by Helen Fry
Howard had been in Nuremberg prison for the whole duration of the trial as a witness to the process of justice. He poignantly concludes about that chapter of his life:
‘There is little doubt that Nuremberg was the most extraordinary period of my life. I finally came face-to-face with the men who sent six million Jews, including children, to their deaths, along with five million others. To have the perpetrators in their prison cells at last and see justice done was terribly important to me. I had had the experience of being there at the end of the war when Munich was taken by our American forces, then sitting with the heads of the former Nazi government in Nuremberg prison itself and finally with Military government for another year in the city of Munich where I was born, and where I was assigned to denazification work. It was a complete turn-around. The persecuted young man returned to the city of his birth. He who had lost most of his family in the Holocaust, who probably would not have wanted to go back to Germany, was now suddenly the conqueror, the hero, the liberator.’
Perhaps the biggest irony of Howard’s experience was that Julius Streicher went to the gallows unrepentant, never knowing that his ‘Aryan friend’ at Nuremberg was Jewish. And in another twist of irony, twelve years later in 1958, psychiatrist Dr Douglas Kelley committed suicide by biting a cyanide pill – just as Hermann Goering had done. When Howard learnt the news about Kelley, he felt complete shock: ‘The exact reason for Kelley’s suicide was always unknown. It was thought to have been severe depression after family difficulties. In subsequent years I often wondered whether Kelley acquired the cyanide pill during his time in Nuremberg. Who knows? He was a doctor and could have had access to it.’
SIXTEEN
POST-WAR MUNICH
HAVING WITNESSED JUSTICE and spent a year working in the prison in extraordinary circumstances, Howard left the city of Nuremberg in the autumn of 1946. He was transferred to Munich for duties with Military Government. In a twist of fate he returned to the city of his birth as a member of the occupying Allied forces to play his part in the process of restoring democracy to Germany. His life had come full circle.
Germany lay in ruins from Allied bombing. Berlin was almost totally devastated, as was Munich. A whole nation had been brainwashed for thirteen years by a dictator whose racial policies led ultimately to the death of six million Jews and eleven million others in concentration camps and death camps. Adolf Hitler had turned upside down a civilized nation and destroyed the fabric of its intellectual and cultural life, committing genocide on an unparalleled scale. Nazism had been crushed; its surviving leaders brought to justice.
What remained was the difficult and delicate task of removing all traces of Nazi ideology from German society and administration and the restoration of democracy. It was a huge undertaking and one the Allies could ill afford to get wrong if they were to avoid the mistakes made at the end of the First World War. Rebuilding the infrastructure and social and civic fabric alongside the implementation of democratic fell to them. Howard was to be part of that denazification process.
Having lived through the Nazi regime for six years and been part of its crushing defeat, Howard returned to live for a year in the city he once called home. Munich was now a very different place. It had lost his family, its Jewish population and its soul. Desolate barren wilderness of rubble and ruins from Allied bombing mirrored the desolation and despair in Howard’s heart. It was obvious that his parents had not survived. They were no longer part of the once-familiar Munich life of his childhood. Life could never be the same again. Howard also learnt from his maternal grandmother Rosa that his paternal grandfather Moritz Triest had died in Theresienstadt in 1942 at the age of 92. Munich’s once vibrant Jewish community of 9,000 to 10,000 members when the Nazis came to power in 1933 had disappeared. During 1938 around 3,500 emigrated.
On 21 November 1941, the first deportation of a thousand Munich Jews had taken place. They were sent to Lithuania and all shot five days later. There were 43 further deportations from Munich before May 1945, with as many as 3,000 being murdered by the Nazis. These figures do not account for families like the Triests who left Munich and were deported to the death camps from other countries. Of the Munich Jewish community, only 300 survived the camps to return after the war.
MILITARY GOVERNMENT
Howard was assigned to G2 Unit of the Intelligence Section of Military Government Bavaria. The office was located on Munich’s Tegernseer Landstrasse in a large complex of buildings occupied by the Headquarters of the Office of Military Government Bavaria. Some of the immediate staff with whom Howard worked included his friend Britt Bailey from Nuremberg, also Peter Beer, Narvid, Steingut, Burkardt and Wohlbier. It was a long time ago and Howard today does not remember their full names. Howard’s work involved various aspects of denazification duties, including organizing the trials of former Nazis in the villages, small towns of Bavaria and Munich itself. His office compiled weekly intelligence reports which came in from various places. The reports were analysed by Howard and colleague Peter Beer, a former Austrian refugee in the US army. Key information of importance was extracted from the reports and sent on to the higher army authority.
In Munich, as elsewhere in post-war Germany, the Nazi past was quickly buried in the rubble that was being cleared from the city. A whole nation had blanked thirteen years of Nazi ideology and brain washing. During Howard’s work in denazification, the civilian population was quick to reassure him that they had never been Nazis and had taken no part in Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. They took him to one side to influence his view of their past. He was shown photos of old Jewish friends and told stories of how they themselves had not been anti-Jewish towards Germany’s Jews. Those who knew Howard’s family sent their condolences.
‘Again, as in my previous visits to the city, it was very difficult to find anyone that had ever been a Nazi. They all denied it. Who had run the country?’ Howard says with some sarcasm. ‘The collective disavowal of the crimes committed seemed to characterize a whole nation.’
It left Howard numb and in disbelief. Germany would have to recognize its part in the crimes if any reconciliation were to be possible.
During this phase of his post-war work, Howard took the initiative to record conditions in the city. He used a 16mm camera to shoot a silent black and white film of Munich. The movie camera had originally come from a German observation place and been exchanged for two packets of cigarettes. Cigarettes were “the currency” in Allied occupied Germany, in contrast to the devalued German Mark. Howard took the film to be processed by Agfa Company about a quarter of a mile away from the headquarters of Military Government. One other film of Munich exists for this period, taken in 1945 by another American soldier. Apart from Howard’s movie, there is nothing for 1946 or 1947 during the American occupation of Munich. His film is significant because it shows the progress made since 1945 in the reconstruction and clearing up the city after its complete destruction in the war. Being young, he did not think about the film’s importance for history’s sake but as evidence to show the state of Munich to his uncle and other relatives back in the United States. A copy now exists in the Munich city archives. Howard had always been interested in film and photography, something which he took up as a career later in civilian life.
Living for a year in Munich meant that childhood memories were an ever present reality for Howard. He could little escape the past all around him, whether the atrocities for which the defendants had been tried at Nuremberg or meeting again people from his early life. Walking down once familiar streets now in a state of some disrepair, he felt the loneliness of a life without his parents, his extended family and friends. His grandmother Rosa was the only member of the family now living in the city. Recalling this period for the biography, Howard reveals himself to be a person who has never been afraid to confront the past, however painful that might be. In Munich, as in Nuremberg, he confronted the past head on.
SEVENTEEN
A LIFE IN THE SHADOW OF NURE
MBERG
IN OCTOBER 1947, with his duties with Military Government complete, Howard left Munich to return to America to take up civilian life again. By now, he had gained full American citizenship. He boarded a train to Bremerhaven on the morning of 1 October 1947. After a few days in an army camp, he took a ship bound for New York. As the ship carrying Howard and 800 other passengers neared the coast of America, his sister Margot had already boarded a flight from Detroit bound for New York to greet him at the port on his arrival. She had left Switzerland to take up a new life in the United States and was lodging with their uncle Kurt, as was their grandmother Rosa, the survivor of Theresienstadt. America had welcomed, and given shelter to, the only surviving members of the Triest family.
Howard arrived in the port of New York on 15 October. It felt reassuring to be back on American soil. After two days together in New York, Howard and Margot flew back to Detroit. Howard felt he could settle down and start living a normal life. ‘It was like coming to America for the first time and starting all over again,’ he comments.
In December 1949, he received a letter from the Department of the Army in Washington with a letter attached from the White House and signed by President Harry Truman. In it, the President thanked the personnel who had been involved in post-war duties in Germany from 1945. Truman expressed his personal thanks and ‘of the nation, for the achievements of Military Government in restoring and preserving the peace in Germany and in resisting fearlessly and successfully the blockade of Berlin.’ Truman went on to say, ‘I wish to have all those who assisted in this great effort receive recognition by their country for the contribution which they have made to the peace of the world… I am sure history will find that the unprecedented relationship established between victors and vanquished has indeed strengthened the peace of the world.’ Howard feels justifiably proud to have played his part in that process.
The employment before Howard had enlisted in the army had been a temporary one. He now had to consider whether to study to train full-time for a profession or find employment. In the end, he took up a main job and studied part-time, using a small sum of $300 received on discharge from American forces. For about a year, he took whatever work he could, mostly odd jobs in Detroit and a short time in Chicago as a travelling salesman selling sports clothing and ski wear. At the end of 1948, he left Chicago to return to Detroit to join his uncle’s large children’s wear store.
Howard managed the store for a number of years, but deep down his love of movie-making persisted. He decided to start a business in filming weddings, special events and parties at weekends. Then he changed to branch into commercial and travel movie-making; something which he found creatively rewarding. He then joined Guardian Photo Division, a division of Guardian Industries, one of the world’s giant glass makers. Howard became their training director of Guardian Photo and Guardian Industry until his retirement in 1985.
FAMILY LIFE
At the end of 1949, a few days before New Years Eve, Howard went out on a blind date in Detroit to meet a woman who would become his wife. She was Anita Hammerstein from a Detroit Jewish family and seven years younger than Howard. After the success of the blind date, Howard invited her out again for New Year’s Eve but she was otherwise engaged. They met on New Years Day instead. Three months later, in March 1950, they became engaged. On 30 July 1950, they were married in a synagogue according to the rites of the Jewish tradition. Their first son, Brent, was born on 23 June 1952 and second son, Glenn, on 29 March 1960. Howard and Anita have four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
In 1958, Howard and Anita went on their first joint visit to Europe which included the city of Munich. Howard came unexpectedly face-to-face with the past again when he walked into the bank to change money: ‘I saw a man who was familiar. We looked at each other. Then I realized that he was my headmaster at the Handelsshule back in 1937. He remembered me well and my mother. He told me about my teachers, most of who had died in the war. He was retired by then. I could not help but wonder: had he been a Nazi? Would he have told me if I had asked?’
JOURNEY TO JUSTICE
In 2003, Howard took a journey with his son Brent to the significant places from his childhood and the Nazi period for a documentary film to be called Journey to Justice, which came out in 2006. During their visit to Munich Howard arranged to meet with an old school-friend Hans Fischach from the Gebeleschule. He hadn’t seen Fischach for seventy years.
Howard knew Fischach had a Nazi past. Fischach had broken off their friendship when he enrolled in the Hitler Youth in the 1930s. Fischach and Howard’s lives went their separate ways. Fischach was protected; Howard had to flee for his life. Both had once lived on Munich’s Reitmorstrasse. For the filming in 2003, they met in the apartment where the Triests had once lived. How would Hans Fischach explain the past? As is shown in the documentary Howard graciously greeted Fischach but Fischach was quick to quote to him words from Goethe’s Faust: “Politics is an ugly song and that is how it is.”
In a further attempt to deal with his Nazi past, Fischach showed Howard a book which he had written about his youth. The book makes virtually no reference to Nazism. Fischach then passed Howard a letter from a former Jewish acquaintance who apparently liked the book, as if that made everything fine. Howard comments, ‘It was clear that Fischach had buried the full truth about his past.’
Fischach had attended an elite Führer school and proudly showed Howard a photograph of himself in uniform. He had joined the German army’s SS Panzer Division, was wounded in action three times in Normandy and lost the sight of one eye. Many Jewish families living in apartment block at 53 Reitmorstrasse where Howard and Fischach grew up, had perished in the Holocaust. That included Howard’s own grandfather and parents, and the Kaplan family. These were families who had been German for generations. Howard is quite blunt when he says:
‘Fischach expected and would have been happy for Germany to win the war. He disassociated himself from the Jewish families and neighbourhood where he grew up and denies ever being a Nazi or anti-Semitic, even though he became a Nazi Officer in the German forces.’
Howard knows exactly how he feels about meeting Hans Fischach after seventy years. He is under no illusion that: ‘Fischach would be a National Socialist if Germany had won the war, as would 80-90% of Germans. We spoke as friends, as we did before the Nazi regime took over the course of our lives, but somehow we had completely blacked-out the bad times.’ Fischach handed Howard a copy of his book and inscribed inside:
In memory of our grand meeting
(After 75 years!) with my old friend Heinzi
With best wishes, from the heart. Yours, Hans Fischach
Does Howard feel on a personal level that he and Fischach were reconciled? Howard says: ‘I am realistic enough to realize that Fischach knew exactly the path he was taking during the Nazi regime.’
However, when pressed about Germany as a nation today, Howard says that he is reconciled with Germany and the past. Maybe it is that sense of reconciliation which enabled Howard to meet with another visitor during his time in Munich in 2008 – Nicolas Frank, the son of defendant Hans Frank. When Nicolas learned that Howard was in the city, he asked to meet him. Howard agreed. They met in a hotel room.
Nicolas Frank was only six years old when his father was hanged in Nuremberg. He is one of the few children of Nazi war criminals who have grown up hating his father for what he did. Howard and Nicolas had a good heart-to-heart during their meeting and are in touch from time to time. Nicolas Frank’s father’s words at Nuremberg are still hauntingly prophetic today:
‘We fought against the Jewish people for years and we indulged in the most horrible utterances as my own diary bears witness against me. A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.’
True as this might be, in terms of justice, the last word cannot go to Hans Frank, the beast of Poland who was responsible for millions of deaths. The prerogative of having the final word
must go to Howard himself…
When Howard was reunited with his sister, Margot, at the end of the war, together they vowed to honour their parents’ memory by celebrating life. Today, on the site of Camp Drancy outside Paris, a memorial marks the spot where the entrance to the camp once was. It is a physical reminder that from here over 70,000 Jews were deported to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Drancy was the last location where Lina and Berthold Triest were known to be alive. In synagogues or specially designated places in America, France and Germany, memorials have been erected to the Jews of Munich, and in some cases Lina and Berthold Triest are mentioned by name. What of commemorating them? Howard replies: ‘the biggest memorial is in my heart.’
THE LEGACY OF NUREMBERG
Nuremberg has become a blue-print for the future and its legacy far-reaching for international justice. The trial influenced the development of international criminal law, with trials still being held in The Hague for war criminals of other conflicts today. Importantly too, Nuremberg became a model for The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); The Genocide Convention (1948); and the Geneva Convention (1949).
Like much about the Second World War, Nuremberg has passed into almost mythological status in history. There is a continued fascination with the rise and fall of Hitler and Nazi Germany that does not appear to abate with time. However for Howard, it is the memories of the liberation of Buchenwald that continue to haunt him in a way that his experiences of Nuremberg do not. Every time he looks at photographs of the death camps he searches the faces of the survivors for his parents. Even though he knows they died in Auschwitz, still he instinctively looks for them amongst the haunting eyes staring back. He says he will search until the day he dies.