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Second Interview Insert Key
Indented text represents the follow-up
interview conducted on June 2, 2007.
Introduction of Interviewers
Hi
my
name is Sydney. Hi, I'm Liza. Hi I'm Alex. Today we are interviewing
Kenneth Colvin. It's June 2, 2004, and we are in Hillsborough, California.
My name is Erin. My name is Julianna. My name is Ally. My name is Rachael, and we are interviewing Kenneth Colvin on May 3rd 2007 in Hillsborough California.
Please state and spell your name:
My
name is Kenneth Colvin, C-o-l-v-i-n.
Please state and spell your name at time
of birth.
At time of birth it was Woodrow Cohn, C-o-h-n.
What is your birthday and how old are you now?
My birthday is November 28th, 1924. I am now 79.
What was the city and country of your birth?
San Francisco, California.
I was born in November 28th, 1924 in San Francisco and I went to Alamo grammar school, Presidio Junior High School, Lowell High School and then in 1942 I finished 2 quarters of the University of California at Berkeley, and then I volunteered to be drafted and spent the next three years in the Army. I first went to Monterey for induction and then was sent to Fresno Fairgrounds for basic training in the Air Corps, which was called the Air Corps at that time. Then to Stanford, where we were classified and sent back to college, and I went to the University of Cincinnati for a year in an engineering program where we were supposed to graduate and get our commissions. However the Battle of the Bulge interfered and I was sent to the 515th medical clearing company in Kentucky. We stayed there for a while and early January 1945 we boarded a troop transport and went to, ended up at La Havre after about three weeks and from there our company had a very unusual assignment.
We were the first medical group to go in to each of six concentration and labor camps in Germany, Bavaria and Austria. The first one we went into was Hemar, H-E-M-A-R, in Germany and that's where General Eisenhower came in was just completely disgusted. He called General 'Blood-and-Guts' George Patton to come in and view this and General Patton came in and took one look and walked over to the wire fence and lost his lunch. From there on it was a series of going into labor camps and finally we went to Ebensee, which was in Bavaria. That was a sub-camp of Malthausen. We were there the longest, about four weeks, and from there the war was over in Europe and we went to Marseilles , put on a ship to go to the south pacific, to partake in the invasion of Okinawa. However, the war in Japan was over so they turned the ship around and sent us back to New York, which was wonderful.
Came back to California, started working, met my future wife, who's a native San Franciscan, Thelma Margiolis, and we were married in March of 1947, having just celebrated our sixtieth anniversary. We have 3 children, Francine, Cindy, and Larry, each of whom married and gave us seven wonderful grandchildren. I went into the produce business, marketing California agriculture, and from other states, into northern California. I stayed in that for about fifty-two years until I retired a few years ago and am now enjoying going to school at the Fromm Institute at USF, and hoping that I will have a long career and maybe someday get a PhD from USF.
You mentioned that Ken Colvin is not your birth name. Could you tell us what name was given to you when you were born?
Well, that's a whole long story but, briefly, my given name at birth was Woodrow Cohn, and I have two older brothers—Renny and Lenny, and the names didn't rhyme when my folks said, "Renny, Lenny, and Woodrow," so they changed my name legally after six months to 'Kenneth' or 'Kenny.' So it was "Renny, Lenny, Kenny." The name of 'Cohn' deals directly with what we're talking about—The Holocaust and the environment of anti-Semitism in the United States. When I was sixteen my oldest brother Renny was applying to get an MBA at Stanford, and they had a quota. Wherever he applied had a quota for Jews which was very small. In Universities this was the same thing, in corporate structures and in banks. That's why Jews mainly went into small businesses for themselves. Well, one day Renny got Lenny and I to go down to change our name to 'Colvin' from 'Cohn' and to this day I regret that we did it. I didn't even have a vote in it, but that's where I am.
Did you ever want to change it back to Cohn?
No, it's a little bit late. I'm eighty-two now, and I think I'm stuck with the name.
Why should we be interested in the information and
the experience that you are going to be telling us today?
Well,
I think I mentioned it before, because of my age. I am seventy-nine,
and time is running out for us. And I mean us, who were in World War
II, and were witnesses to the Holocaust, to tell our story, so that
it will be remembered in perpetuity. This is a wonderful way to do
it. Because I know that down the road, probably hundreds or maybe thousands
of students, young people, will hear this story.
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