Latest / Books4Guys / Uncovering a Family’s Hidden History in Nazi Germany | Ruth Hillelson & The Right Side of Wrong

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Uncovering a Family’s Hidden History in Nazi Germany | Ruth Hillelson & The Right Side of Wrong · Books4Guys

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: See, I'm office.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've been talking to a lot of people in Virginia this week.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in recruiting and I got a lot of positions to fill out there.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been all over Virginia this week.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you loved it.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yo, yay.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I it's a beautiful state.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very beautiful state.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of good areas there.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've been here for about 30 years and I I just regret not a minute.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's good.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: But Ruth, it is such an honor to have you on the Books for Guys podcast today, as I'm very uh excited to spotlight your book, uh The Right Side of Wrong, which we've got on the Books for Guys website for everyone to go find that.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: You have a very unique family history and a family story, and I have not had anyone on this podcast that has a similar background to you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm really excited just to learn more about, you know, again, I don't want to give too much away, I want you to share it, but your family running from Nazi Germany, and you discovered a lot of the story later through differ different letters and findings.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh But Ruth, I would love for you to just share a little bit.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Share a little bit about your story, what led you to discovering the history of your family, and then ultimately writing about it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a medical meeting in Strasbourg, and I had lost my mother, who was German, about 10 years before that.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I had never stopped looking for her on every genealogy website because I wanted to know more about her background, where she was, the family, etc.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I knew things from my own mother, but I clearly didn't know everything.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Across the table from me at the Strasbourg meeting, I heard a very lovely German accent from a very handsome guy.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I asked him where in Germany he was from, and he said Stuttgart.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So to make a long story slightly shorter, he asked me if I had relatives there, and I said, I thought I did.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just wouldn't have known how to find them while he found them.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when I went to see my cousin Helga for the first time since 1970, she was so ecstatic.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: She had loved my grandfather like a father.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, she said more than her own father, and she gave to me two small suitcases that had been his through World War I and World War II.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: They were filled with documents, with photos, with letters, and I might add, in Polish, in German, and Russian.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm an American-born girl.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know German because I heard it from my mother and I took it in school.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: But Polish and Russian was really out of my wheelhouse.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to learn it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as I looked at the letters and photos, yes, I was struck inside and I wanted to learn everything, but as I translated and read, it took me to different parts of history that I wasn't so familiar with.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to educate myself.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned about my grandparents actually falling in love in Russia at the Tsar's hunting lodge.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: My grandfather was the head of the Kaiser Guard for Kaiser Wilhelm.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: My grandmother was a Russian Jew in Bielevich, which was where the hunting lodge was.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: They fell in love, World War I happened, and my grandfather was going back and forth as the Tsar and the Kaiser were trying to work this out.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's really not part of the history books.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: As the war ended, then the Bolshevik Revolution happened, and my grandfather rescued my grandmother and they fled to Poland.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: They fled to Poland, they had four lovely children.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: They were what we call ethnic Germans living in Poland.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: The oldest child named Joachim was eventually conscripted into the Wehrmacht.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: The next in line was was another boy, Helmut, who joined, who was conscripted into the Luftwaffe.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Then there was a daughter, my Aunt Erica, who was a chemical engineer and a spy for the Polish resistance.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: The youngest was my mother, who was a concert pianist and figure skater.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So as the war unravels, and as everything goes to hell in a handbasket, my uncle was killed on the Eastern Front.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to piece together where he was killed, how he was killed by going through what's called the Armored Bear war journals.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: The Armored Bears were the tanks.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was part of the Third Panzer Division.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Very anti-Hitler, I might add.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the group that he was with was very into plotting Hitler's assassination, etc.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Helmut in the Luftwaffe in North Africa was sick much of the time.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't fly the fighters, he flew the supply planes.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: The third was my Aunt Erica, who after Joachim was killed, had a fire burning within her in terms of the Nazis did this, she hated the Nazis.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: She and her boyfriend later fiance worked their hearts out spying against the Nazis for the Polish resistance.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's interesting that the Polish resistance applied half of the intelligence network to the Brits and to us.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the story goes on like that.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the surprise to me was the learning of the history.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the surprise to me was also what is history?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have so many uh people like like you, like me, who would say, well, history is the politicians, and history is the what everything, these bigger pictures, but that's not really the case.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's individuals who make up history through their own acts of courage.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I want to relay, and that's what I learned as I was going through this.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I became the messenger.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I love this, Ruth, because you've got me thinking of some things.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So my grandmother uh was actually German.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my grandfather met her when he was overseas.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was in World War II.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: She passed away, unfortunately, before I got to meet her.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: My mother was at a young age, but I've heard bits and pieces.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you've got me like really intrigued uh to talk to my grandfather a little bit more and just kind of figure out maybe some of the history there, because I'm I'm sure there's a lot that I've never gotten to ask.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you your story just inspires me to want to know more.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking about too, my grandmother who he remarried to, she was very, very interested in genealogy and putting family trees together.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned a lot of things about my own family and history, of things that if I was just to, I would never have guessed.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I there's so many interesting things, and everyone, like you said, everyone has a history and a story, and there's so many surprising things you can uncover if you just do a little bit of work and dig.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's it really does have an impact on who you are today and and what's going on.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many, just again, little pieces to the puzzle that that's I don't know, I don't want to say enjoyable, but it's important to put together and learn from.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: As you were digging through all of this information and learning about just all these different aspects about your family, what were some of the more, I don't know, surprising ones to you, or some of the ones, some of the facts that you uncovered where you were like, wow, this is like, this is mind-blowing to me.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my father was American.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: My father fought with the Navy in World War II.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: He married my mother when she came to America.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: I never knew that my uncles fought against us in World War II.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder if my father ever knew that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a surprise.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: My cousin said to me, they weren't Nazis when I kept seeing swastickers everywhere.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Remember, they were drafted.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: They were living in Nazi Germany at a time where they had no choice.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Just like today, you know, the Russians who don't want to be involved in war are drafted.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's it's war.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's the way things happen.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, that was a huge surprise.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think the intensity of my grandparents' love and what my grandfather went through and did for the family, that was um, you know, when when your grandparents are involved, you don't quite think of it that way.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: But to have two people so in love and a Jew, that's a tough one for basically someone who is part of the German nobility to fall in love with.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a surprise.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I had known my grandmother had been we thought had been in a concentration camp.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I never knew which one.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: The papers told me.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: There were segments of the history in reading some of the letters.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: My mother was a concert pianist and a champion figure skater.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was hard to see her in one of the major German hospitals where her physician was hanged during the Nuremberg doctor's trials.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So all of that was a surprise to me.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And piecing it all together taught me more about history than I had ever known.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: How how long did it take you to put all of this together?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can imagine you start you start going down one story and you're uncovering all this, and then there's another completely different story.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, again, same time frame, but you're learning about all these different people and and and all the impacts and stories and everything.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: How long did it take you to really separate everything and organize your thoughts to put this book together?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was gonna ask, like, when did you start the book?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that I mean, you started the book when you started your research, but how long did it take to do all of that?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the research and the self-education and education with the help of other people took a couple of years.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, no, I didn't start the writing.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until I had pieced the puzzle together that I thought, my gosh, what a story.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what a story to pass on to the next generation or even the current generations.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: The writing itself took about two years.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, it's that's shorter than I thought, but it's still a long time.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I just I just know how long these take.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I watched my my again, my grandmother go through this, and it was like every day and every month there was new pieces to the puzzle.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you could continue digging uh and find even more, um, which is just again, it's just the byproduct of our families and lives and everything that's a part of it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: What's some of the, you know, now that your book's been released and there's people that have been reading it, what's some of the feedback you've gotten?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Are are are people like just in awe of everything that that you've uncovered?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: But like what's some of the things you're getting from those?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think the feedback has been fabulous.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: The reviews, the personal feedbacks, feedbacks from my patients have all been pretty incredible.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel blessed.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I have also heard back from ambassadors around the world, and their comments are of thanks for me to write this wonderful book, which they say is an entry for the people to understand what the totalitarian government was like, what the civilizational collapse was during the Holocaust, and it's easier to understand and relate when you're talking with humans and human lives rather than a history book.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the feedback has been wonderful.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I agree with that wholeheartedly, Ruth.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Being able to read a book about somebody explain it's just different than being like in a classroom and just being told what happened and what the history is.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when you add stories to history, you can better kind of put yourself in an actual person's shoes.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because even what you said earlier, you were talking about, you know, we we lumped everybody together as Nazis because of where they were, but not everyone wanted to be a part of that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking about even all the wars going on in the world today, there are a lot of people that don't want to be a part of it, but we generalize and we just say, you know, the whatever is versus us, or the what whatever versus them, and you you kind of you lose that personal touch of maybe someone over there that's like, hey, I I don't, this isn't my choice.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be here and a part of this.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there was a lot of that during the world wars of of you know, so many, so many tragic things happened, but we can't lose sight that there were also a lot of people that didn't want to be in those situations or want to be a part of that.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something when you were talking about that, I was real that really sunk with me.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, I sometimes don't take the time to put myself in those people's shoes enough.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think if we all did, in a lot of different cases, we would find a little more sympathy and maybe better understand who really is the evil part of some of this stuff, and it's not everybody that's living in those areas.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you're so right.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that's that's important for everyone to understand that your country's boundaries don't define you.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up with Star Wars and, you know, uh Darth Vader with the helmet.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, up until these two small suitcases, that was Germany, even though my mother had escaped from Germany.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: But my mother was also living in Poland during most of that time.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: But we need to understand that every German, every every Russian, they're not lockstep.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a great point.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I think that's a that was one that sunk with me, and I think that's something a lot of people will will stop and pause and think about as they hear or watch this.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Ruth, when you obviously you put a ton of energy and effort into organizing and putting this together, and and I know you get a little time to kind of look back now that the book's out, take a breather, see what people are saying, and you can kind of, you know, kind of enjoy the fruits of the labor you put into it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: But did I'm curious to know, you know, now that you've gone through this journey now, are you motivated to continue, whether that be continue digging through more of the same story, or do you have other parts of your life or work that you're potentially working on putting into another book?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of, you know, what's what's the future look like for you and and maybe some other projects you may be working on to accomplish?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, someone asked me what was left on the cutting room floor.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there, yes, so that visit back to Germany in 1970, I was a child.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: There was but there was a lot that I picked up on that was happening.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: My reason for being back at that point in time was because I had had a spinal disease.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a body cast for four years.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: This was my reward for because I was planning every place I was gonna go when I was free.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my mother and it was my mother's first return since the war.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So there were many things that happened during that trip.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I would I am going to write about what led up to it and what else I discovered along the way.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's Nets.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's interesting, you know, you talk I talked to a lot of people who have written multiple books, I've talked to people who've written one book, and once you once you accomplish that, there's almost something that seems to be in everyone where you're like, I want to continue doing this.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want to write, you know, put more stories out there.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell people all the time, everyone has a story to tell.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think everyone should take time and and just just write and and see what it may not lead to a book, but just write things you learn, right, write how you're feeling that day.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because in five years, in 10 years, in 15 years, when you go back and look at some of this stuff, maybe there is something there that you can share with others and people can learn from or take something away, or maybe yourself.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you look back and go, wow, I can't believe I was feeling that way during this time.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what was the reasoning for that?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just, you know, for your own soul to experience.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think everyone should take the time to do this.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's really cool that that you are now taking that time and and doing it in multiple different projects that are going to uncover just again, some soul searching, some memories probably, and just some uh some things that you might not do otherwise if you weren't taking that journey.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and you should write too then.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I I'm I'm working on something.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's been Ruth, that's kind of funny.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone, uh I get that question a lot now because I've interviewed close to 200 authors over the past year.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Are you are you gonna write a book?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Well, I really enjoy talking about other people's work.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, but you know, you you talk about how important it is you need to put your money where your mouth is.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Okay, okay.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll uh I'll get on that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm starting to dabble, and uh I am taking my own approach and my own advice, and and I'm I'm gonna be working on one.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's great.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I'll look forward to sharing it.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ruth, really, one more question for you.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this has been fantastic, and I, again, I'm so honored to share your story because I haven't talked with anyone specifically who has who's written about this.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know there are a lot of books out there, but I haven't talked to anyone.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this is really cool for our platform.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's also really cool to know you're working on another book because that means we'll have to have you back on as a guest in the future when that releases.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I asked this question to everyone who comes on the podcast, and I'm always curious to know what is a book or two that has meant a lot to you personally, and what's a book or two that you love to recommend to other people?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hard question because you could answer it differently depending on when I ask you.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, years ago, I read a book called I was I was I frequented libraries.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I read a book called Quo Vatis by Soul Jenitson.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it really was very important to me because it had so many emotional doors that were open.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say that was one of my most favorite books.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um what would be my second favorite book?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love Hemingway.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I can't even pick one.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Farewell to Arms would probably be my favorite of the Hemingway books.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll say those two.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you're a you're a real reader and appreciator of timeless classics and and writing and language.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I can definitely appreciate that for sure.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: But Ruth, thank you so much for taking the time to to talk about your story.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very, very proud and honored to share it with our audience and platform.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I cannot wait to see what your next book looks like, and we'll be excited to spotlight that as well.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's been my pleasure.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Ruth.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.