The War Ends, Then Margot: George Ciampa's Road Home

Documentary First, Episode 117 · with George Ciampa, World War II veteran · 39 minutes · June 3, 2021

Listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all apps · Watch: YouTube · Read: Full transcript

What happened to a WWII graves registration soldier after the war ended?

When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, George Ciampa had spent 11 months with the dead. He served in a graves registration company from Normandy on, helped bury more than 17,000 GIs at the temporary Henri-Chapelle cemetery during the Battle of the Bulge, and followed the front into Germany as far as Eisenach. Then the Army sent him to Mannheim with the army of occupation, where, as he puts it, he “threw caution to the wind.”

In Episode 117, the third of five conversations with George, then 95, host Josh Lindsay and Christian Taylor ask him what happened next. George explains why the government wanted no American cemeteries left in Germany, and why the permanent cemeteries hold far fewer soldiers than the temporary ones did. He talks about breaking down two weeks after D-Day, the nightmares his sisters heard after he came home, and Margot, the trapeze performer he met at an Army circus. He also tells the story of the jeep that nearly got him court-martialed, the grave he adopted in the Netherlands, and the 350-mile train trip to Frankfurt to spend Christmas 1945 with Margot.

The episode opens with Christian’s update on the release of The Girl Who Wore Freedom: its release in Canada, its iTunes presale ahead of the June 1 U.S. release, and its best documentary and best first-time filmmaker awards at the GI Film Festival.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• What graves registration units did in Germany after the war ended, and why the government wanted no American cemeteries left there
• Why Henri-Chapelle went from 17,300 burials in its temporary cemetery to around 9,000 in the permanent one
• How George coped with burying the dead, from breaking down in France to working “like a robot”
• How he met Margot, a trapeze performer in an Army Special Services circus in Mannheim
• How a jeep traded for paratrooper boots almost got him court-martialed
• What George thinks about nightmares, PTSD and talking about the war
• Why he adopted a Jewish soldier’s grave in the Netherlands
• How he took a 350-mile train trip to Frankfurt to spend Christmas 1945 with Margot

Questions and answers

What did graves registration units do after World War II ended in Europe?

The work did not stop when the fighting did. George Ciampa says the government did not want any American cemeteries left in Germany, so at the temporary cemetery in Eisenach, the day after Memorial Day services, German prisoners dug up the graves. Each soldier was re-identified by the dog tag nailed to the temporary cross and the dog tag on the body, then shipped to temporary cemeteries in Holland, Belgium and France. Permanent cemeteries were not built until 1947.

How did George Ciampa meet Margot?

After the war, George Ciampa was stationed in Mannheim with the army of occupation, working in a salvage collecting company. He went to the circus that Army Special Services put on for the GIs and saw Margot on the flying trapeze with her sister. On his second visit he followed her to her trailer, where she invited him in and gave him wheat bread with lard. He spoke no German and she spoke no English, so he learned the German words to “You Are My Sunshine” and sang it to her.

How did George Ciampa cope with burying the dead?

About two weeks after D-Day, George Ciampa broke down in France because the work became too horrific to handle. His lieutenant told him to get back out there, and George did his work “like a robot,” trying not to look at faces. He says the medics and graves registration men saw “what the real price of freedom was.” After he came home, his sisters told him he had nightmares, though he does not remember any.

Why did George Ciampa adopt a grave in the Netherlands?

While making a film about Dutch people who adopt the graves of American soldiers, George Ciampa realized none of the adopters in it had adopted a Jewish soldier’s grave. The first name he checked, a lieutenant from Massachusetts, his home state, already had an adopter, but the second did not. George co-adopted that grave with a friend in the Netherlands, who puts flowers on it from time to time and sends George pictures. George, who is Italian, says the soldier was his age.

How did a jeep almost get George Ciampa court-martialed?

In Mannheim, a soldier who handled vehicles gave George Ciampa a jeep in exchange for a pair of paratrooper boots. One morning George forgot to chain it up, and men from his company took it, got drunk and had an accident. He went with them to the company commander and said he had not stolen the jeep, only borrowed it. After a chewing out, the commander, who knew what George had done in the war and how old he was, decided to look the other way.

Chapters

• 0:00 Release News for The Girl Who Wore Freedom
• 5:44 Leaving Henri-Chapelle for Germany
• 12:40 The Emotional Cost of Burying the Dead
• 17:21 A Flying Trapeze Artist in Mannheim
• 25:06 The Jeep That Almost Got Him Court-Martialed
• 27:28 Nightmares, Memory and Adopting a Grave
• 34:01 Christmas in Frankfurt With Margot

About the guest

George Ciampa (1925-2024) was a World War II veteran and documentary filmmaker from Massachusetts. He served in a graves registration company from Normandy through the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany, then spent seven months in the army of occupation in Mannheim before coming home in 1946. He became a filmmaker at 81, and his films include one about the Dutch people who adopt the graves of American soldiers. He shared his story with Documentary First in a series of five conversations. George Ciampa died on January 3, 2024, at the age of 98. Learn more about his work at Let Freedom Ring.

More from this series

This is the third of five conversations with George Ciampa. Part 1 is He Buried the Fallen After D-Day: WWII Veteran George Ciampa, and Part 2 is Battle of the Bulge Through a WWII Veteran’s Eyes: George Ciampa. Part 4 picks up with Margot again and his life after the war, and Part 5 covers his films. After his death, Christian looked back on his life in Goodbye, George: Remembering WWII Veteran George Ciampa. All of his episodes are gathered on the George Ciampa page.

About Documentary First

For people who make documentaries and people who love them. Discover how documentaries actually get made, paid for and seen with filmmaker Christian Taylor. Plus DocuView Deja View, where every guest recommends a documentary worth watching. One week, a long-form conversation about a guest's journey, projects and lessons; the next, The Deep Dive, Christian's short solo reflection on one idea from that conversation. Guests have included Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy. Christian directed the award-winning documentary The Girl Who Wore Freedom. Nearly 300 conversations. Listen Notes top 5% worldwide. 4.8 on Apple Podcasts. New episodes every week. Follow the show · About the podcast · Support the show on Patreon

Resources mentioned

• Let Freedom Ring, George Ciampa’s organization

Full transcript

Release News for The Girl Who Wore Freedom

Josh Lindsay: Welcome to Documentary First, an inside look at a first-time filmmaker’s journey. I am your host, Josh Lindsay, from The Movie Proposal Podcast, and with us is our first-time filmmaker, Christian Taylor.

Christian Taylor: Hello, Josh.

Josh: Hello, Christian. Not with us today is ever reliable, except today, Jason Rugg, so he will be missed. But yeah, we missed you, Jason. But we have a special guest, World War II veteran, crazy GI George Ciampa. Thank you for being with us again today, George, and we continue to hear more about his story. But before we do that, let’s get a film update. Christian, what do you got for us?

Christian: Yeah, so it has been an exciting couple of days here at The Girl Who Wore Freedom. We’d like to announce, this is actually going out to our audience before anybody else. Unfortunately it won’t air till next Wednesday, but we have now released our film. We released in Canada a few days ago, and so you can find our film at the Shaw cable company. You can rent it for, I think, 6.99 Canadian dollars, as well as the Cineplex store in Canada. So for our Canadian listeners, check us out there. Every penny you spend, we get 75 percent, well, every dollar you spend, we get 75 percent of that, hopefully, eventually, sometime.

And then just yesterday we launched our presale on iTunes. So you could go to iTunes right now and find us there and actually rent or buy the film, and then on June 1st, the official release date in the United States, you’ll be able to watch it. This is really important, because what we’ve learned is that in the first 10 days it is critically important for the iTunes algorithms if a lot of people watch the movie, or rent or buy it, and then rate it, hopefully with five stars, and then review it. So if we can have a lot of people do that early on, it will bump us up in the iTunes algorithms so that more people will be introduced to our film and hopefully rent it. So we’re asking everybody that’s involved with our film to do that, to help us out.

And yeah, that’s the most exciting news as far as the release goes. And then also exciting, we just won, in case you didn’t see, the best documentary award and the best first-time filmmaker award at the GI Film Festival last week.

Josh: All right.

Christian: We’re super excited about that. And then we’ve got another film festival coming up on June 3rd. That’s the Ready Reels Film Festival in Greenville, South Carolina. It’s at 10 a.m., tickets are 10, so if you’re in the area, come by and you can meet me and David Chapman and a whole bunch of other Girl Who Wore Freedom team members. And then that happens at 10 a.m. on June 6th, and after that we head down to Beaufort, California, Beaufort, South Carolina, for a garden party D-Day celebration with The Girl Who Wore Freedom. So two opportunities to see us in person coming up on June 6th, in Greenville and then in Beaufort, South Carolina. So lots of fun stuff. We still have not announced publicly that Delta is carrying us, so we hope to do that probably on June 8th. And hopefully by that time a lot of people will have rented or bought The Girl Who Wore Freedom, reviewed us and left us a five-star rating.

Josh: So just to recap, in regards to iTunes, when can you start preordering?

Christian: Yesterday. People can start preordering yesterday. And I think that it’s 4.99 to rent and 6.99 or 9.99 to buy.

Josh: A steal at any price.

Christian: Hello. So 9.99 to buy it. You can also gift people the film. So if you’ve seen the film, you love it, please try to gift it to someone so they can watch it as well.

Josh: You know, I remember when Spider-Man: Homecoming came out on iTunes and you could rent it or buy it, and I think the difference in cost between renting and buying it was like three or four dollars. I thought, this is stupid, I’m just going to buy it. So if you’re going to spend six dollars or whatever it is to rent, you might as well spend ten dollars to buy it. So I think that’d be the wise thing, to me. Why is that, GI?

George Ciampa: Josh, I agree.

Josh: Cool. All right, well, very exciting stuff, and congratulations on yet another award for The Girl Who Wore Freedom. We’re getting a little tired of hearing about all these awards, you know.

Christian: Yeah, well, I have to tell you, I am not tired of winning.

Josh: No, that’s very exciting. If I were in your shoes, I’d be excited too. So that’s a big deal.

Christian: We’ve come a long way, baby.

Josh: That’s right. Well, speaking of coming a long way, we have our guest, George, GI. I think that’s your nickname.

George: About that, if you want, but someone’s getting a telephone call. It’s not me.

Christian: Yeah, I think it’s George. You did sort of freeze up there a little bit, Josh, at least on my screen. So basically you were introducing George Ciampa, who, apparently, George tells us, he’s known as the crazy, crazy GI, and I think today we’re gonna hear some of those crazy stories.

Leaving Henri-Chapelle for Germany

Christian: But first, George, we left off really in the Henri-Chapelle cemetery. You had told us you had buried over 17,000 GIs during the Battle of the Bulge, and then you moved out from there. Let’s start the story from leaving that place where, I guess it would be called, you were bivouacked, right? Is that the right term?

George: What? Bivouacked?

Christian: I’ve heard everybody...

George: Yeah, that’s the right term.

Christian: Yeah, that’s right. You were bivouacked at the Henri-Chapelle cemetery. So then what happened when it was time to move out?

George: Well, when we moved, we went into Germany and left the temporary Henri-Chapelle cemetery, 17,300 buried there. And I think I probably told you before that at the permanent cemetery, which was built two years later, all permanent cemeteries were built two years after the war, in 1947, then it became, instead of 17,300, around 9,000. But the reason for that is because the next of kin had the prerogative of having the remains sent home in caskets to any cemetery they wish, at no charge to them, or left over there in permanent cemeteries, remains buried in caskets. And so when you look at pictures of cemeteries, you’ve got to think in terms of the number that are there now is only 40 percent of what was there.

Christian: Okay, that’s important.

George: Okay. I think I talked to you before about the permanent cemeteries. So you want me to talk about what happened then? We went through Germany with a few more temporary cemeteries, but went pretty quickly. The front lines were moving pretty fast for a while, and that’s after the Battle of the Bulge, when the front line started moving.

Christian: So in the Battle of the Bulge, just for our audience’s understanding, it started December 16th, and what date did it officially end?

George: In January, about January 25th.

Christian: 25th. So the Battle of the Bulge ended on January 25th. Of course, the Americans and Allies were victorious, and then what happened after? You’re saying we were able to push in very quickly. Was that battle as fierce, or had we really broken the back of the German army?

George: Yeah, the Battle of the Bulge was the turning point. Before that, it looked like almost the end of the war. That’s the first day I had off, in Paris, a big celebration. But then when the Germans broke through, which is called the Battle of the Bulge, and I talked to you about that the last time we talked. So we moved through Germany pretty quickly to Eisenach, which was a hundred miles from Berlin, and at Eisenach we had a temporary cemetery there. And the war ended, as you know, May 1945, and of course I was very happy about that. Celebrated with two bottles of wine, white and red. And then our company was broken up into different platoons, so that’s the last time I saw guys that I had served with during the war.

Christian: Well, can I ask you real quick? So if the Battle of the Bulge ended in January, the 26th, and the war ended completely on May 8th, were you bivouacked in that one location for that whole time?

George: Yeah, we left there, I believe it was in February. So February, March and April, we’re going through Germany with a few more temporary cemeteries and ending at Eisenach. At Eisenach, they had Memorial Day services at that cemetery. The very next day we had German prisoners digging graves to get to the remains of the soldiers buried there, because they had to be identified, re-identified, by looking at the dog tag that was nailed to the temporary cross and also the dog tag that was on the body. And then the remains, and they were pretty decomposed, it was not a good job at all to be involved in that, which we were. They were put in the boxes and shipped back to other temporary cemeteries in Holland and Belgium, and I guess in France too. Those three areas were where there were temporary cemeteries.

So a lot of these guys that were buried temporarily were there for some time until they got put in caskets and buried in permanent cemeteries. And of course there were current cemeteries in Belgium, two of them. Henri-Chapelle was the biggest one. There’s another cemetery in Holland, there’s 8,300 buried there now, and there were more before. And then the other one in Luxembourg. So those are all the temporary cemeteries in our area. And then of course in France, in Italy, they had temporary cemeteries in those areas, and they were all put in permanent cemeteries in those areas.

Josh: So are you telling me then your first job was just to put them in the ground without a casket, and then they were there for a while, then they had to be reinterred and put into a casket and sent back? So that was the process, right?

George: Yeah, that wasn’t until 1947, two years after the war ended, before the American Battle Monuments Commission could construct the new permanent cemeteries.

Josh: Okay, so you were only involved then in the initial burials, just in the ground.

George: Correct. Right after the war, we were not there. I was back home in 1946.

Josh: Okay.

George: That work was done by the citizens living in those areas, and they were paid to do that work, to disinter the temporary cemeteries with the remains and put them in caskets. So we never did that. That was home. I wasn’t celebrating being home.

The Emotional Cost of Burying the Dead

Christian: So I’m going to ask you an emotional question. We’ve stayed a lot to the facts, but I remember back to our first podcast two ago, you started off telling your story by your first two experiences with death, your cousin, I think it was, and then your grandfather, maybe, in the bay window. And then, so here you are, 19 years old, you landed at D-Day on June 18th.

George: I turned 19 10 days later.

Christian: And then you were doing these burials all the way through, I’m assuming, May 8th, if not longer. So tell me what that was like emotionally for you, from the time that you learned you were going to be burying the dead all the way to, what was that like as you progressed through the war?

George: Well, I think I told you before that it was very difficult for me. In fact, I broke down in France shortly after, about two weeks after D-Day, because it just got too horrific for me to handle it. And our lieutenant, that was 45, stuck it in my ribs and said, “You get your ass back out there.” And so I did my work like a robot, and I did not look at faces. But it was difficult not to, and it wasn’t just faces, because they were bodies in all shapes and forms. I mean, I think I mentioned to you, one of the most grotesque things I saw was a tanker that had climbed out of his tank on fire, and so there was just a ball of charcoal there next to the tank. And so there were no eyes to look at there.

But other situations, where limbs were missing, and a lot of times guys had grotesque looks on their faces. Some of them looked like a natural death, because it was just all conditions. We saw everything. And while I’m talking about that, the medics and graves registration guys had a damn tough time in seeing what the real price of freedom was. We know. I mean, I get chills right now thinking about the young guys that were killed, many that never even had a girlfriend. I didn’t. Many didn’t. I had plenty, not opportunities, there were plenty of times that I know of that I could have been killed, and I think I covered that before, the first go-around.

Christian: Yeah.

George: I don’t think you want me to go through that again. So let’s start talking about what happened there at the end of the war, after we did our job there at that temporary cemetery and getting those bodies sent back to the other temporary cemeteries, out of Germany, because the government didn’t want any cemeteries left in Germany. I can understand that.

Josh: Were you relieved? Was there a sense of relief when you heard the war was over, and how did you hear that, and what was that experience like?

George: You know what, I don’t know how I heard it, and I don’t know how I was able to get my hands on some wine. You don’t remember all the details. It’s crazy.

Christian: You seem to remember a lot.

George: You know, I can’t even remember the details about bringing up my kids after their mother died, for 10 years. I can’t even tell you. Some guys can tell you every damn detail. I don’t know how they do it, but I can’t. All I know is I had two bottles of wine, a white and a red, and where I got it, I don’t know. When we were there in Eisenach, we took over a little building there where the Hitler Youth used to meet. So we did get into a little building there at the end of the war for a short time, so we weren’t sleeping on the ground. I think you want me to get into what happened after I got transferred to Mannheim, Germany.

Christian: Yes. So the war is over, what happened after that?

A Flying Trapeze Artist in Mannheim

George: War is over, so now I had been in the First Army, now I’m in the Seventh Army, in the army of occupation, for seven months. Looking back on it, it’s probably the best thing that happened to me, because I hated the Germans, of course, and I never thought what would happen to me would happen. But what happened was, I got put in a salvage collecting company. It was a warehouse where all the companies going home now had to turn in all their gear, including vehicles. The vehicles were in a yard across the road from us, but I handled everything else. I worked one day on, one day off. I signed Captain Saban’s name, believe it or not. I had a young German that had been a soldier, who was 18 or 19 years old, working with me.

Christian: Wow.

George: And he was a real Nazi kid.

Christian: Wow.

George: Yeah, and I don’t know why they gave him to me, but they did, a young blond German kid. So I worked there one day on, one day off. But so what happened was, like I said, it’s probably the best thing that happened to me, because I got a chance to chill out, I got a chance to get away from the dead bodies, where I was for 11 months. And now I threw caution to the wind when I was there. You ever hear that expression?

Christian: I do hear that. You were still 19, right? You were still really young.

George: Okay, I was still 19, and yeah, a month later I turned 20. But this is in May. Now, June, I turned 20. So here I am, going to the circus that the Army Special Services put on for the GIs, and a real circus. I mean, are you talking about everything there. I can still hear the music, “Lady of Spain.” You know, I can still hear that music, because I attended that circus almost every day. Because they were in Mannheim when I met them, and then they went to Heidelberg, and then they went to Heilbronn, and then they went to Karlsruhe, then they went to Stuttgart.

But what happened was, the guy across the road that had vehicles, he came over one day. “Hey, George, can you give me a pair of paratrooper boots?” I said, “Yeah, sure. Can you give me a jeep?” Just kidding. He said, “Sure.” So he gave me a jeep. That was almost my undoing, and I’ll tell you that a little bit later.

What happened is, there was this beautiful girl in a flying trapeze with a sister, another girl. And when the show ended, I went back to my base, but I decided to go back again the next day. So I went back the next day, and when she was finished, I was down there waiting, like what they call them, Johnny-come-latelies or whatever, stage door Johnnies or whatever they called them, the guys who were at the stage doors to see celebrities. Anyway, this girl, by the way, was a celebrity in Germany, in the circus, doing what she was doing. You’re a celebrity here in a, yes, the U.S., you’re just a circus gal. But I found that out later. But I’m getting ahead of my story.

Josh: Okay, all right. So you’re going to the circus a second day. So what happened?

George: The second day I went to the circus, I waited for her to come out the exit, and there were other guys there waiting for her also. There was a scramble between who was gonna really get to meet this girl, but she just kept going. She didn’t stop. So I followed her. I followed her to her trailer, which was her dressing room, and also she lived there in that trailer while she was there. And so I followed her, and she accepted me to come in to the trailer. She gave me some wheat bread with lard spread on it. They didn’t have butter. And that’s how we got acquainted. Now, did I speak German? No. Did she speak English? No. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. You heard that expression?

Christian: Yes, I’ve heard that.

George: Okay. So anyway, I don’t know how the hell we communicated, but we did. In fact, we communicated so well that I took the song “You Are My Sunshine,” and I got the German words for the song, and I used to sing her that song in German.

Christian: Wow.

[Song plays]

George: Okay. I did that a few other, I did that in Hawaii. It’s a long story. If you want to hear about it, I’ll tell you that story, because it’s a funny...

Christian: That is a funny story.

George: I went over for Pearl Harbor with a bunch of Pearl Harbor vets on American Airlines, and Curious Cities, and then I got teamed with the captain, the co-captain, who was a female, and we did the town while we were there. And we ended up in a pub, and then I sang that song there, and I’ll tell you later what happened. There’s a bunch of people drinking beer. I never got up in public to sing in my life, but I saw this other guy, who was a mayor, ex-mayor, of Oahu, and I listened to him sing, and I thought, you know what, I can do that. After a couple of beers, I went up there and did it. That’s another story. That’s really funny.

Christian: I can’t wait to hear that. But here we are, we’re back in Germany. Does this girl have a name?

George: Her name was Margot. Margot. And I called her Margie. I stenciled her name on the bumper, “My G.” And I followed her around Germany, all those towns I told you about a while ago.

Josh: On your days off? I mean, you only had every other day off. How did you do that?

George: Well, because when I was through for the day, then I didn’t take her those places. I just met her there.

Josh: Okay.

George: But then I did take her from Frankfurt to her home, I mean, Stuttgart to her home in Frankfurt. And I’ll just tell you about that, because what happened is, we’re driving through the rain and I’ve got my poncho on her, and the top is up in my “My G,” and so we got stopped at a checkpoint by the MPs. And you couldn’t carry civilians unless you had special papers, which I didn’t have, because I did everything on my own: getting gasoline, getting trip tickets and everything. I just did everything myself. I was really into it, industrious, you know. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I did it. Oh, and so we got stopped. “Where are the papers?” And so, oh, yeah, I got, you know, she’s a performer in the circus, American services. I started going through my clothing, a little bit of the time, he’s getting really, I mean, it was pouring. He said, “Okay, go ahead.” So I got out of that deal.

The Jeep That Almost Got Him Court-Martialed

Josh: What would have happened if he didn’t have the papers? What would have happened then?

George: Well, I don’t know, but nothing good. I’ll tell you what almost happened, because later a few of the guys in my company wanted to borrow my jeep. And I used to lock it up with a chain when I’d come in at night. I mean, I was in a hurry in the morning to get to the roll call, and so I didn’t lock it up that one day. They took it out, got drunk, got in an accident. Next thing I know, they’re towing the jeep into the yard where we were at midnight. And by the way, I was in Mannheim when Patton was killed in that accident, supposedly an accident. Anyway, so these guys came to me. “Hey, George, you know, the company commander wants to know where we got the jeep.” And he says, “You know, you’ve got to help us out on this.” And so I did.

Christian: And so how did you help them out?

George: By going with them to see the company commander that next day.

Christian: Okay.

George: So I did it. We saw the company commander. He wanted to know where we got the jeep. He told me the seriousness of stealing military equipment. I said, “Sir, I didn’t steal it, I just borrowed it.” Well, that didn’t go over here. But anyway, he said, “I’ve got to think about this overnight. I want you guys to come back in.” We went back in the next day. He already knew what I had done in the war and how old I was. And so he said, after all the chewing out, and I could end up [unclear] for what I did and everything, so then he said, “You know what, I’m going to look the other way.” Sterling Carpenter, what’s his name. I’m sure he’s up in heaven, long time ago. But you know what, I got out of that one.

Josh: Wow. Sounds like Sterling Carpenter was a good man.

George: Oh, yeah, he was. He was a lieutenant in charge of all of us that were there in the building there in Mannheim too. We finally got in a building there, sleeping on cots.

Nightmares, Memory and Adopting a Grave

George: So, you know, when I think about it, because my sisters, when I got home, said that they heard me, I had nightmares. And I don’t remember a nightmare, ever. But they heard some nightmare. But, you know, I have thought about it a lot. You know what, I think about it sometimes when I’m going to bed or wake up in the morning. I used to think about it a lot. I still do, I still think about it, because I’m getting older now, I guess. And as I get older, I think about things that I kind of just brushed off before. But I don’t let it bother me to the extent where I have PTSD. A lot of people think, how did I escape PTSD? I don’t know. I don’t know how I escaped that either. Maybe that’s why they call me the crazy GI, but I don’t know. I’m sure that most of these guys’ PTSD is legitimate, and I hope there aren’t some who are phony, but I know one guy that didn’t get PTSD until he was 66 years old, and he gets a full pension now.

Christian: Well, can I postulate, can I ask you this? You seem to be okay talking about a lot of really hard things. And of course, I have a son in the military, and I’ve known a lot of other guys that have fought more recently, and many of them don’t like talking about their war experiences at all. And I remember hearing from a lot of other GIs, and I’ve talked to a lot of people who had fathers who were in World War II, and they refused to talk about any of it because it was so traumatic. I’m wondering if it was helpful for you to talk about your story, if it was helpful.

George: Right. You know, I had a chance to go back for the 40th anniversary, when Reagan was president, and I didn’t go back until 10 years later, when Clinton was president, and had all expenses paid for me, and of course not my wife, because she had died in 1981, and I raised my kids for 10 years. And I met Dottie, that I’m married to now, in 1991, which was 10 years after my wife died. And so I went through all of that alone. And so they talked me into going back in the 50th. And so I think I told you about walking through the cemetery in Normandy and looking at the graves. I went walking by myself, and it was very traumatic, wondering, did I handle this particular body?

And then when I got looking at the marble monuments and seeing there was no date of birth, I went crazy. I mean, I walked back to my kids, and Dottie was my fiancée then. We weren’t married yet in 1994. We got married in ’96. But anyway, I told them, I said, “Look, you guys don’t know this. You don’t know how old any particular soldier buried here was. I do. I know a lot of them, 18, 19 and 20.” But I’m upset because people visiting the cemetery have no idea who that soldier is, unless they go to Holland now. And now they have pictures of a lot of these guys at the grave sites, because there are people over there that do websites, and they research the soldier.

And I have adopted a grave there myself, of a Jewish fellow who happened to be my age. I’m not Jewish, I’m Italian. But this fellow, a friend of mine in the Netherlands, you may know Ralph Peters. You know Ralph Peters?

Christian: I know of his name, but I don’t know him well.

George: He adopts a lot of graves. And so he was with me, we were doing a film, They Will Never Forget, at that cemetery, and we were walking out, and it was windy and starting to rain. I said, “My God, you know what? We haven’t had any of these adopters...” Because what we did is a film about people there who adopt graves of American soldiers they never knew, except for their liberation. They put flowers on those graves from time to time. Well, when we started, I said, “You know what? None of my adopters have adopted a Jewish grave, and I want to adopt one. So go in the office. Here’s a name of a lieutenant in Massachusetts, where I’m from. Check it out.” Checked it out. The guy had an adopter. “Go back, here’s another one,” Albert Schlage. “Go and check on him.” And so he checks on him, and he said no one has adopted this grave. I said, “Okay, I am, and I can’t be here to do flowers.” He said, “I’ll do it.” So we co-adopted. You get a certificate from the adoption agency, which I have, and I can even show it to you here. But anyway, he goes there from time to time, puts flowers, and he sends me pictures. Ralph is an unusual guy. I’ve known him since he was a young teenager, when they did that film.

So anyway, in that cemetery there are also four Black soldiers who are part of 11 guys, the Wereth 11. I think I told you about that before.

Christian: Last week, yeah, that’s about the 11 Black soldiers who were massacred by the German Nazi SS troopers.

George: Anyway, yeah, I think I told you that story, so I won’t do that again. But anyway, getting back to where I was, I don’t know why I got, oh, what the hell was it, PTSD or something else, because a lot of people think I should have, especially after they hear my stories, especially after they see my DVDs, especially the first two, where I took young high school history teachers on those two films. But anyway, let me get back to what I’m talking about.

Christmas in Frankfurt With Margot

George: So two weeks after that excursion, after almost getting court-martialed, I was sent with others to Bremerhaven, which is a port in Germany, to go home. So we were at that port, and we’re hoping to get home for Christmas. So here it was, December 19th. The only way we’re going to get home for Christmas is on the Queen Mary. Fat chance of getting on the Queen Mary. And so everybody went AWOL. Everybody, guess what I did?

Christian: What?

George: When the war was over, we still had a carbine rifle. So I had my rifle, my uniform, overcoat. It was pretty cold, this is December. I got on a train, and I think I was the only one. I remember looking out the window. I think I was standing up. I can see me standing up looking out the window, but I don’t know if there’s anybody else in that car or not. But I went 350 miles to Frankfurt, Germany. Why? That’s where Margot lived. And her father had been a prisoner of war, and he was the same size as I was, a little guy, and so I wore his overcoat.

I took Margot to a movie. It was an American movie, and they had the German subtitles. We walked through this bar as we were going to the movie, and these German guys were sitting at the bar. They all turned their heads and looked at her, and she grumbled something in German to them, and off we went. So I stayed with them for Christmas, Christmas dinner, for a couple of days. And then after that, I had to go back. And so, as I recall, we were in a telephone booth. But when I did my memoirs, I said we were standing against the building. So we were either standing against the building, or I envisioned us in a telephone booth, just looking at each other face to face, waiting for the train, with tears. And then the train came, and I walked backwards toward the train, waving to her, until I got on the train. It was a sad, emotional time. I often thought, if there was a movie, that would have been the class of the movie. But did I see her again? People ask me. Yeah, I did see her again. Did I tell you that?

Christian: No.

Josh: Usually, if I may, just for time’s sake, and I like a good cliffhanger, I think we should leave on that note, so our listening audience can hear when did you see Margot again.

George: I saw...

Christian: Yeah, don’t tell us, don’t tell us. The next recording.

Josh: So yeah, that’s the next episode. We’re gonna leave our audience wanting more, George, because we want to hear when you saw Margot next, and we want to hear more about your filmmaking career next week. Will you come back next week?

George: Yeah. What’s the date next week?

Josh: So next week, June 3rd.

George: It’s June 3rd? Okay, yeah, because I got a birthday coming up here.

Christian: What is your birthday?

George: June 16th.

Josh: Okay. Next week is June 2nd, so we’ll try to get you to come back next week, if you will.

George: Okay.

Josh: All right. And then we’ll hear about when you saw Margot next. We will get another film update, and then we’ll hear about how you became a filmmaker at age 81. So folks, thank you so much for listening to George, and we do hope you’ll come back next week to hear the rest of his story.

Christian: I mean, did you like that, Josh?

Josh: Yeah, I can’t wait.

Christian: These are, I can’t wait either.

Josh: That’s right. I can’t wait to hear what happened to Margot. So, well, George, thank you for being here, and thank you for coming back next week. Christian, congratulations again on another win and the big distribution release, so very excited about all that. And also to our listening audience, thank you for listening to Documentary First, where we believe everyone has a story to tell, and you can be the one to tell it.

Christian: Yes, you can. Bye, everybody.

George: Okay, bye.