Bob Behr
Born March 1, 1922, Berlin, Germany
Bob was born on March 1, 1922 in Berlin, Germany. After his parents divorced, he lived with his mother.
1933-39: Bob attended a boarding school in Germany until 1935 when the Nazis forced the school’s closure as part of anti-Jewish legislation. He then went to school in Sweden (a neutral country) until 1937, when his schooling was terminated and he returned to his mother in Berlin.
1940-45: In 1942 Bob and his mother were arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Theresienstadt “camp-ghetto”. In early 1944 he volunteered to work at Wulkow, a satellite camp of Theresienstadt because the SS promised that the families of Jews who “volunteered” would be protected from deportation to the gas chambers. In Wulkow prisoners were forced to build a new headquarters for the SS because American and British bombers had destroyed the one in Berlin. Bob remained in Wulkow until February 1945 when the prisoners were returned to Theresienstadt. The Soviet Army liberated the camp on May 5, 1945. After surviving a typhus epidemic in Theresienstadt, he and his mother returned to Berlin. With the help of Russian authorities they regained their home which had been overrun by refugees.
In 1947 Bob immigrated to the United States without his mother who was too weak to travel. To help his mother survive in post-war Berlin Bob enlisted in the U.S. Army in July, 1947 hoping to be returned to Germany. Bob’s German language capability convinced the Army and he was fortunate to be in Berlin by November, 1947. Bob was assigned work as an intelligence officer interrogating former Nazi personnel. He left the Army in 1952 and secured a Civil Service position with the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence officer. He retired in Dayton, Ohio in 1988 after 39 years of government service. During these years Bob took the GED test and earned bachelor and master degrees in modern European history. He also was an adjunct professor teaching European history with a special emphasis on World War II and the Holocaust. Bob is now a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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