Interview with World War II Soldier Ben Schneider

Sarah Chapman Author

03/10/2025 Added

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Sarah Chapman interviews World War II solider Ben Schneider.

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[00:00:01.140]This is Sarah Chapman's interview of Mr. Ben Schneider.
[00:00:06.500]Okay, so before you entered the Army, were you enlisted or drafted?
[00:00:13.940]I was enlisted.
[00:00:15.020]Okay. And how old were you when you entered?
[00:00:23.820]I enlisted in 43. I was 23 years old.
[00:00:33.460]And did you have any schooling when you entered, before you entered?
[00:00:39.620]Schooling before I entered. I went to grade school and high school.
[00:00:45.520]Okay, yeah.
[00:00:47.920]I graduated Omaha Technical High School in 1938.
[00:00:55.200]Before that, I graduated from Dundee Elementary School in Omaha, 1934.
[00:01:07.100]I graduated there in 34.
[00:01:09.560]Okay. So when did you move to Council Bluffs?
[00:01:12.560]Pardon?
[00:01:13.020]When did you move to Council Bluffs?
[00:01:14.300]I moved to Council Bluffs after the war.
[00:01:16.980]Oh, okay. Why did you choose to enter the Army?
[00:01:21.240]Pardon?
[00:01:21.880]Why did you choose to enter the Army?
[00:01:24.360]Why did I choose to enter the Army?
[00:01:25.960]Mm-hmm.
[00:01:30.350]Uh...
[00:01:31.970]It's okay if you can't answer.
[00:01:36.550]I mean, I was going to be drafted anyway.
[00:01:39.890]Okay.
[00:01:40.630]And I wanted to enter before I was drafted to choose...
[00:01:44.890]Okay.
[00:01:47.730]...communication. That's what I wanted to do.
[00:01:49.930]And not only that, I was Jewish, and I was very,
[00:01:57.490]very distraught at what the Germans were doing to the Jews.
[00:02:04.070]Okay.
[00:02:04.430]And I wanted to go over there and fight them.
[00:02:07.370]Yeah, true.
[00:02:08.150]Okay. Um...
[00:02:15.110]What were some of your hobbies before you entered the war?
[00:02:18.210]My hobbies before I entered the war?
[00:02:21.190]I was an athlete. I did all kinds of
[00:02:25.270]athletic activity.
[00:02:27.110]Football, basketball, baseball.
[00:02:31.650]My other day, school and...
[00:02:36.290]Okay.
[00:02:37.130]Grade school and high school.
[00:02:39.670]Okay. Um...
[00:02:41.790]So your first days in the service, were you nervous or excited?
[00:02:46.510]When I was going in, uh...
[00:02:53.310]I don't remember.
[00:02:55.190]That's fine. You don't know? Okay.
[00:02:58.190]I would say I was...
[00:03:00.290]I wasn't nervous because I enlisted, you know.
[00:03:03.990]Yeah.
[00:03:04.510]But I was excited because I wanted to go real bad.
[00:03:10.490]Okay.
[00:03:12.190]Because of what I said.
[00:03:14.370]Okay. Um...
[00:03:15.810]What were some of your first experiences in the Army?
[00:03:21.210]Um...
[00:03:21.850]What was my first experience in the Army?
[00:03:25.630]Uh...
[00:03:27.930]Your training or...
[00:03:29.290]Your training or things like that?
[00:03:30.970]Yeah. Basic training was experience.
[00:03:34.230]Okay.
[00:03:34.650]And then I went to communication school.
[00:03:38.810]Okay.
[00:03:39.650]At Camp Crowder, Missouri. That's where I was.
[00:03:42.470]Camp Crowder, Missouri. Neosho, Missouri.
[00:03:45.390]Okay. Oh, that's where that picture was taken. Okay.
[00:03:49.290]And what was it in Camp Crowder your training was?
[00:03:53.690]Camp... what was it? Camp Crowder?
[00:03:55.170]Yeah, Camp Crowder.
[00:03:56.490]Okay.
[00:03:56.790]C-R-O-W-D-E-R. You got it.
[00:03:59.170]Okay.
[00:04:02.540]Where were some of the places that you served?
[00:04:06.860]Okay.
[00:04:08.660]Oh, you have it written down, right?
[00:04:10.820]Here.
[00:04:11.920]I know it off the bat. I'm just going to let you see it.
[00:04:14.520]Okay.
[00:04:18.470]I'll open it.
[00:04:20.550]I start here, Camp Crowder, Missouri.
[00:04:23.130]Okay.
[00:04:24.250]North Africa. I was in Oran, North Africa.
[00:04:30.880]Okay.
[00:04:31.900]That's a big city there.
[00:04:34.420]I was in Naples, Italy.
[00:04:36.780]Italy.
[00:04:42.060]I was in many cities in southern France, up to Paris.
[00:04:57.880]I was in many cities in Bavaria, Germany.
[00:05:05.540]See, that's a southern part of Germany.
[00:05:07.940]Okay.
[00:05:10.000]And then I don't remember the actual place.
[00:05:15.450]I was in Austria, but it was a ski resort.
[00:05:20.170]Oh, okay.
[00:05:22.630]In Austria.
[00:05:29.850]Okay.
[00:05:30.610]Okay, what were some of your assignments?
[00:05:33.890]What were some of your assignments?
[00:05:35.710]What's the name of them?
[00:05:37.570]No, what were some of them?
[00:05:39.390]Assignments?
[00:05:40.170]We were a...
[00:05:41.970]This is interesting.
[00:05:44.210]We were 18 soldiers in the 5th Signal Center team of the 7th Army.
[00:06:00.810]Our mission was to do communications between
[00:06:08.810]the 7th Army and the French 1st Army
[00:06:13.230]all the way from France into Germany and Austria.
[00:06:21.350]So the 7th Army is just what your team was called?
[00:06:24.330]No, no. My team was called the 5th Signal Center team.
[00:06:27.070]Oh, okay. So what was the 7th Army?
[00:06:29.890]The 7th Army was an army of the American task force there.
[00:06:38.370]We had the 1st Army, the 3rd Army, and the 7th Army.
[00:06:42.770]Oh.
[00:06:43.110]We went all the way.
[00:06:45.090]One of the armies that beat Germany?
[00:06:48.250]Oh, okay. Okay.
[00:06:51.450]So did you actually see or experience combat?
[00:06:58.250]I wasn't in the front line, but I was right behind it.
[00:07:02.930]Oh, okay.
[00:07:04.190]And I did experience some artillery and air action.
[00:07:15.170]I mean, they were shooting it up.
[00:07:17.210]Okay.
[00:07:18.170]Not a lot.
[00:07:19.210]Okay.
[00:07:20.530]Not like a combat soldier.
[00:07:22.970]Okay.
[00:07:24.490]So your job was really more communications more than combat?
[00:07:28.730]Yeah, we were communicating.
[00:07:30.250]Okay.
[00:07:30.570]Well, we were in a combat area communicating to the French Army.
[00:07:37.830]Okay.
[00:07:38.950]In other words, and I was a radio operator.
[00:07:41.830]Oh.
[00:07:42.050]I was the sergeant in charge of the radio.
[00:07:47.210]So this was an outfit on wheels.
[00:07:56.800]I had my own radio truck, and that was a truck for message center.
[00:08:05.680]There was a truck for teletyping.
[00:08:07.620]It was all in a truck, in trucks.
[00:08:11.300]We went from one place to the other.
[00:08:14.240]We never stayed anywhere.
[00:08:15.780]We went, we were assigned to communicate
[00:08:19.820]with this French Army.
[00:08:24.280]That's what our mission was.
[00:08:25.540]Oh, okay.
[00:08:27.300]Okay.
[00:08:29.100]So what did you do to keep in touch with the people back home?
[00:08:32.480]Were you married before you left the United States?
[00:08:33.920]Well, I was married while I was in the Army.
[00:08:37.740]I was married in May 30, 1943, right after I got out of
[00:08:49.300]basic training at Camp Crowder.
[00:08:52.920]And my wife came to Neosho and Joplin [gap] a year off campus
[00:09:10.100]while I was training in being a radio operator and other communications.
[00:09:21.970]From there, we were assigned to the Fifth Center.
[00:09:25.230]I wasn't in the Fifth Center team in Crowder.
[00:09:29.790]That's where you assigned?
[00:09:32.930]I was assigned to it. Okay. In 1943. Okay. When we went overseas. Okay.
[00:09:40.630]What did you guys do for recreation while you were overseas?
[00:09:45.750]We didn't have any. Well, we did a little, very little recreation.
[00:09:50.430]The only recreation you might say is off-duty.
[00:09:55.090]We walked around the towns we were in and looked at all
[00:10:01.390]the cultural things in Europe.
[00:10:04.210]So sightseeing and things like that?
[00:10:05.490]Sightseeing, yeah.
[00:10:07.950]But that's all we had.
[00:10:10.970]We were too busy.
[00:10:13.690]We were running all the time.
[00:10:19.380]Now, as a Jewish veteran, did you ever experience any anti-Semitism?
[00:10:27.160]Yes, I did.
[00:10:28.960]You did? What were some of those experiences?
[00:10:31.900]I had an experience with one of the sergeants of my crew.
[00:10:38.820]One out of eighteen guys, we had about four or five anti-Semites.
[00:10:43.380]But the main one that I remember was Michael Burke,
[00:10:50.180]who told me many bad things about the Jewish people.
[00:10:56.140]But he didn't get away with it.
[00:10:59.840]I told him off.
[00:11:00.940]But I hated him ever since then.
[00:11:03.580]I went all the way through the war with him.
[00:11:07.040]And then when I ran into several soldiers,
[00:11:22.170]not in my outfit, that gave me a hard time about being a Jew.
[00:11:27.130]Were they American soldiers?
[00:11:29.390]Pardon? American soldiers?
[00:11:30.690]American. This is all American.
[00:11:32.270]I didn't talk to anyone.
[00:11:34.970]I couldn't talk the language.
[00:11:38.990]I did talk Jewish to the Germans.
[00:11:42.490]Oh, okay.
[00:11:44.490]But I didn't talk to them very much because I hated every one of them.
[00:11:48.450]Yeah, I can see that.
[00:11:50.870]Okay, so how did you practice Judaism while in the army?
[00:11:56.150]How did you practice Judaism while in the army?
[00:11:59.790]Did you go to service?
[00:12:01.190]I can't understand.
[00:12:02.750]How did you practice Judaism?
[00:12:06.350]Okay.
[00:12:05.650]I practiced Judaism because I was a Jew.
[00:12:12.050]I mean, I didn't have too many opportunities to go to synagogue
[00:12:17.810]because we weren't any place at one time.
[00:12:20.270]But I prayed to my God every night that I was there.
[00:12:26.310]Okay.
[00:12:29.360]And I never forgot that I was a Jew because I am a Jew.
[00:12:33.900]You know what I mean?
[00:12:37.400]Okay.
[00:12:37.960]I was Orthodox at one time.
[00:12:40.140]Oh, really?
[00:12:41.120]I went in and found it too Conservative.
[00:12:46.780]Where do you guys go?
[00:12:48.280]We go to Bethel.
[00:12:49.360]Oh, that's where I went. Oh, really?
[00:12:51.000]For years.
[00:12:51.620]Oh, really?
[00:12:52.120]I'm still there.
[00:12:52.840]Yeah?
[00:12:56.500]How did you celebrate high holidays?
[00:12:59.380]How did I?
[00:13:00.080]Celebrate high holidays? [shakes head]
[00:13:01.960]You couldn't?
[00:13:02.460]I did not celebrate high holidays.
[00:13:04.820]I had no way to do it except talking through my letters.
[00:13:09.100]I wished happy New Years to my family in my letters,
[00:13:13.280]but that's the only way I had.
[00:13:18.660]We were very, very busy.
[00:13:23.140]Yeah, okay.
[00:13:25.140]So there really wasn't that much time for religion.
[00:13:28.320]Pardon?
[00:13:28.720]So there really wasn't that much time for religion
[00:13:30.840]other than your own praying and things?
[00:13:34.680]There wasn't that much what?
[00:13:35.920]Was there any time for religion while you were there?
[00:13:38.340]No, there was no time for religion.
[00:13:40.500]Okay.
[00:13:41.160]Except to myself.
[00:13:43.060]And I prayed, yeah.
[00:13:44.760]Okay.
[00:13:45.540]Were there other Jewish soldiers serving with you?
[00:13:48.000]Yes, there was. Did you know any?
[00:13:50.440]There were five Jewish soldiers out of 18 people
[00:13:54.780]in this team that I was on.
[00:13:59.860]I became very close to two of them,
[00:14:04.840]which I'm still in contact with,
[00:14:08.620]except that my very, very dearest friend's dead.
[00:14:11.920]Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
[00:14:13.880]Oh, okay.
[00:14:16.980]We're talking about 62 years.
[00:14:19.400]Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:21.600]Did you keep kosher before the war?
[00:14:23.820]Pardon?
[00:14:24.300]Did you keep kosher for war?
[00:14:26.240]No. My family didn't keep kosher,
[00:14:28.400]and my wife and I don't keep kosher.
[00:14:32.880]Do you recall the day that you left the service?
[00:14:41.270]I was discharged at Fort Collins, Colorado.
[00:14:48.120]That's near Colorado Springs.
[00:14:50.860]Oh, okay.
[00:14:51.880]And I spent many, many, many months in hospitals.
[00:14:57.460]I was sick a lot.
[00:14:58.520]Oh, really?
[00:14:59.400]And I was discharged from this hospital in Colorado Springs,
[00:15:08.400]and I went to, then I went to Fort Collins.
[00:15:11.980]I don't remember where the hospital was around here somewhere.
[00:15:14.720]And I went to Fort Collins
[00:15:16.280]and got officially discharged from there.
[00:15:19.980]Okay. Why were you discharged?
[00:15:21.740]When?
[00:15:22.220]Why were you? Was it the end of the war?
[00:15:24.300]Oh, yeah.
[00:15:25.900]Honorable discharge.
[00:15:27.240]Okay.
[00:15:29.420]Yeah, I was in it all the way.
[00:15:31.900]Okay.
[00:15:33.380]So you were in Fort Collins when the war ended?
[00:15:37.360]Well, I was in Fort Collins.
[00:15:38.860]Oh, okay.
[00:15:39.080]No, no. I was in Nancy, France.
[00:15:41.280]Oh, okay.
[00:15:42.040]When it ended.
[00:15:43.280]Nancy right?
[00:15:44.020]At a hospital, by the way.
[00:15:45.700]Oh, okay. What were you sick with?
[00:15:48.320]I had anemic dysentery,
[00:15:51.020]and then I had a perforated appendix.
[00:15:53.360]I almost died.
[00:15:54.620]Oh, my gosh.
[00:15:56.000]I was operated on in Nancy, France, and they saved me.
[00:16:00.640]Oh, wow.
[00:16:01.600]Did you have to come back from overseas?
[00:16:04.580]Because you were sick?
[00:16:05.420]I was discharged from Nancy, France to Fort Collins.
[00:16:12.120]Wherever that was.
[00:16:13.640]But it was the end of the war.
[00:16:15.500]Okay.
[00:16:16.660]But Japan was still fighting us.
[00:16:18.920]I could have gone to Japan. Which a lot of my,
[00:16:23.170]my people did.
[00:16:24.610]But you didn't because you were sick.
[00:16:26.610]Yeah. Okay.
[00:16:28.510]So you said you formed many close, two close relationships?
[00:16:32.670]I had two close.
[00:16:34.570]Okay.
[00:16:35.170]Do you want to know their names?
[00:16:37.030]No, that's okay.
[00:16:40.010]Lasting up until now, I still talk to this one guy's wife
[00:16:44.050]who calls me, New York.
[00:16:45.810]Oh.
[00:16:46.110]One was in New York, from New York,
[00:16:48.570]and one was from Denver, Colorado.
[00:16:50.870]Oh, okay.
[00:16:56.680]How did the war change your everyday life after you got home?
[00:17:06.840]I'm going to give you the answer to that.
[00:17:10.020]Okay.
[00:17:10.480]This question right here.
[00:17:12.980]Okay.
[00:17:14.420]So, all right.
[00:17:16.740]What was your career after the war?
[00:17:18.740]What was my...
[00:17:19.420]Your career after the war?
[00:17:21.500]After the war?
[00:17:22.260]My career was I was a plastering contractor,
[00:17:30.100]and then I did...
[00:17:36.070]After that, I worked for a very close friend of mine
[00:17:42.870]as a bartender in his bar.
[00:17:45.310]Okay.
[00:17:45.790]Very, very good experience.
[00:17:47.830]Okay.
[00:17:49.290]And then I went into my father-in-law's store
[00:17:54.270]in Council Bluffs as a partner.
[00:17:57.310]Okay.
[00:17:57.910]And he consequently died.
[00:18:01.370]Oh, okay.
[00:18:04.480]And my mother-in-law and I and my wife
[00:18:12.200]were partners in the store until 1965
[00:18:15.520]when we bought her out.
[00:18:17.940]Okay.
[00:18:18.700]And then our store was taken out by a road
[00:18:22.600]in Council Bluffs for the new shopping center
[00:18:27.080]there downtown.
[00:18:28.180]Oh, okay.
[00:18:36.260]In 197-, 1979...
[00:18:38.540]But we went out...
[00:18:39.360]We sold our store in 1978.
[00:18:43.800]Okay.
[00:18:44.600]And I retired after that.
[00:18:46.800]Okay.
[00:18:51.480]And use whatever you want.
[00:18:53.120]Okay.
[00:18:53.520]I talked a lot of crap.
[00:18:55.880]No, it's not. It's not.
[00:18:58.260]Did you have any kids?
[00:19:00.700]Huh?
[00:19:00.960]Did you have any children?
[00:19:02.920]Yes, I did.
[00:19:03.900]I had three lovely daughters.
[00:19:06.500]Okay.
[00:19:06.560]And they were born when you got home from the Army?
[00:19:10.460]They were born after I got home, yeah.
[00:19:18.430]Okay.
[00:19:18.930]Okay.
[00:19:19.610]So the last question is, overall,
[00:19:22.130]what was your most memorable experience?
[00:19:27.300]You're getting me emotional.
[00:19:28.720]Oh, okay.
[00:19:30.420]I shouldn't, but I am.
[00:19:31.880]No, don't worry.
[00:19:34.080]Well, we were on the road to Austria.
[00:19:38.440]Well, we camped in a town called Starnberg on the Z-E-E.
[00:19:45.680]Starnberg on the Sea in Germany.
[00:19:53.300]So we went all from Germany up to Austria,
[00:19:56.300]but the war was over.
[00:19:57.780]Oh, okay.
[00:19:59.800]And we were, a friend of mine,
[00:20:04.420]the one I really loved,
[00:20:07.260]and I, were walking in that town of Starnberg,
[00:20:15.730]might have been on patrol, I don't remember.
[00:20:20.570]And suddenly, on a rise in the road,
[00:20:25.710]we saw 15, at least 15 refugees from Dachau.
[00:20:37.350]And they ran over to us and said,
[00:20:40.150]America, thank you, America.
[00:20:43.230]I don't know who said it.
[00:20:44.630]One of them did.
[00:20:46.210]I don't know.
[00:20:46.770]They couldn't talk, but we took care of them
[00:20:51.790]for two or three days.
[00:20:55.910]They were part of a camp right there in Starnberg,
[00:21:01.930]a refugee camp.
[00:21:04.530]America took the Jews and put them in his camp,
[00:21:07.750]took them out of it.
[00:21:12.000]And that was a tremendous thing.
[00:21:17.550]Yeah, I can imagine.
[00:21:20.030]And I said to myself,
[00:21:24.090]there by the grace of God goes I.
[00:21:28.890]We could have happened to us if we weren't in America
[00:21:31.650]because they took six million Jews.
[00:21:33.730]You know all about it, I don't have to tell you.
[00:21:39.550]When I came back home,
[00:21:42.690]I vowed that I was going to work for the Jewish people
[00:21:46.010]so it wouldn't happen here.
[00:21:51.210]And I did.
[00:21:54.640]I became a very active person at B'nai Brith.
[00:22:00.780]Okay.
[00:22:03.280]And I worked for 18 years with B'nai, boy, more than that.
[00:22:07.780]I was 35 years with B'nai Brith
[00:22:11.500]and I was very active in my synagogue in Council Bluffs.
[00:22:18.830]That's really amazing.
[00:22:20.650]Huh?
[00:22:20.970]That's really amazing.
[00:22:26.730]I still can't get over it.
[00:22:32.560]And that's why.
[00:22:34.120]Here's, wasn't there I said something about.
[00:22:36.940]After the war, what was your career after the war?
[00:22:42.400]Well, my career was, I told you that.
[00:22:46.180]But that, I don't know, that was the main thing that I lived for.
[00:22:53.290]Okay.
[00:22:54.410]Jews.
[00:22:55.390]Okay.
[00:22:55.930]Here in America, America, you know.
[00:22:57.990]It was a very, very terrible experience.
[00:23:01.530]Yeah.
[00:23:02.690]Yeah, I can imagine that.
[00:23:04.510]Okay.
[00:23:05.370]I don't know why I'm crying.
[00:23:06.670]I've told that story 50 times.
[00:23:07.830]No, no.
[00:23:08.590]No, I would be crying too.
[00:23:13.870]A little note, too, for the day.
[00:23:21.390]And I wanted to hear, I had to get your name.
[00:23:25.470]Oh, okay.
[00:23:26.870]I'm Sarah Chapman.

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Interview with World War II Soldier Ben Schneider

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