on you feel
awful as a little kid.

Yes
it was a big yellow star and it said Jew in the
middle. I was ten years old so I was in the third
grade and I had to sit in third grade with this big
sign on. This bothered me a lot at first and I think
it had an affect on me because, you know, when
everyday you come in and you sit in school and
youve got this big sign on you feel awful as a little
kid. But I never had any trouble with the Dutch
kids like I did in Germany. I forgot to tell you that
when this stuff first happened and I noticed people werent talking to my mother like that, I also
had trouble in school, they called me dirty Jew and
this and that and I had to fight, but in Holland I never had any problems. After awhile I just got
used to it. Now the nuns were part of the underground and thats another thing I forgot to mention, whats the underground? Do any of you know what the under ground was?
Wasnt it when they kept Jews and other people safer than they would have been without their help?
Yes, they would hide the Jews, they would blow up German installations, theyd kill high Nazi officials. When an American or English plane got shot down and the Dutch underground would
come and try to save these people, and the nuns were part of the Dutch underground. They would
hide people who were slated to go to Germany for slave labor, not Jewish people. Dutch men,
young men, they would hide in between the walls, but we were out in the open. One time, I
walked into the coal room, they had a great big furnace. I walked into this room, I opened the
door and there was a man sitting in there, I slammed the door closed and I started running. One
of the nuns saw me and she said were you in the furnace room? and I said yes. She says, well go
into this room, so I went into this particular room, and Mother Superior came and she says, were
you in the furnace room? and I said, yes and then she says, did you see anybody? And I said,
yes. I saw a man. and she says No you didnt and so I said yes I did and she said No you didnt, and when someone asks you, you say you didnt see anybody. I remember telling her, well
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thats a lie, if I said that. because I didnt know what this was, really. I mean, I was just a kid, and
she said, well, I dont care if its a lie, if you ever say anything about this, youll be in big trouble
with me. as it turns out, after the war I found out that was somebody from a British airplane, that
was being hidden there. If the Nazis would have found out about this, the nuns would have been
in severe trouble. I was in the army, in the United States, I got drafted. I went to visit this Mother
Superior who was now in an old peoples home;
she told me a lot of stories. Now, about this time
they decided, Mr. Van Mackelehbergh and the
nuns decided that we should go into real hiding
and so for about half a year we went into real hiding. They sent me away to some place further
north near a big river, and they sent my sister some
other place. So we were separated and I lived with
the construction workers, about ten construction
workers who worked on the bridge of this big Maas
River. It was big as the Mississippi and so I lived with them and never saw anybody except those
people, I saw them at lunch time and in the morning. I slept with them and I just amused myself,
in the back waters of this river and I never spoke to anyone except these men. It was very lonesome and I didnt like it. For some reason they decided to bring me back to the convent and live
out in the open again and they brought my sister back and so then one day this was 1943 I was 13
years old my sister was eight. Mother superior told me to go into this special room again and so I
went into this special room and Mr. Klaasen who was the chief of police, he was a Dutchman he
was not a German or anything like that but he came in and he said he was ordered to send my sister and me to a concentration camp the next day. Naturally I was very sad, I was crying, I didnt
want to go, I was only thirteen, my sister was eight. He said he was very sorry but he had to do it
and I knew him very well and I knew his kids whom I played with, they lived on the convent
grounds. The next morning two policeman came, they had a taxi and they sent us to this concentration camp Vught. I just want to say after the war Mr. Klaasen asked me for forgiveness, I told
him there was nothing to forgive because he had to do this he was afraid not to do it. See during
the war you have three kinds of people; youve got the real heroes who wouldve said no Im not
going to send them, or would hide them. Then you have the people on the other hand, the perpetrators who are the bad guys. Then youve got the vast majority of people in the middle who dont
want to do anything, theyre afraid so they just keep their eyes straight ahead and dont do anything, I think most people are like that If you remember yesterday I told this story about this lady
Flo but her real name is Florence one that was our guardian in the camp and I let her be taken.
When they asked me do you need her? I said no, I shouldve said yes I need her so that they
wouldnt take her out on this transport. Anyway then went to this camp called Vught and my sister

i didn t know what this

was, really. i mean, i was just
a kid.

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and I ended up in the womens section. Vught was a concentration camp in Holland, I wont say
too much about the camp because you know a lot about camps and you can read about conditions
in concentration camps but they were severe and there were a lot of beatings. Every day we had to
stand at appell, which means that they count you and there were transports leaving there all the
time. One time there was a transport of 1,244 kids that went directly from this camp to a place
called Sobibor in Poland where they were all
gassed when they got there. While we were in this
camp the Dutch underground came up with special letters that they brought into this camp saying
we were half-Americans and only half Jewish, that
our uncle who was living in Chicago who was not
Jewish was really our father and thats why we
werent on that transport to Sobibor And thats
why we didnt get killed. Anyway we stayed in this
camp Vught until October of 1943. And then in
October of 1943 we were sent to another camp
called Westerbork which was really a transit camp
and we were in this transit camp till January or
February of 1944 the thing about this camp was
there werent too many beatings and actually
Dutch police are the ones that were the immediate
supervisors although the head people in charge
naturally were the Nazis and the Germans and
thats why there werent too many beatings but it
was very crowded, there was a lot of sickness and like I said yesterday the big thing about that particular place was the transports that left every Tuesday at 12:00. If your name was not on the transport list you felt good because no one wanted to go on a transport. If your name was on it, you naturally felt bad. As soon as the train left on Tuesday everybody started worrying again and wondering if your name was going to be on the transport for the next week. If the list came out and your
name wasnt on it you felt good again for a few days. Anyway this was going on until January of
1944 now I was going on fourteen years old and my sister was nine. We did get on a transport to
go a place called Bergen-Belsen, that was a big concentration camp. Thats the camp where Anne
Frank died. The thing about this particular camp is at first we didnt have it so bad, I mean we had
it plenty bad. We were in kind of a preferred place. In Schindlers list those were special Jews
because they had to work in these factories they were a little special. I was also in the place where
we were a little special at first because we had connections with the United States so we werent
gassed right away or anything like that although they didnt have gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen

one time there was a

transport of 1,244 kids that
went directly from this camp
to a place ... where they were
all gassed when they got
there.

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but thousands and thousands of people died there from starvation and from disease called typhus
and from beating to death. At first it wasnt all that bad actually. All I can say is it was a little better
conditions, but in the end it was worse than most camps according to the curator of that camp
today. Again I dont have to talk about the concentration camps because we dont have that much
time. We were extremely hungry we got a piece of bread the equivalent of two slices of bread once
every three days and a little soup every day which
was the same for two years, a little hot coffee and
things like that, maybe a small piece of butter.
People died left and right from hunger, beatings.
Every day we had to stand at appell which means
they counted you for hours and hours and you
stood there. The guards would get nervous and
mad after so many hours out there in the cold
although they were well dressed and they started
beating people. Ive seen people being beat to
death right next to me. And we used to line up,
talk to somebody and the guy would keel over and
die right in front of you or if he passed out you
thought he was dead. We would line them up
against the barracks, feet out extended, heads up
against the barracks and take all their clothes. By the end of the week all along the barracks would
be dead bodies. Garbage would come, a big truck being pulled by prisoners and theyd grab four
people on a body and throw them up on a heap on the wagon. Itd be just like a big haystack and
then theyd go to the next section. There were a lot of other things going on in this camp that I
dont have time to talk about. There were some good things. One time at night I was near the
barbed wire and a German SS soldier asked me what in was doing and I told him I was so hungry
could he give me a piece of bread, anything to eat, he said, come back the next night. I went back
the next night when it was real dark and he actually had a piece of bread for me. I looked at his
face and he looked maybe 4 or 5 years older than me only but see there was not only bad things
happening in these camps, this was something good that this guy gave me a piece of bread. In
April of 1945 we had been in this camp since January of 1944 we got put on a transport to go
somewhere else, where we dont know but we were on this particular transport for thirteen days
and we were coped up like sardines. The train would move a little bit, then stop, move a little bit
and then stop. The Americans used to shoot at the train and wed have to go underneath it. They
didnt know that it was a prisoner train but every time we stopped which was most of the time, we
would throw out the dead. After they were on the train for so many days, so many people had died
that we actually had room to lay on the floor. After thirteen days on this train the Russians over-

..we got a piece of bread

the equivalent of two slices
of bread once every three
days and a little soup every
day.

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took the train. The war was still going on and we asked them where could we go and they didnt
care. They said go wherever you want to. There was this little town called Troebtz near there we
ended up in this town, my sister and I; it was like a ghost town. All the Germans had fled so my
sister and I lived in a house, just an empty house. We stayed there and then the Russians started
taking care of us. Then a big epidemic broke out, typhus from lice. We had all these lice all over
our body, hundreds of them. A lot of people died
from that, just like in the camp. Both my sister and
I got it, I think she got it first and I took care of
her, then I got it and she took care of me. All you
do is lay there and drink a little water. It comes
from all these lice. I must say the Russians did a
tremendous job delousing us. Somehow they
deloused everything, they took our clothes, and
steamed them out, I dont know what they all did,
they left all these lice eggs, in all the seams, they
were solid white with dead lice eggs. We stayed there for two or three months in the Russian sector then American army trucks came. We got on the American trucks and we ended up in the
American zone, and then we stayed in the American zone in Germany for a month or so. Then
they sent us back on a big very crowded train back to Holland. Once we got to Holland I was so
weak that I couldnt hardly walk and I was thin. So they put me in an American army hospital we
stayed there for a week or so. One fine Sunday morning the doctor came and said I was well
enough I could go. They gave me some money and my sister and I got on a train and went to the
town where my guardian lived, they were so excited to see us and we still had our concentration
camp clothes on with all those lice eggs. They ripped them off of our backs and they were glad to
see us, this was at the end. I spent two years in Holland going to school in between going to the
hospital and my sister also. After two years this was 1945 I was 15 my sister was ten, we spent two
more years in Holland, and in 1947 we came to the United States.

We had all these lice all

over our body, hundreds of
them.

Who did you live with those two years?

Those two years I lived with the nuns again except during the school year they sent me to a boarding school.
Whats something you think people dont always know about the holocaust that they should?
People know about concentration camps, how bad they were and how they beat people and people
died from starvation and being killed and gassed and all this kind of stuff. They dont know about
how you suffer from things like being separated from your parents and how as a little kid I didnt
know anything was going on. I was told I couldnt play soccer; I couldnt be part of this club or
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that club, things like that. People dont know that, they only know the big things but the small
things, being separated from your mother, telling her goodbye on the train station. Thats worse
even than being in a camp I would say.
What motivated you to become a speaker and talk about your experiences?
I never spoke about this for 50 years; I hid the fact
that I was Jewish. My name is Mueller now; I took
on my uncles name in Chicago. What motivated
me was in 1994 a letter came to my house from a
friend of mine. Who had been by the nuns, he had
lived there also, he was half-Jewish but he had fled
from Germany as well and nothing had really happened to him. A letter came saying that they were
looking for people that were on the train, the last
train for thirteen days, and they had a reunion. I
didnt want to go but my family who knew almost
nothing of my background. They knew that I had
been in a bad place during the war so they insisted
that I go on this trip to see people that were on
this train. When I met these people I saw people
that were in exactly the same boat as I was in even
the same place during the war. There were two people there I knew from the camp. These people
knew exactly what I went through and I felt at home, it was like a big rock came off of my chest
and I could talk about it, so then I also wrote a book.

These people knew exactly

what i went through and i
felt at home, it was like a
big rock came off of my
chest.

After liberation, George Levy changed his name to

George Levy Mueller. This was when he and hissister,
Ursula, came to the United States. George was drafted
into the army, and also became a pharmacist. He met
his wife Katie and had five children, Jane, Sue, Jow,
Lucy, and Amy. Now-a-days he and his wife travel in
northern Wisconsin in the summer. Goerge has started
giving talks about the Holocaust in schools and at the
Holocaust Museum.

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