Werner Michel (M / Germany, 1924), Holocaust survivor
Werner Michel (M / Germany, 1924), Holocaust survivor
- KEYWORDS : <Germany> <Refugees> <United States>
Biography
Werner Michel was born in 1924 in Landau, Germany, the son of Ludwig and Paula Michel. His father was in the wine business and had served in the German Army during World War I. He attended German public schools until being segregated into special classes and schools because of being Jewish per the dictates of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. Although at first believing that Nazism was a passing regime, his father realized that there was no future for Jews in Germany decided to send him to the United States. This was made possible when, through the efforts of the central Jewish organization in Germany, an American family was found in St. Louis, MO, to take him in. He left for the US in November, 1936, at the age of twelve.
Although unable to speak English upon arrival in the US, he quickly acclimated by starting in Kindergarten and eventually completed high school. His mother obtained a visa for the US and upon her arrival, he, his mother, and his sister who had arrived earlier, were reunited. His father was unable to obtain the necessary documents for entry into the US and after fleeing to France was eventually sent to Auschwitz where he perished.
Although classified as an enemy alien, he enlisted in the US in May 1943 as a private, and had his basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. His first assignment was to the Armored Force Training Center at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, as a radio operator. In 1944, he was selected to attend the Officers Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Ga., and graduated as an Infantry Lieutenant. He was then transferred to the Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC) at Camp Ritchie, Maryland.
At Camp Ritchie his primary training was in the interrogation of prisoners of war and to function as the officer of an IPW (Interrogation Prisons War) team. After the war he continued to serve in the Army Counter Intelligence Corp.