https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks U.S History Honors ll en-us 2022-03-23 13:30:41 UTC 2022-03-30 13:30:18 UTC hello@padlet.com angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2111855119 Lifespan:(1922-2018)]]> 2022-03-24 13:29:46 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2111855119 angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2111889277    Robert(Bob) Behr was born on March 1, 1922 in Berlin, Germany to Alfred and Lilly Behr. Robert's parents divorced when he was a child, and his mother remarried a local physician, Dr. Alfred Hamburger. The family lived a normal middle-class life as Alfred served Germany during World War l, and his mother stayed home to raise Behr, who was their only child. He grew up a normal kid who went on vacation and went to the sea in the summer time. Behr said he first realized something was wrong when he was eight years old. His father was politically savvy and concerned about Germany's political future, thus the radio was always on in their home.  The radio commentator would constantly talk about how terrible Jewish people are and once Hitler came to power the Berlin and Germany Behr once knew ceased to exist. ]]> 2022-03-24 13:45:52 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2111889277 angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2113851331
      The Nazi party immediately instituted and enforced laws that persecuted Jews. Some examples that affected the Behr family were Robert's father wasn't allowed to call himself a doctor and was considered under the title "medical expert" as the word doctor was prohibited. Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend public school. In 1937, Robert was lucky enough to be able to attend a German-Jewish boarding school in Sweden until the Nazi government prohibited German currency into Swedish Kroners. The German families could no longer pay tuition forcing the school to close. When Robert returned, the Germans had established forced labor, which meant you had to report to an office in Berlin every morning to get a job assignment. Some of the jobs he was assigned included consist hard manual labor like carry coal to buildings and carry bricks on construction sites. 
]]> 2022-03-25 13:56:50 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2113851331 angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2119370892   Behr's father was among more than 30,000 Jews arrested between November 9 and 10, 1938, during a wave of anti-Jewish violence called Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass. " On November 29, 1938, Robert and his parents were evicted from their apartment. But, luckily with the help from the Jewish Community Service,they were able to get two rooms in an elderly Jewish woman's apartment. They only stayed in that apartment til 1942 when the Gestapo retrieved a postcard that Lilly and Alfred Hamburger tried to help a friend escape to neutral Switzerland in which they arrested Robert and his family. 
    Because Alfred was a WWI veteran, they agreed not to send them to a concentration camp or killing center rather to Theresienstadt which was a camp ghetto in Czechoslovakia. Lilly worked in the laundry and Dr.Hamburger worked in the hospital at Theresienstadt.  Robert on the other hand, his job was to bury the dead.  In the 2017 "First Person Interview", he says " People died like flies from diseases, sanitation and when they died there was no viewing, or something appropriate. After you do this for a while instead of honoring the dead, respecting them, all you care are about how heavy they are and how high you have to throw them,” Behr continued during the same interview. “You know what that does to your soul, your equilibrium, what that does to you, your mental ability, when you become so raw, so disinterested from reality that you don't even think about things like honoring a dead person?” During his time at the camp, he later placed on a road crew laying railroads tracks to and from the camp until a Czech friend found him work in the camp's kitchen.

]]> 2022-03-29 13:39:03 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2119370892 angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2119407985 https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-survivors/volunteers/bob-behr

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/751292/surviving-the-holocaust-former-soldier-af-civilian-tells-his-story/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYKj9vCGBqs]]> 2022-03-29 13:56:12 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2119407985 angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2120305397   But, Theresienstadt quickly got overcrowded and the Gestapo began deporting the prisoners to Auschwitz. There were plans to build an SS headquarters at a satellite camp in Wulkow, Germany, and 200 volunteers would be asked to help built it. The Germans said "If you volunteer to go and build their headquarters we will not kill your folks." Since Behr wanted to keep his stepfather and mother alive, he was one of the 200 volunteers to join.  In January 1945, Robert renunited with his parents and worked in the camp kichen til the camp was liberated by the Soviet Army on May 5, 1945. ]]> 2022-03-29 23:05:15 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2120305397 angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2120341769      After his liberation, Behr served in a U.S Army kitchen. In 1947, he came to the United States and  to join the U.S Army,so he could take care of his mother. His flunency in German secured him a transfer to Berlin.He was sent back to Berlin to deal with German youth activities(GYA). He was a big chief of GYA and the GPA was suppose to educate the future of German people about freedom and democracy. He left the Army in 1952, and srarted working as a regular citizen for the Air Force's 7050th Air Intelliegence Aervice Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. However, he did try to travel back and forth between Ohio and Germany. 
     During the 1950s, he spent time in Germany interrogating Germans who had been caught by the Soviets and detained in Siberian prisoner of war camps before being liberated. Since Behr spoke German fluently, he aided in the interrogation, attempting to attempt to put together what life was like for the POWs(prisoners of war) and provide insight into what was going on in Siberia. The Air Force called the mission "Project Wringers." Besides working with POWs, he  also helped in operations in East Germany. Behr claims "In those days, lour enemy was not Russia  it was but it wasn’t – our immediate enemy was East Germany,” he said. “They wanted people to deal with these East Germans who are fluent in German and that how I got (roped in).”
    Behr up til 2017, lived in Washington D.C with his wife who have been together for more than 60 years. He volunteers at the Holocaust Memorial Musemum weekly, reminding visitors the terrible occurances during his time, and hopes for something like it to never happen again in the future.

]]> 2022-03-29 23:45:01 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2120341769 angeloroxas https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2120343387   The Holocaust relates to my life as it represents an event punishment towards another religion or race. Religion-ism and racism still exists today as much as it did back during the Holocaust. A connection I can make with what Bob Behr's went through and my life experience is that we both experienced obstacles that we had to come over. My struggles obviously can't be compared to being Jewish surviving a work camp during World War ll ,but we both had to go through it and continued to live our lives.]]> 2022-03-29 23:46:32 UTC https://padlet.com/angeloroxas/Bookmarks/wish/2120343387