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Click here for A Different Anthony Matkovich

A Little Info about the Interviewer

Jim Burns is the first born of Fran Matkovich and
Ed Burns. He has graciously taken it upon himself to interview and write up his memories talking with older Matkovich family members, both here and in Perth (see "Rosie's Story" on the Stories page). Jim has lived in the Chicago area, the San Francisco Bay Area, Las Vegas, and in Queensland, Australia, among other places, but now seems to have settled down in Naperville. Here's a recent picture of Jim and his "Easter gift" to himself - go for it, Jim!

Interview with Catherine Matkovich Janik

Written up by Jim Burns -- March 21, 2010

Grandpa was a fisherman in Yugoslavia. When he came to Chicago, he got a job as a laborer for what is now the CTA. Then he worked for a construction company building the subway in Chicago. According to Cathy, Grandpa was working on the subway one winter day and water got into his gloves, causing his fingers to freeze.  He lost the tips of three fingers due to frostbite. (Another version is that when he came home from work, the streetcar service stopped at Cicero Avenue because of heavy snow, and he walked home with those watery gloves, causing the frostbite.) In any case, after losing the fingertips he was no longer able to work for the city. Cathy remembers him pacing like a caged lion during his enforced idle time until Carl Broderick, who owned Nighthawk Freight Lines, gave him a job loading trucks. Grandpa worked for Nighthawk for many years until he finally retired.

Initially, the building had outside stairways to the second floor. John and Jean and the kids lived on the first floor and rented the second floor to a succession of tenants. The first tenant Cathy remembers was a lady named Irene whose husband was a pilot for Midway Airlines (this was when planes were only for freight with a single pilot – circa 1935). When they moved out, Mr. Frago and Mr. Tony moved in. These two gentlemen were lamplighters who rode their bicycles to light the gas lamps at sundown.  When those two gentlemen moved out, Grandpa enclosed the stairway and finished building the second floor so the family could occupy the entire house. Tony had the bedroom on the second floor, Frances had the bedroom on the first floor, and the other girls shared a bedroom on the second floor. Grandma and Grandpa stayed on the first floor. Upstairs there was also a large room where the girls could play in bad weather. Grandpa also enclosed the front staircase. After Frances married, Grandpa put in the kitchen upstairs, allowing the family to occupy the second floor and Fran and Ed to move into the first floor.

“We were poor but we didn’t realize we were poor because we didn’t know what we were supposed to have.”  Cathy cleaned Mrs. Dozier’s house on Saturday’s for 50 cents and a bakery treat.  During that time, other family members prospered. Uncle Carl Broderick was rich and owned a Cadillac during the depression. Grandpa would occasionally have the Broderick’s over to dinner and they were always late. The girls waited on the front steps for them to arrive in their big car because they always brought a 5 lb box of chocolates, with two layers of pieces. Katie Broderick had a grocery store on Archer Avenue, which provided food at discount prices to help the family. Grandpa would also come home with items that “fell off a truck” from broken cases that also helped. Every once in a while, the Broderick’s would come to pick up the family in an open-sided delivery truck with benches for sitting, then drive to some place for a picnic. The truck was about the size of a UPS truck but without solid sides, just slats. These picnics were the highlight of the summer. 

Grandpa made root beer in the basement before WWII, and later grew grapes in a small grape arbor in the front yard. The arbor was built of metal pipes and the vines yielded both green and purple grapes. It wasn’t until I talked with Cathy that I discovered that Grandpa didn’t make his wine from these grapes. They were, in fact, for eating but only after he decided they were fully ripe. We kids didn’t listen, of course, and were constantly being scolded for eating the grapes.  Grandpa bought the grapes from a supplier and pressed them into wine, stinking up the whole house. I once had a sip of the red wine he would drink for lunch and dinner and realized it was very, very strong. The only time Grandpa would drink was one glass of wine at lunch and one at dinner, otherwise he didn’t drink.

At some time when Tony, the eldest, got interested in golf, he put five holes in the front yard to practice his putting. The front yard was divided into two sections by the sidewalk that ran from the front porch to the public sidewalk alongside the street. The sisters would play a form of tennis using the sidewalk as the “net.” Tony was quite athletic. He played baseball for the Oak Park Orioles and once had a tryout for the St. Louis Cardinals but didn’t make the team.  Whenever Tony played, Grandpa went to the games until he discovered that there was betting going on at the game. Grandpa didn’t like betting and never attended an Orioles game after that discovery. Apparently, Grandma didn’t share his lack of enthusiasm for gambling, being known as the first one to buy tickets for any raffle in the neighborhood. If she was alive today, she’d be spending her spare time at the casinos.

In 1952, Fran and Ed, along with their kids Jim, Pat, Jean, Mary, and newborn Mike, moved from the Melvina house to their home in Cantigny Manor, an unincorporated former farm property south of LaGrange. One of the Broderick brothers used a Nighthawk Freight Lines truck to move the family belongings in one trip. Several of the uncles pitched in to handle the physical moving chores. Just after the furniture was placed in the new house, a storm came up and the house across the street, one of the three in the area, was struck by lightning. The volunteer fire department was called and the men all ran across the street to begin fighting the fire until the volunteers could get there. The lightning struck the house at the peak of the roof and apparently hit some wiring inside the attic space. Uncle Tony Vlainich, who was a steelworker, used his climbing skills to scale the house and used an ax to chop thru the roof to the source of the fire. When the volunteers arrived, a hose was hoisted to him and the fire was quickly extinguished with no real damage to the structure. The family who occupied the house, the Hunters, weren’t at home at the time of the fire—what a surprise for them and a good story about their new neighbors that was told for years!

On the subject of music, we always assumed the music of Yugoslavia was polka but Cathy says it only has a polka beat but it is definitely not polka. There is a circle dance that Croatians perform to their music, called the Kolo.  [Webeditor says: check out “Croatian Folk Music” on youtube.com for some recent examples!]

by Jim Burns -- March 23, 2010

At the ripe old age of 92, Tony lives in the house in which he and his late wife Eloise raised their children. He has a whiskey with sweet vermouth every day in the afternoon and according to his doctor, he is in excellent health. Tony still has a dial telephone that works!

Back in Yugoslavia, and Getting to America

Grandma lived on the island of Solta. Grandpa lived on another nearby island of Hvar, and sailed his fishing boat to meet Grandma when they were courting. Apparently, Grandma's family didn't approve of Grandpa because he was of a lower social status. Grandma's family was very well-to-do, with two houses, on in town and one a small house on the beach. The house in the town of Grohotes was a large two-story stone structure.

Tony says they took a train from Dubrovnik to Hamburg to board the boat to New York. It wasn't just the three of them, there was a whole group traveling the same route. Grandma was seasick the entire trip to New York and the others in the party took care of Tony and his little sister Frances. Being just 4 and 2 respectively, they enjoyed the trip and didn't pay particular attention to their mother's illness. The karmic influences would be at work, however: twenty years later, when Tony was shipped out to fight in World War II, he was seasick the entire trip across the Atlantic.

More about the House on Melvina

When Grandpa bought the house on Melvina in the late 1920's, it was only three rooms with a small bathroom tacked on at the back. At some point it was decided to enlarge the house. This process took many years as all of the work was done by hand and, of course, it was the years of the Great Depression. Piecing together the story, it goes something like this:

Raising it up off the ground
The first step in the process was to raise the house off the ground in much the same way as today's house movers would do, except it was all by hand. With so many men out of work, there were many hands to help in this process just to have something to do during the day. (Whether or not it was funded as part of Roosevelt's WPA program is not known.) Once the house was elevated, Tony says they turned it 90 degrees from its original north-south orientation to its current west-facing orientation. He further states that although it was presumed that the house faced north (54th Street), there was no real front door. At this time, the back porch and the stairs to the ground were added to allow the family to enter and leave the stilt-house.

Building a stone foundation
The next step was to build a stone foundation for what was to be the new building, longer than the original, by stacking the stones to a height of about four feet. These bricks (stones) are still visible today as the foundation of the hosue. Before any more building was started, the basement was dug out by hand with Tondy doing some of the work himself, to a depth of about three feet. After several years, when the basement was completed, the house lowered to the rock foundation and work began on the remainder of the first floor.

Adding the second floor
Years later, a second floor was added as the family grew, and the outside stairs leading to the second floor were enclosed, forming the building as it stands today. The siding on the house is asbestos and today the outside of the hosue is the original asbestos/tarpaper siding that was put on in the 1930's. There are three sections on the south wall where they ran out of shingles and another batch with a slightly different color was used to finish the wall.

In those days, the family had a series of boarders who occupied the second floor until the family got so large that they need the extra room themselves (see Catherine's interview for more about these boarders). Tony moved into the bedroom upstairs and the four girls shared the larger room, sleeping two to a bed. The remaining space was the playroom for the girls. Grandma and Grandpa remained in the bedroom downstairs. After Tony got married and moved out, things remained the same until Frances married Ed Burns, then Grandma an Grandpa moved upstairs and Fran and Ed moved into the downstairs section until 11 years later when they moved out.

The Garage and the Basement
The garage on the property was originally the storage shed for the coal that was used to heat the house. Later, the coal was moved to the west end of the basement to permit easier access to the furnace. The basement was eventually almost 6 feet in height but piping was installed to run hot water and that reduced the space so most of the adults had to duck when they went into the basement. Grandma had her washtubs and clothes wringer down there and in the winter hung the clothes to dry there. In the fall, Grandpa made his own wine, crushing grapes in barrels in the basement near the coal bin.


The Neighborhood and Daily Life
In those days, most women raised chickens for the eggs and finally for their meat when the egg-laying days were over. Tony remembers that Grandma knew how many eggs she could expect from her flock and if there weren't the proper number of eggs on a given day, she would walk through the field next to the house until she found the spot that one of chickens had picked to lay her eggs after flapping up and over the fence of the chicken coop.

The streetcar ran down Archer Avenue but all of the side streets were mud. On Archer, every couple of blocks, there were cement cylinders about four feet high. These cylinders are hollowed out in the center so that when you walked through the mud to get to the streetcar, you could leave your muddy boots in the cylinder until you got back, then put your boots back on for the walk home through the mud. Several of these cylinders remain along Archer Avenue today.

Aunt Katie's Piano

Holidays were spent at Auntie Katie's house with stairs on the inside that kids were allowed to bump down on their butts. Paul and Grandpa were cousins. Tony remembers when Aunt Katie bought a piano and wanted it on the second floor. He described how they took out the windows on the second floor and hoisted the piano up using a series of ropes, through the empty space of the windows, then they put the windows back in after the piano was in place.

Walking Over the Prairie to School

When Tony was six years old, he walked to school from 54th and melvina to the northwest corner of the fledgling Midway airport, which opened in 1926, Central Avenue and 55th Street, about 10 blocks. One of the aunts (Millie) walked with him the first day to show him the way and after that, he walked it by himself to attend first grade. The walk was mostly prairie so Tony could see the school the whole time he was walking. There were no houses in Garfield Ridge at the time except for the Matkovich's, the Dozier's, and one other building.

More About Grandpa's Frozen Fingers

Tony remembers the day Grandpa's fingers froze and he was taken to the hospital. Mr. Soic, a neighbor, gave Tony a dime to buy Grandpa a pack of cigarettes when he went to visit his father in the hospital. Tony rode the streetcar to Western Avenue then transferred to another streetcar there. At the hospital, they gave Grandpa some drugs and cut off the tips of three fingers on his right hand. The hospital bill was $40 and they even gave him the cut-off fingertips preserved in a jar of alcohol. That jar was kept on a shelf just outside of Grandma's kitchen door until the day she died.

The Neighborhood Swimming Hole

"The Pond" was a place that was half sand and half mud about fifty fee across, used as a cooling-off place for the pigs that were raised by the workers at the nearby railroad yard for food. Tony and several other local boys used this as their swimming hole (after chasing out the pigs!). When they came home and Grandma asked if they had been swimming, they always answered "No" but she could tell from the mud stuck to the backs of their heads.

"The Santa Fe" pond, also near the railroad, was the ultimate swimming hole. This pond was about fifty feet across but was several feet deep, used as a source of water for the trains. This place was the boys' testing ground. When a boy could swim acros the Santa Fe, he no longer needed supervision at the swimming hole.

The Baseball Rookie

For fun, Tony learned to bat by hitting stones with a stick. Later, Tony played semi-pro baseball for the Orioles and actually played several games in Wrigley Field. The field they played on was mostly sand so the rain would be immediately absorbed, making the field playable. The "home field advantage" they had - which was responsible for many wins - was the that the left fielder was playing on a down-slope that ran away from home plate. When a fly ball was hit to left field, the fielder found himself running so fast down the hill that he couldn't stop to catch the ball, resulting in extra bases. The home team left fielder knew he had to play very deep, so his running was really only a few steps uphill, really giving them an advantage.

One year, Tony was invited to try out with the St. Louis Cardinals. He rode down with one of the Broderick brothers in a Nighthawk Freight Lines truck to stay with a cousin in the area. The tryouts were on the outskirts of St. Louis. The first day, there were 150 guys trying out. The team lined up six men in a row, had them race over 40 yards, and only the winner was allowed to stay. Tony won his race. The next day, the same process occurred until finally on Saturday they really began to play baseball. They played from early morning until sundown with only a break for lunch. Each player was allowed two innings at a position, then moved to another position. At the end of the day, although Tony was cut along with many others, he was advised to practice playing first base because at 6'2" his height was a huge advantage. He was invited back the next year but declined.

The Yugoslav Hall

As more and more Croatians and Serbs came to the Garfield Ridge area, they formed a club as most immigrant groups did in those days. In this case, it was the Yugoslav Club. Grandpa John, as he was known in the area, was the Prsident of the Yugoslav Club for more than ten years, and after he retired, became the manager of the Hall. His job was to make sure the mortgage, held by Talman Federal Savings & Loan, was paid in full before he died. He completed him mission and died six months later.

The Yugoslav Club owned the Hall and the picnic grove on Narrangansett Avenue where every Sunday in summer, the locals could come to emjoye roast pig and/or roast lamb in a private area. Whole animals were roasted on slow, hand-turned spits over open fires in an area next to the bar. The lot was fenced in so the kids could run around without fear of traffic, and there was beer, wine and soft dinks available for all. After lunch a band came in and played music all afternoon. The band played traditional Croatian music but to the younger generation it sounded like Polka music. It wasn't until many years later that I learned it really was Croatian music, no Polkas I was listening to all those years at the Hall. The name of the Yugoslav Hall was changed to the  Heritage Club when war broke out in the Balkans because the club members didn't want to be accused of taking sides in the war.

Things I Remember About Growing Up

I remember our neighbors, Mr.& Mrs. Dozier, sitting on the sidewalk in the evening and greeting everyone as they walked by. Mr. Dozier owned the chicken feed store on Archer & Melvina. Mrs. Dozier always gave us hard candy (looked like the hard Christmas candy).

Summer fun was going across the street and “calling out” Claude or Marilyn. Calling out was standing at your friends back door and yelling “OOOOH CLAAAUDE” over and over until someone answered. Then we would play Roly Poly, or hopscotch for hours and hours.

I remember going to Bialon’s for Ma. This was a store that on one side was a grocery store with a fresh meat section where the butcher cut the meat as it was sold. There was always sawdust on the floor, put there on purpose to soak up the spills. On the other side were the dry goods. Compare it today with a very mini Walmart. I was never given any money when I went to the store, all I was supposed to tell the cashier was to “put it on the book”. Each customer had a “book” –the early days of charge accounts – but you were always given a copy of what you spent each time you shopped and I guess that when money was available, Ma would go “pay on the book”. Sounds like a good system to me. I don’t think there were any interest charges, you just paid when you could. We didn’t have strip malls then, each store was separate. There was the Egg Store and the Chicken Store and the Ice Cream Store...

The Ice Cream Store was about two blocks away, so on a steaming hot summer day when I was sent to the Ice Cream Store to buy 3 or 4 ice cream cones for whoever was home, I could walk leisurely to the store but had to really, really hurry back before the ice cream got melted and some people (you know who you are) would get mad at me if the ice cream was melting. The ice cream cones had little pieces of paper in the bottom and if your were lucky you got the one that said "FREE CONE". I think popsicle sticks had the free ones too. (Sorry, Pat, you missed out!)

Horse-Drawn Cart Vendors in the Neighborhood

I have to tell you about the peddlers. They would come around in the alley and sell fruits and vegetables and you would buy them right off their horse-drawn wagons. Then there was the RAGSALION. Who? It seemed to us he was always a grubby old man and he would come down the alley shouting what sounded like RAGSALION, RAGSALION. He was the junk man. It wasn't until many years later that we found out that what he was saying was actually, OLD RAGS AND IRON. He would pay your for your junk, like a garage sale on wheels.

Then, of course, we can't forget Tony (sigh), the Ice Man.  We all had ice boxes (there weren't any refrigerators yet) and they were quite small. They had two doors and on the top is where you put the ice to keep the bottom part cold. (No freezers yet, either.) So you had a little sign you put in the window if you needed ice. It came in 25, 50, or 100 lb. blocks. You would turn the sign so that the amount of ice you needed was on top so when the iceman came, he knew how much you needed. He had a large leather pad over his shoulder and he would grab the block of ice with his tongs and lift it onto his shoulder and bring it into the house for 25 cents. If we were lucky enough to be there when he delivered, he would give us a few ice chips for free. What a treat!

And who could forget the DING DONG MAN!! He would walk along with this peculiar looking contraption that looked like a huge bicycle wheel and it had a bell. (Yep, it went "ding dong.") You could hear it for blocks before he got to your house. You would have time to run in and tell Ma he was coming. Actually what he did was sharpen knives, scissors, and saw blades. He would peddle the bike wheel to turn it so that the emery board (sand paper) would sharpen the instruments. He always carred a water bottle to clean the instruments after he sharpened them.

The Shoemaker Down the Street
We were also fortunate to have a shoe maker on our block, Mr. Sam Perry. He lived only about three houses down the street from us. He had a thriving business in the basement of his house and it was always fun going in there to watch him work. He had this big machine (it looked big to me, anyway) and it was amazing to watch how he would shape the soles and heels. I know now that the tool was an awl. just the smell of the fresh polish and the leather when you walked into the shop was so pleasant. It was just amazing how he could fix an old pair of shoes and make them like new. He was a real craftsman.

On the Phone
Going waaaaaay back when I was little, I remember when we had a "party line" telephone. A "party line" was shared by three or four neighbors but only one person could talk at a time and there was one ONE phone in the whole house. Ours was in the kitchen and we had to share with our neighbors. If you picked up the phone and heard someone else talking, you would just POLITELY hang up and wait until the line was not in use. Sometimes that would take quite awhile. Also, when you wanted to call someone, we had REAL OPERATORS.  Here's how you would make a call:  You would pick up the phone and the operator would say "NUMBER PLEASE." Then you would give her the number you wanted to call, for instance, Hemlock 3322.  Then she would say, "Your Number, Please" and you would answer with your number. Ours was PORTSMOUTH 7909.  Then she would say, "One moment, please" and then you would be connected. Each neighborhood had a different exchange preceding the number. (The Burns kids no doubt remember that the LaGrange prefix was "Fleetwood".)

About The Hall
I was a product of single parenting! Ma raised me. Pa lived at the hall, or so it seemed. Ma always said she was going to bury him there because he spent all his time there. I seldom saw him but I'm sure he remembered me. It was only much later in life when he retired that we finally bonded and that was really great.

I spent a lot of time at The Hall. When I was old enough (about 10 or 11), I began working with Ma in the kitchen and serving food at certain functions and also washing and drying the many VERY HEAVY plates after the meal. Fortunately I didn't have to do the pots and pans, probably because some of them were bigger than me. Sometimes I got to work the coat room and would occasionally get a few coins for tht job, but the rest was "volunteerism" at its best. When I got older, Jimmy Burns and Bobby Matkovich took over the coat room duties.

There used to be two concrete slabs on the side of the steps going into The Hall and I liked to sit on them and listen to the music and just people-watch.

And of course, there was THE LAMB, YUMMY YUMMY LAMB!! Whole lambs were roasted over open fires on spits turned by several of the young men, including Frank Janik. When the lambs were ready to eat, some of the men would carve the meat right off the spit. Often they smoked cigars while cutting them and had their bottles of beer nearby. (Where was the Health Dept.?)  They would use big cleavers to lop off chunks of the lamb, then cut them up into smaller slices and slap them on flimsy paper plates (no Chinette at the time) and throw on three green onions and a slice of rye bread and you were good to go, except you had to be really careful holding the plate because it was so flimsy and there was so much grease on it you were really lucky to make it to the table. But, oh, was it worth it!!

And of course we had all the soda we wanted to drink. Everyone knew Pa and then they recognized me as "One of the Matkovich kids" I usually got more soda. My first (and last) taste of how it might feel to be a celebrity! On the other hand, you had to behave yourself because Ma would always say, "Don't do anything that would embarrass the family name."

The Band would usually start up around 3:00 and people would sing and dance. Believe it or not, I actually was able to sing some of the songs in Croatian. Unfortunately, now I probably could not even put together a sentence. Around Thanksgiving, they used to have raffles and they would give away live turkeys. Seems like we always used to get one. Could it be because Pa used to run the raffle??? Ooops, noooo, couldn't be...there's that family name thing, right?

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  Memories by Mary Matkovich Vlainich

The Old Family

My parents were Ivan and Ivanica Matkovich, also known as Zane and Jovanna, and in English, John and Jean. My grandparents were Matthew and Frances Matkovich, and Ivan and Marija Ozretich. My father was born on the island of Hvar and mother on the island of Solte in Dalmacia, Jugoslavia. My mother's family was better off than my father's.

In my father's family  

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Interview with Another Anthony Matkovich

The Matkovich Connection

Anthony is related to John Matkovich because John Matkovich and Paul Matkovich (Anthony’s father) were first cousins, their fathers being brothers. In Croatia, the first son is usually named after the grandfather. Anthony’s grandfather was Anthony Matkovich and his father’s name was Paul Matkovich. Paul had two brothers: Menieu and Joseph. Menieu had a son Tony and a daughter Maria. Menieu went to Southern Rhodesia to work in the diamond mines. Tony married an Irish woman and they had three sons and a daughter. Maria’s married name is Blackburn and she had a daughter, Pamela and a daughter Maryann. Anthony is married to Carmella and they live in Chicago.

Early Years in America

Anthony’s father Paul came to the US through Canada using his brother Joseph’s passport because his brother decided not to come over at the last minute. Some years later, they became citizens. Paul came to Chicago alone. Katy came later and they got married in Chicago. Katy stopped in France to have an eye infection cured. In those days, childbirth took place in the home and Anthony was actually born in the same house on Melvina as Theresa. They lived in a farmhouse on Mulligan and when his mother went into labor, she wasn’t feeling well and went to Grandma Jean’s house where Anthony was then born.

 

Anthony’s Memories of WWII

Anthony was eligible to be drafted into the Army in late 1942, then enlisted to get his service time over with sooner. His first stop was Fort Sheridan. His basic training was in Camp Gordon, Georgia, near Augusta. After basic, Anthony was assigned to General Patton’s 1^st Calvary Reconnaissance Division, nicknamed the Ghost Troops or the “Sneak and Peek” group.

A Strange and Wonderful Occurrence

He was shipped to Glasgow, Scotland, then to London for an additional month of training before joining the Patton group in July of 1943. One of the stories reported in the 1^st Calvary Bugle was about a section of the Ghost Troops who were lagging behind Anthony’s group when they came to a crossroads. Without maps, they had no idea which way Anthony’s group went. A woman wearing a blue babushka on her head came walking toward them. When they asked her where they were, she pointed down the road and said, “Don’t go that way, the Germans are there. Go this way and you’ll be safe.” Her words proved to be true.

Tough Times in the Foxholes

On the Mosel River just outside the town of “Berg”(?), Anthony and his group were engaged in a battle with the Germans. There were not supposed to be any Germans on the hill overlooking the river. There were Germans there and the US troops chased them out and occupied the hill, using the foxholes that were already there.

A Prisoner of War

The Germans put him on a barge and took him across the river to an aid station where a doctor patched him up as best he could. He gave Anthony a shot of Vodka to ease his pain. They then put him in a motorcycle sidecar and he was driven away from the front lines. He was transported to a field hospital where he was given further care. He was then put on a train and sent to a military hospital in Alzay (possibly in Luxembourg but Anthony is not sure).

The Allies Are Coming!

When the first bomb run began, Anthony remembers that it wasn’t so bad in their room. Due to the distance from the hospital to the rail yards, they had ringside seats to the bombing runs. The Allied prisoners cheered as the bombs fell and just watching the bombers raised their morale.

The Folks Back Home

Grandpa John had a world map on the wall of the house with pins inserted to keep track of the relatives that were in the war. When the family was notified that Anthony was hurt, Teresa remembers a lot of crying by the women. She was young enough so she didn’t know the details but remembers that some of the women were inconsolable. Apparently, the first word was that he was hurt and they interpreted “hurt” to mean dead. Later on they were told that the Germans captured him and the crying began all over again. This was a fate worse than death.

Forced Marches for Weeks

When Anthony and the others recovered from their wounds, they were assigned two or three guards and were forced to march for several weeks. Like the Japanese, the Germans also “force marched” prisoners of war except that the Germans marched them in the open to deceive the Allied planes into thinking the marchers were really German soldiers. They were constantly marched around whenever the American forces got close. Anthony remembers an Easter Sunday when they were near a farmhouse, the guard told them to knock on the door and ask the woman of the house to make turnip soup for them because they were all hungry. Although they had to wait a couple of hours for the soup, it was very good.

Trying to Avoid “Friendly Fire”

During this march, they were strafed by Allied planes because the pilots couldn’t tell if the marchers were prisoners or German soldiers. Anthony was in the front of the column and escaped injury but a couple of men in the rear of the column did get hit by the planes bullets. Before the second air attack, the word had filtered back to the Allies that the Germans were marching POW’s. Anthony and his comrades were also ready with white tee shirts or handkerchiefs, anything white to wave at the pilots as they came in for the attack.

This maneuver worked as the pilots saw the white “flags” and didn’t shoot but flew over the column, waggling their wings in greeting. After the march, at a small town, they were lined up in a field outside the town. A short distance away from them sat a German soldier with a machine gun and they were sure they were to be executed.

The German Officers’s Questions

A German officer began to question them, asking “Why are you fighting us?” and “Why are you bombing our women and children?” The soldiers who were questioned politely answered that they were only following orders and fighting for their country. After a few of these short conversations, a higher-ranking officer came on the scene. This officer was very angry with the lower-ranking officer and after yelling at him for a few minutes, sent him away. Then he told the guards to take their prisoners away and no one got shot that day.

April 29^th, a Sunday in 1945, they slept in a barn. When they woke up in the morning, the Germans were dropping their weapons and walking around talking to each other. Then they heard the rumble of American tanks. The war was over for them and everybody else.