This would have fit nicely as a "rest of the story". I'd never heard this before
70 years ago today, April 11, 1945, Robert Clary was liberated from Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp. He was the youngest of 14 children. Twelve other members of his immediate family were sent to Auschwitz. Clary was the only survivor. When he returned to Paris after the war, he learned that 3 of his siblings had not been taken away & survived the Nazi occupation of France. He played LeBeau on the TV show "Hogan's Heroes."
Some of the major actors on Hogan's Heroes were Jewish.....Robert Clary, Werner Klemperer (Col Klink), John Banner (Sgt Schultz), Howard Caine (Maj Hochstetter), Leon Askin (Gen Burkhalter). Robert Clary, John Banner, and Leon Askin were all actual survivors of the Holocaust. Werner Klemperer escaped Nazi Germany in 1933.
I knew about Clary having survived Buchenwald, but I didn't know about the others...
I knew that Kelmperer's father Otto was a renowned conductor. (I just did a little search, apparently Otto was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism, and then back to Judaism towards the end of his life...his wife was Lutheran...)
Some years ago my friend, Josh Hollywood, had lunch with Clary at Canter's deli in LA and they discussed much of what is posted above. Later that day JH emailed me a handful of links that highlighted Clary's connection with so much Jewish history.
Up until then I had pictured Clary as just another washed up buffoon from an incredulous and/or ridiculous TV comedy show that somehow found an audience of the lowest common denominator. Whereas these links didn't change my feelings about the show it did enlighten me about an involved and caring man with a very personal cause and a wonderful story to tell.
Clary is still this side of the sod, by the way.
“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.”
