Dan Snow's History Hit - Anne Frank's Step Sister: 'How I Survived the Holocaust' Part 1

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

1/2. On the morning of the 4th of August 1944, exactly 78 years ago today, the Frank family cowered behind a bookshelf in Amsterdam, listening to heavy boots and German voices on the other side. Anne Frank and her family were discovered and taken to the Nazi concentration camps where they all perished, apart from Otto. Anne's diary stops in the summer of 1944 so it's difficult for us to truly know exactly what her experience was after her arrest, as a teenage girl enduring the horrors of the Nazi death machine.But Eva Schloss, the girl who became her stepsister - does. She was sent to Auschwitz with her parents and older brother Heinz and remembers what that whole experience was like - from the way Austrians slowly turned on their Jewish neighbours, hiding in crawl spaces from Nazis, the cattle truck ride, her encounters with the angel of death Josef Mengele and how the liberation of Auschwitz left her stranded in the abandoned camp for days.Eva's is a story of close calls, unexplainable chances and turns of fortune, as well as unimaginable horrors. So, a warning that some parts of this story are distressing.Her memoir is called After Auschwitz: A Story of Heartbreak and Survival by the Stepsister of Anne Frank.This episode was produced by Mariana Des Forges, the assistant producer was Hannah Ward and the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. On the morning of the 4th of August 1944, it's exactly 78 years ago today, two families and a dentist cowered behind a bookshelf in a secret annex in Amsterdam,

and a dentist cowered behind a bookshelf in a secret annex in Amsterdam, listening to the sounds of heavy boots and German voices on the other side. The von Pels and the Franks had been in hiding to avoid persecution by the Nazis. Their story was made famous by Anne Frank, who chronicled their lives in hiding, in a diary which was later published to global acclaim after the war in 1947. For two years the Jewish families, originally from Germany, had hidden in concealed rooms in the building where Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank, worked. On that morning, on the 4th of August, both families and the dentist hiding with them, Fritz Pfeffer, were arrested by the Gestapo and transported to concentration camps across Nazi-occupied Europe. When the war was over, everyone from the Annex had been killed in the Holocaust,

apart from one, Otto, Anne's father. His story, told in her diary, while well known, is only a very small part of the extraordinary saga of Otto Frank's life and the people in it. After the war, Otto went on to have a second family, a family who'd been neighbours of the Franks in Amsterdam and who'd also had to go into hiding from the Nazis. They too had endured concentration camps. In 1953, the woman he married was called Elfriede Gerringer, and the girl who became his stepdaughter was called Eva. Eva had been friends with Anne Frank before they'd had to hide. Eva remembers the panic they felt when the Nazis would storm into houses where they'd been hiding, searching for Jews.

So when the knock came or the bell rang at night, it was always at night, we quickly went into this hiding place hoping that they wouldn't find us. But they were so crafty, in one case we heard that later then, that they felt the

beds, which were still warm where people had been sleeping. So they realized there are people hiding somewhere. So they demolished the whole apartment until they found the people. Anne Frank's diary stops in the summer of 1944. It's generally accepted that she died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the early spring of 1945, so it's difficult for us to truly know exactly what her experience was after arrest as a teenage girl enjoying the horrors of the Nazi death machine. But Eva Schloss does. She was sent to Auschwitz with her parents and her older brother Heinz and remembers what the whole experience was like, from the way the Austrians slowly turned on

their Jewish neighbours to hiding in crawl spaces from Nazis, her encounter with the angel of death, Dr Joseph Mengele, to liberation by the Russians and adjusting to life after, even now at 93 years old. She told me her story in astonishing detail when I went to visit her in her flat in North London on a rainy afternoon. So this episode is the first of two in which Eva Schloss recounts her life as a Jewish girl in hiding, enduring the Holocaust of unimaginable horrors, of close calls, unexplainable chances and turns of fortune. It's about survival and trying to retain your humanity after witnessing the worst humans can do. It's a story about making sure that no one forgets what happened to her, her family, to the Franks, to Jews, and all those persecuted under the Nazi regime.

You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is part one of Eva Schloss's story, and a warning, there are some distressing parts to this episode. Describe your life, your earliest memories of your life before the war, before you had to move, before you had to hide. Well, I was born in Vienna in an extended family and we were very, very close to each other. So I felt very protected by everybody. I was one of the youngest of this family.

I was very much into sport. I loved skiing and acrobatics and things like that. And my father was a daredevil as well. He swam the Danube against the current, which was very, very dangerous. He climbed the mountains right on top of dangerous hills. And I really took to this. So we were doing all those things. And to train us, he put us on a cupboard and we had to jump down.

But he caught us, you know. Or he threw me in the lake before I could even swim. And then he jumped after me and he rescued me like that. And I liked all this, you know. It was really a big sport about this. But my brother, who was three years older, he lost his sight of front eye when he was four. So he was very, very cautious about his health and all that.

And he being a boy, so my father was quite disappointed. So he took it all out on me. So I had to do all those things. But as a matter of fact, I loved it all. When do you first remember that you were made to feel different from other Austrians, from other kids because of your Jewish heritage? In 1938, without giving notice, Hitler's army just marched into Austria and occupied the country. To our amazement

the Austrian population took like this amazingly. They stood already in the streets all suddenly they had swastika flags with the Heil Hitler salute. Really, we were shocked. And my first experience was already, I think, the second day after occupation. My best friend was a Catholic girl. Austria was Catholic, the Jews.

You know, there was nothing else at the time. So after the second day, I went with my Catholic friends, always thought they lived nearer our school. So we passed there and usually played and stayed for a cake or something. But the mother saw me coming, and she opened the door and she looked with such hatred at me and she said we never want to see you here again and she slammed the door in my face. I was in shock. I went home crying. I said to my mother I don't understand we didn't have a quarrel and my mother said well for Jewish people life is going to be very, very difficult from now on.

How old were you? Nine years old. Why do you think your friends, your community, your neighbors turned against you? Well, the German propaganda, of course, people had listened already to radio. So they knew already what Germany was propagating because Hitler came already in 1933 to power. And my parents too listened to the radio, you know, so they knew what was going on with the Jewish population in Germany because by 1938 many had already been arrested

and sent to concentration camps. Dachau was one of the very first camps in Germany near Munich. So Austria knew, and Hitler was after all Austrian, was one of the very first camps in Germany near Munich. So Austria knew. And Hitler was, after all, Austrian. And I think, and he promised that after the First World War, Germany and Austria, but especially Austria, Austria was the biggest empire in Europe at the time,

before the First World War. And suddenly, they were a tiny little country. Everything had been taken away from them. And there was starvation for many years. And Hitler promised they're going to revenge themselves, everything is going to be wonderful again. And it is all the fault of the Jews that we lost the First World War and that we were treated so badly. The Versailles Treaty was very, very bad. And I suppose people were believing this. How quickly did your family manage to escape

from Austria? Well, my father had a shoe factory and he had connection in Holland. He exported to Holland. So he had business contact and actually he disappeared. I can't remember exactly, but pretty quickly he disappeared. And he said, I'm going to take an apartment and so you can follow. Because at first, of course, the Germans were not organized yet. You could still get an exit visa and entry visa in the other countries. But my father traveled to Holland quite regularly, so it seemed to have been possible. But then when Heinz was so attacked, he said Heinz should come as well, which again was still possible in the early days.

But then after a few weeks when my mother had settled everything and we wanted to go as well, but already the Dutch didn't want any more refugees. And the whole world really didn't want refugees, only if you were somebody important. Like Freud or all kinds of writers and artists and so, or rich people. But probably it was well-off, but not rich. People did get visas that could get out. But the ordinary people, that was a big problem. In 1936, Roosevelt had already a conference in France, in Avion,

and all the European countries were invited. And the thing as well, Australia and other countries, how many Jewish people do you still want to take in the future? And the only one was Holland. They wanted to take a few people, but not many either. But the rest said, no, we don't want any refugees. And that is something, you know, I talk about this a lot because we obviously haven't learned.

It's still the same thing. Refugees not wanted. And when did you manage to reunite with your father in Holland? In the meantime, of course, the Second World War started. Hitler went into Poland and France and England declared war. And my father said, well, the war borders are closed. So he tried desperately for us to move to Holland as well. And eventually in February 1940, so during the war, we got a visiting visa for Holland for three months. So that is when we moved to Amsterdam.

We lived in an apartment on a big triangle. There was a skyscraper and all around it were flats. And we had a furnished apartment. My father had taken that because we had nothing, no furniture, anything. So it was a beautiful furnished apartment and there was a piano in there. So Heinz was, of course, delighted he could play piano again. And of course, he took his accordion and he got a guitar. He could play any instrument. And I must say the Dutch were very nice to foreigners. All the children wanted to

know where I came from. And I said Austria. And I told them about mountains. It's very flat. So they wanted to know how it is. They had never seen a mountain, you know. People didn't travel so much. I became quite a hero and so on. But of course I had to learn another language. But what you probably want to know, one of the little girls who played as well out in the streets after school was Anne Frank. And we were both 11 at the time. So we were friends.

And she spoke to me because I was new. I said, I come from Vienna. She said oh you speak German? I said yes. So she took me up to her apartment to meet her family who was speaking German. So that is how I met Otto Frank as well who later became my stepfather. Of course I wouldn't have dreamt that would ever happen, something like that. What was the Frank family like? It was well a refugee family, but they left already Germany, Frankfurt, in 1933. Otto very often told me when he saw in 1933 Nazis walking through the street singing Horst Wessels.

He was a famous Nazi who composed songs that went like this. When Jewish blood drips from our knives, things is going to get better again. When he saw these Nazis going through the streets singing this, he realized this is not a country where I want to bring up my family. And he left in 1933 already. So Anne was, you could say, nearly Dutch. She was four years old when she came. She couldn't speak any German.

She could understand because her parents spoke German at home, but she couldn't speak it. And you enjoyed playing with her? She was good fun? Yeah, she played. When I told her I had an older brother, because she was very keen on boys with 11 already, she said, oh, when can I come to your apartment and meet him? But he wasn't interested in a little girl like his sister, you know, too young for him. Now, I'm just doing my maths. Three months on from February 1940, the Germans invade Holland. Well, I remember very clearly at night we heard shooting in the air because they were flying over Holland and you saw the lights going to try to locate

the aeroplanes and we put on the radio and it said terrible news the Nazis are trying to invade our country this was a big tragedy that they bombarded Rotterdam that was the first civilian city in this war, which was bombarded with 10,000 casualties. And the royal family escaped, first to England and later to Canada. And so the people got disheartened. And after five days, they capitulated. We still tried in the night to go to the harbor to catch a boat to England, but it was too late.

The boats had all gone. So we went back and we thought, well, we'll see what happens now. But the Dutch said, not of course in that night, but later, don't worry, we're going to protect you. But of course they didn't know what the intention was of the Nazis. And how did life change for you? What do you remember changing? Well, it became more difficult.

We had to wear a Jewish star, which meant that people disappeared from the street and they were never seen again. We had a curfew. We were not allowed to go out after eight o'clock. We were not allowed to go to cinema. We were not allowed to go on the tram. We had to hand in our bicycles.

Cars, of course, immediately had been confiscated. But most people didn't have cars. Most people had a bicycle. But, you know, it's not a big city. You could manage. In the winter, we went on skates to school because everything was frozen. So as children, at first, we didn't really mind so much, which was a big sadness for us.

The first Disney film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, came out with some lovely music, and it was something completely new, you know, these kind of films. And, of course, at school, everybody spoke about it, but Jewish children were not allowed to go to the cinema as well, not to go to swimming pools. You know, we were kind of separated from the ordinary population. And then we had to leave our schools and go into Jewish schools. And that became already really very dangerous because when the Nazis went with trucks to the

schools and told certain classes to come with them. And the children just disappeared. The parents went to the police to try to find out where the children were. Never got any information. And after two years, 10,000 young people, including my brother who was 16 at the time, and they were told to go to Germany to work in German factories. And they had a list with what they have to bring, so many socks and so many trousers or whatever.

So a lot of Dutch people sent their children because they thought, well, they need workforce, the Germans are in the army. But refugee people thought that the Jews in Germany are already deported, you know, in 1942. So why should they invite more Jews? And that was when my father called us together and said, we are going to go into hiding. father called us together and said, we are going to go into hiding. More from Eva after this. This is History's Heroes.

People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. My father said, I found some very wonderful people. There was a big resistance movement in Holland

and in all occupied countries who didn't want to be occupied by the Nazis. And they communicated with England and they got radio messages and weapons and they helped the pilots who were shot down and all kinds of things. They killed certain Nazis. It was a big, big movement all over Europe.

And as well, they helped people to find homes who would take Jewish people in to go into hiding. I mean, this was a completely new idea, so I didn't understand. I said to my father, what do you mean, hiding? He said, well, we go and stay with people we don't know, but who want to help us to stay safe. And because it's really an overpopulated town, Amsterdam and all the cities, so it was difficult to find a family who was taking four people. So my father said, we are going to separate. Heinz will go with me and you will go with Mutti, with my mom. And I started to cry. I didn't want to be separated again.

And my father said, well, it won't be long. The Americans are already in the war. Probably by Christmas it will all be over. But I was very, very upset. I started to cry. And my father said, well, as well, you know, if we're in two different places, the chance that two of us will survive is bigger. So with 13, I realized he says survive, so it means we might be killed. And I must say, I've started to be really afraid

from then on, that we didn't know, of course, the Nazis knew that from the 10,000 I don't know that number but I think about half of them went into hiding so the Nazis knew where are those people so we want really to catch all young people and so they did house searches always at night they came with trucks

knocked on doors in the night, and ordinary Dutch people had to open the door, let the Nazis in, and search their homes. And so the people, again, from the resistance, came in every apartment where people were hiding and built a hiding place within the hiding place. So sometimes under the floorboard, they always found somewhere where you could hide.

So when the knock came or the bell rang at night, it was always at night, we quickly went into this hiding place, hoping that they wouldn't find us. But they were so crafty. In one case, we heard that later then, that they felt the beds, which were still warm, where people had been sleeping.

So they realized there are people hiding somewhere. So they demolished the whole apartment until they found the people. So when people hear that, they say, I can't take the tension any longer. Once a week I don't dare to sleep anymore because they can come any night and you have to look for a different hiding place.

So in those two years, we were six or seven different places and the same with my father and brother. Did you see your father and brother in those two years? Well, my mother and me had false ID cards because we looked very Dutch, blonde and blue-eyed. My father and my brother were dark and looked more Jewish in a way, you know, so they never went out only when they had to change hiding place. But it was, of course, a big risk that stopped people in the street. You had to show your ID card. And if you didn't have one or if it was a bad copy, of course you were arrested. But as I was so miserable, my parents decided that from time to time,

perhaps every six weeks or so, we got to visit my father and brother, if the people who were there staying would allow it. So it did happen that we went quite a few times to visit them. Did you see the Frank family at all? No, the Frank family, we didn't know anything about them. We didn't talk to anybody. We didn't want the people to know. We didn't write to anybody, not even my grandparents and my aunts and uncles.

They were able to get out. They were all in England. We couldn't write to them that we were safe. It was all too dangerous. You must have been so bored. Especially, you know, I was an active child. So I found it very, very, very hard. But I started to read. It was the first time really I started to read the book because before my brother told me I was a singer, I could read

but I just didn't want to since then I became a big reader afterwards but nevertheless it was not what I wanted to do I wanted to play I wanted to mountaineer I wanted to swim I was an active child.

So for me it was really necessary to get this relief, to go from time to time to be with Heinz and my father. Heinz, he played chess by himself and he told me to play chess and he told me stories and life was really fantastic this short weekend and I lived really from weekend to weekend when we could visit again. But that was as well our downfall. After two years, my father and brother were in the country. It was difficult to find places in Amsterdam.

We had visited there as well. And it was winter. My mother had a fur coat. And the woman said, give me your fur coat. You don't need it. She said, yes, I do. You know, I go out occasionally. She said, well, I have to do shopping for your husband and son.

So I need your fur coat much more. So she started to want to blackmail us for money, and it was difficult already. You know, in 1944, many people had been arrested. Many didn't want to do it anymore. So eventually, through another contact, through the resistance, a Dutch nurse said she has a safe house and she will take my father and brother.

So my mother phoned them the address, and they escaped in the night from this woman and went to this address. And the next day was a Sunday, and it happened to be very near where we were. So I begged to go and visit them to see them again because we hadn't been so long with this nasty woman and we did and it was lovely they had a nice place and the nurse was very nice and they gave us food as well, you know, it was ration. But we had a nice tea and a cake or whatever. And we went back home. And on Tuesday, it was my 15th birthday, and we just sat down with very nice people as well.

We hadn't been there very long. An elderly couple, she had saved an egg for my birthday because, you know, food were very, very rare. We were always hungry, really. And we just sat down to breakfast. There was a knock on the door and they opened the door and the Nazis stormed in and they went straight for my mother and me, and took us all away to the Gestapo headquarters. And we got there, and they separated my mother and me, and I was taken to an interrogation room, a tiny little room. You see that on film, you know, a table and a chair on one side,

a chair on the other side, and a big Hitler picture on the wall, and uniformed Nazis with guns in their hands stood there over me, and they started to bombard me with questions. Where have you been all these years as a Jew? Where have you been hiding? With who? What addresses? And so on. But I was really in shock because at that time I thought I'm probably going to be killed. And, you know, I was so afraid that I just couldn't speak. I just cried and cried and cried.

And then they beat me and then they said, we are going to kill your brother if you don't tell us. And then I realized they must be arrested as well. But I had no idea, you know, I didn't know. But I'd lost my speech. I really couldn't talk. So after beating me, they left me. They threw me in a little room. It was dark.

And there was my father and my mother and Heinz. And my father said this nurse opened the door to the Nazis, so she was obviously working for the Nazis but pretended she was working with the resistance. When were you sent east? How soon? Well, we spent the first night then eventually in the prison and the next day we were taken by ordinary train somewhere in Holland and that was a holding camp up in the north

We didn't know anything about it. Usually on Friday there was a transport to the east. So the Nazi asked the Jewish man to give him a list of the names. He said we need 800 people or we need 1000 people or 600 people. So can you imagine? He has to pick out the people who are going to probably send to their deaths. So a terrible job, but he had to do that. Do you remember the train journey to the east? The train journey I remember very clearly in this terrible, like a goods train, like you see those containers going somewhere on railways it's just metal

there's doors of course in the middle of it, a sliding door there's a little opening they made with a barbed wire across, that was all the air which ever came in and about 70, 80 people were pushed into this

space, the only thing which was in it were And about 70, 80 people were pushed into this space. The only thing which was in it were two buckets, one with clean water, ordinary buckets, and one used for toilets for 80 people. Once a day that was changed. So you can imagine the mess it was because it flooded over and the stench and no air practically so it was a dreadful dreadful dreadful dreadful journey three four days we don't know it was dark anyway all the

time once a day they opened it and changed those buckets and they threw big chunks of bread in. So people caught it and gave a bit, but that was all the food we ever got. And, yeah, there was a pregnant woman in that train where we were who gave birth to a baby. People fainted. It was awful. The only good thing, but I didn't appreciate it really enough, I suppose, that was the last time that we were together as a family.

And that is when my brother told me that the paintings and poetry he had done, when they escaped from this woman who blackmailed them for more money, they hid them under the floorboard in the loft. they hid them under the floorboard in the loft with a note on it that belongs to Heinz and Eric Geiringer and after the war he's got to pick it up again. And he begged me that if I don't come back, please get it because you will really like the painting. I really want you to paint the paintings too,

that you have the paintings. And I said, no, no, of course we'll go together. And so he said, no, please, you have to promise me that you will go and get it. So I promised. And my father was crying. He was such a tough man, but he cried and he was so upset. He said, from now on, I'm afraid I won't be able to protect you.

I got you out of Austria. I got you safe for two years. And now I'll be powerless to do anything. And that was for him, I think, a terrible thing. That he knew he can't protect his family. And so after three, four days, perhaps it was long, I don't know, we lost count, we stopped. Sometimes it stopped anyway, but it was just,

if a train had to pass or something, we just stood still. But there we heard shouting and dogs, and so we knew something was going on. And so the doors were open, and we saw the sign Auschwitz. And we knew what Auschwitz was, because the BBC had sent broadcasts out. It was, of course, in Holland and in all the occupied countries. You were only allowed to listen to the local radio. But people from the resistance, where we were hiding, always had a little bakelit radio, which they hid somewhere.

And we did listen to the BBC. And I remember this very clearly. It started with da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, that is the BBC from London, with the daily news. And they told about how the war was going. Of course, in 1944, it looked already that the invasion was planned and they gave hope to people. And in Africa, they had succeeded. So it looked already hopeful. But as well, they always mentioned the 300 death camps in Germany and Poland. That was no secret.

Can I take you back to the door opening and you saw that sign? Tell me about that moment, what you remember of that moment. Well, at that moment, we realized that might be the end of our lives. We really thought that's it. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes.

Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. So you can imagine how scary that was. The next command was, of course, men and women to different sites because this Auschwitz was a huge, huge, miles and miles of different camps. At the time, we were in Birkenau, which was part of this complex of camps. They separate you on the platform, don't they? It was all on the platform.

It was an ordinary platform. Sometimes later, early as well, the railway line went sometimes into part of the camp. But at that time, our transport was outside. And there are plenty of photos where this whole group of people stand. And you see the Nazis in front and the first election was taking place. And you said goodbye to your father on the platform. Did you think you'd see your father and brother again? So we were separated. You can imagine what a goodbye that is, assuming that probably you never will see each other

again in this life. And I didn't know later on, are they alive? Were they selected? Where are they? You know, we didn't know anything. I was still in the dress. I was arrested in a summer dress after 10 days, you know. It was funny because I had nothing.

But my mother got in Westerbork before we went on transport. Somebody gave her a head and coat because we had nothing how we were arrested, you know, we had nothing with us. So we had to stand in rows of five and then Dr. Mengele came. He was a camp doctor, a proper medical man, around 40 years old. But he wasn't there to help people to survive. But he decided who was going to die and who was going to live. So the first election was taking place. So he came and looked at you over for just a fraction of a second and decided right or left, meaning death or life. So I had this head and coat

for my mother. She gave it to me and I didn't want to wear it. It was hot. My day was a heavy coat and this head had a big rim, was a big head and the sun was shining, so Mengele didn't see how young I was. So that definitely saved my life at this first selection. Some miracle happened. Yeah, it's difficult to explain. I don't know. Eva Schloss. Her memoir is called After Auschwitz, a story of heartbreak and survival by the stepsister of Anne Frank. This is part one of her story. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and look out for part two tomorrow. And then I saw a man standing somewhere that looked a little bit familiar. So I went to him and I said, I think I know you. And he said, yeah,

yeah, I know you too. You are Eva Geiriger. I'm Otto Frank. I said, oh, I didn't recognize you really. You look so thin. He said, have you seen my daughters and my wife? I said, no, never saw them. Have you seen my father and brother? Yes, yes, they were here, but they've gone with the Nazis. You've been listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. This episode was produced by Marianne Desforges. Assistant producer was Hannah Ward, and it was

mastered by Dougal Putmore. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.