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Colonel Frank Conn recounts escaping Nazi Germany and serving as a U.S. soldier at federal remembrance program
Summary
At the 33rd Federal Interagency Holocaust Remembrance Program, Holocaust survivor and U.S. Army veteran Colonel Frank Conn described growing up Jewish in Breslau, fleeing to the United States in 1938, being drafted in 1943, and learning after the war that 11 extended family members died in concentration camps.
Colonel Frank Conn, a Holocaust survivor and U.S. Army veteran, recounted at the 33rd annual Federal Interagency Holocaust Remembrance Program how anti-Jewish measures in Nazi Germany disrupted his childhood and forced his family to emigrate to the United States in 1938.
Conn described attending public school before 1933, then seeing the change in his teacher when the man returned “complete [in] Nazi uniform,” which turned him into an outcast. He said that after the 1935 Nuremberg race laws “there was complete segregation” and his family’s business lost German customers. Conn told the audience his mother obtained visitor visas — via a consular bribe in one instance — and the family arrived in New York on Oct. 30, 1938.
The program’s moderator, Claire McMahon of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, guided Conn through memories of childhood, the family’s escape and his wartime service. Conn described being drafted in September 1943, briefly labeled an “enemy alien” and investigated by the FBI before he was cleared and sent to basic training. He recalled a defining moment in basic training: “about three weeks later, they took me to Fort Benning, Georgia, and swore me in as a US citizen. And boy, was I proud. I was now a US citizen and just as good as everybody.”
Conn also described searching postwar records during the occupation to trace relatives. He said he learned that an aunt had been sent to Theresienstadt and later Auschwitz and that, overall, “there were 11 people of our extended family who had died in concentration camps.” He reflected on the moral stance he took after liberation: “When I left Germany, I was a victim. And when I became the American citizen, I was no longer a victim. I was in charge,” he said, adding that he and other U.S. soldiers adhered to rule-of-law principles and avoided revenge.
The interview emphasized both personal memory and civic responsibility. McMahon and program chair Dr. Ronald Pachetune framed survivor testimony as a means to confront contemporary anti-Semitism and distortion of history.
The conversation concluded after an audience question about liberation; Conn repeated his point that liberation meant a transition from victimhood to legal responsibility, not retribution. The program moved on to additional federal remarks and a candle-lighting and moment of silence honoring victims and survivors.
