Irving Baum was born in September 1923 in Monticello, New York. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Baum to describe growing up during The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. His father and mother were in business with a candy store with an excellent location. His father sold hot dogs. There were no cafeterias in schools then and they had a very comfortable life. He has a collection of his father's notes and in those he found that he was babysat by Lawrence Cooke [Annotator's Note: Lawrence Henry Cooke, American lawyer and politician] who later became the Chief Judge of the State of New York. They became very close friends. Baum had a lot of friends in his small community. He had 85 people in his graduating class. There was very little transient population except during the summer since it was a resort area. The big sport in the summer was to go uptown and look at the cars going through. Baum was aware of what was going on because of what happened in Germany at the time. His father had relatives in Stropkov [Annotator's Note: Stropkov, Czechoslovakia; now Stropkov, Slovakia] which was about 90 percent Jewish. His mother's family came from Romania and Austria and did not go through the experience because they left early. His family listened to the radio all the time. He did not learn the depth of what was going on. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Baum if he remembers hearing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Baum's younger brother and he went to a matinee at the theater and were walking home and heard people talking excitedly. They got home. His father had passed away by this time. His mother told him about the attack. The next day at school he found out what it really meant. That evening, he listened to President Roosevelt's [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] speech [Annotator's Note: Day of Infamy Speech; President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Joint Session of the United States Congress, 8 December 1941]. World War 1 [Annotator's Note: global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] was only 20 years or so previous to that. He just thought there was another war, and he did not think about being involved. He had a graduation coming up. He finished high school in January 1942. He took a job in a hardware store. A close friend, Sam Handsman [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces First Lieutenant Samuel Handsman], who later became a pilot in the 15th Air Force, 464th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 779th Bombardment Squadron, 464th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force], and Baum said they did not want to be foot soldiers. Baum's father and the mailman were close friends. The two would talk every day and what Baum heard was about the rats, mud, trench warfare, and gas, so Baum did not want to be in that. He and Handsman took the aviation test. They passed and were asked what they wanted to do. Sam opted to wait to be called up and Baum opted to go in the service. He went in on 8 September 1942.

On 8 September 1942, Irving Baum entered the service and was sent to Camp Upton in Long Island, New York. Three days later he took a train to Miami Beach [Annotator's Note: Miami Beach, Florida] for basic training. From there he went to Buckley Field [Annotator's Note: now Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado] for pursuit armament training. He got orders to the Nashville Tennessee Cadet Center to take exams. He took the ARMA exam, or Attitude Regarding Military Aviation. He qualified for pilot, bombardier, or navigator. He chose bombardier. He stayed there three more weeks and took more tests. He then went to Santa Ana, California followed by Deming, New Mexico for bombardier training. He was number four academically, and number 11 in bombing out of 28 people in the class. Baum then went to Carlsbad, New Mexico for dead-reckoning navigation school where he was told he was going into either B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] or B-26s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber] that used that type of navigation. Dead reckoning uses the land around by landmarks and ground speed to determine locations. He finished in about 11 weeks. He got orders to Clovis, New Mexico. They had been using the Norden bombsight [Annotator's Note: Norden Mk. XV tachometric bombsight] at Deming, and the B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] at Clovis used a different bombsight that they had never seen before. They were there about two weeks doing nothing. They did go up in a B-24 to get flying time in. They then got orders to Pyote, Texas to Rattlesnake Army Airbase [Annotator's Note: nickname for Pyote Army Airfield, later Pyote Air Force Base, in Pyote, Texas]. They became part of a crew there and he met his pilot, George W. Starks [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain George W. Starks]. Baum was 19 and the pilot was three months younger. They met their navigator. The copilot was 20 or 21. The navigator, Ted Badder [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Edward T. Badder], was 22. Of the six crews they became acquainted with, the average age was 19.7 years of age. They were all in the Sturdevant Provisional Group [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. They stayed there until January 1944 when they went overseas. They picked up a new airplane at Grand Island, Nebraska, went to Maine, Gander [Annotator's Note: Gander, Newfoundland, Canada], and Labrador [Annotator's Note: Labrador, Canada]. They were the last plane to leave Labrador as a storm was coming in. The navigator did not get one bit of sleep for 17 hours. They landed at Nutts Corner, Ireland [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Nutts Corner in County Atrim, Ireland] and went to Stone [Annotator's Note: Stone, England]. There they got their assignment to the 92nd Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 407th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] in Podington [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Podington in Bedfordshire, England] at Station 109. The 92nd had the Triangle-Bs on the tails of the 40th Combat Wing [Annotator's Note: 40th Bombardment Wing] of the 1st Division [Annotator's Note: 1st Air Division].

The exact date that Irving Baum got to England [Annotator's Note: as a bombardier with the 407th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] is up for grabs. He was there for four days when he was told he was going on a mission. He was put into a plane as a togglier [Annotator's Note: crew member responsible for arming and dropping bombs in lieu of a bombardier]. The mission was to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany]. He saw what flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] was like and what an aircraft going down was like. He made a fatal judgement and thought that if it was like that, he would be out of there in six months. He went on five additional missions. Two of them were to French airfields, then Kassel [Annotator's Note: Kassel, Germany], then Frankfurt again, and then a town near Heidelberg [Annotator's Note: Heidelberg, Germany]. On 6 March [Annotator's Note: 6 March 1944], he went on the first Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] raid and then the second one on 8 March [Annotator's Note: 8 March 1944]. On 9 March [Annotator's Note: 9 March 1944] was his seventh raid, to Oberpfaffenhofen [Annotator's Note: Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany] between Augsburg [Annotator's Note: Augsburg, Germany] and Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. They were bombing a factory that was assembling engines for Me-262s [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft]. On the way in, they were hit by two Fw-190s [Annotator's Note: Focke-Wulf Fw-190 fighter aircraft]. One was at seven o'clock low. A second came in just above him and fired and hit their wing. The bailout order was given, and they bailed out. His navigator was at the escape hatch but had left his chute behind. They had to push him back to get it. They put it on him and pushed him out. They caught fire then. The wing came off and went down with the props still turning. In 1985, Baum made a trip to Brunet, France, the town where his plane went in. He met a teacher who spoke English and told him that the only incident that happened in that village was that wing coming down. One engine flew off and she showed him the indentation in the ground where it hit. The second engine landed 50 hectares [Annotator's Note: metric unit of square measure] away. Everyone in the village was afraid they were going to be hit.

In 1944, after bailing out of his damaged aircraft, Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: a bombardier with the 407th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] was about eight to ten thousand feet up when he pulled his chute. Two Focke-Wulf 190s [Annotator's Note: Focke-Wulf Fw-190 Wurger fighter aircraft] dove underneath him to try and dump the air out of his chute and then left. He hit the ground in a plowed field. Ted Badder [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Edward T. Badder] landed 100 yards away. They ran. A young French lad [Annotator's Note: young boy] said for them to come with him across an open field. He and Badder both had .45s [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and gave them to the kid. They then ran through the woods. As they got out, they heard shots and two French Gendarmes [Annotator's Note: armed French police officers] were there. They held up their hands and surrendered. Within five minutes a Wehrmacht captain [Annotator's Note: German Army captain] came out and said that for them the war was over. He gave each of the Frenchmen a 10,000 franc note for capturing the Americans. He put his hand under Baum's chin and asked him if he was Hebrew. Baum found out then to never lie, especially to someone who does not like you in the first place. Baum said no. In his class in high school, was a boy whose mother was the minister of a sect called The Pilgrim Holiness Society [Annotator's Note: Pilgrim Holiness Church, or International Apostolic Holiness Church], a fundamentalist organization. Baum said he belonged to that and that the "H" was for Holiness. The German clubbed Baum in the face. He dropped to his knees and was bleeding badly. Badder helped him up and into a two-wheel cart. They went into Brunet [Annotator's Note: Brunet, France]. Two other Germans drove up from the local fighter base who spoke beautiful English. They told them if they tried to escape, he would have to shoot them. They ended up at the fighter base at Vitry-le-Francois [Annotator's Note: Vitry-le-Francois, France]. They were given food and the time to eat it. Baum was not hungry and could not eat all of it. They were put in cells. About three o'clock in the morning, two privates were made their guards and they were on the way to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany]. There was a mass of soldiers at the train depot. It was blackout conditions and Baum started backing away from the guards. He felt a sharp pain in his back. It was a shovel on the backpack of another soldier. The guard found out and said, "nein, nein, nein" [Annotator's Note: German for "no, no, no"] and shook his finger at Baum while hitting him on the hand. They got on a nice passenger train and Baum slept. He woke up as they went into Frankfurt and a civilian pointed out all the antiaircraft gun emplacements. An air raid alarm sounded, and they went downstairs. The people on the platform applauded the guards and spit at Baum and Badder. They then took a streetcar with the civilians to Oberursel [Annotator's Note: Oberursel, Germany] to the Dulag Luft [Annotator's Note: Dulag Luft Prisoner of War transit camp and interrogation center near Frankfurt am Main, Germany].

Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: and US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Edward T. Badder were captured after their plane was shot down over France] caught a streetcar with the civilians to Oberursel to the Dulag Luft [Annotator's Note: Dulag Luft Prisoner of War transit camp and interrogation center at Oberursel, Germany], the interrogation center. They had Russian prisoners of war to assist them. Everything they had with them was put into a wheelbarrow. They walked into a large waiting room with other guys who had been shot down. They had been briefed about keeping quiet in that setting. He was called in and was asked if he was Jewish. Baum answered "yes" in German. He was taken to a barracks and was put in a cell. He got a meal of coffee and bread that was partly sawdust. Baum was exhausted and was worried about his mother. He fell asleep for eight or nine hours. He got breakfast and clothes. He was taken to another barracks for interrogation. His interrogator was a lieutenant who spoke in perfect English. Baum had been briefed about American Germans who had been caught behind the lines and could not get back [Annotator's Note: when the war started]. The interrogator shook his hand and gave him a Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] card to fill out. He asked him for the names of the rest of the crew and he said he did not know if they were there or who they were. He was not believed. The interrogator knew where Baum was from. He told Baum he had lived there, had come to Germany to visit his grandmother, and could not get out when the war started. He asked Baum again to give the names of the crew and then said Baum might be a spy. He told Baum they shot the last spy. Baum brought up the Geneva Conventions [Annotator's Note: standards for humanitarian treatment in war] which made the interrogator mad. He then said that the next day, a civilian, who, like him, did not like Jewish people would come in. Baum could not give in to that. His mother had taught him better. He was dismissed. Before this, the guard had taken to Baum to the clinic, where he was bandaged up so that only his mouth, nose, and eyes were showing. [Annotator's Note: Baum describes being clubbed by a German soldier in the clip titled "Captured in France" of this interview.] His whole face was black and blue [Annotator's Note: with bruises]. He was taken to his room and got soup and supper. The next day he returned to the interrogator and there was another guy there. They offered Baum a cigarette. The name on the pack of cigarettes was West Point. They told him to tell the truth and asked why his plane had made a feint towards Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. Baum said he did not know. The civilian said they had ways of making him tell the truth. Baum was scared. Baum was dismissed and went to his cell. He and his navigator [Annotator's Note: Edward Badder] had a way of knocking on the cells as code until the guard stopped them. In the evening, the door opened, and clothes were flung at him. They told him to get up quickly and had a rifle pointed at him. They stopped at a couple of doors and out stepped Walter Beckham [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel Walter Carl Beckham]; a leading ace of the time who had been shot down. Beckham asked Baum what day it was. He replied it was around the 18th or 19th [Annotator's Note: 18 or 19 March 1944]. Beckham then said that meant he had been there 30 or 31 days. They then got three more people. The five of them were marched to a courtyard and it was cold. A side door opened and an officer with a sword came out with five men with rifles. Baum's knees turned to butter. He was not afraid of dying but was thinking of his mother. They were lined up and they squeezed together to support each other. They heard, "ready" and the sergeant next to him said it was fake because if it was real, it would be said in German. He then heard, "aim", but nothing happened until they came up behind them, kicked them in the behinds, and sent them back to their cells. Baum almost fainted either from relief or from the scare.

Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: a prisoner of war] was told to put on his clothes and was taken out of solitary [Annotator's Note: after being interrogated at Dulag Luft Prisoner of War transit camp and interrogation center at Oberursel, Germany]. He met other prisoners and met a fellow from the Royal Air Force, Red Lewis [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], and they became friends. They went into a mess hall with non-commissioned officers who had been shot down and whose duty was in the kitchen. They each got thick slices of SPAM [Annotator's Note: canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation] and mashed potatoes. A sergeant told them to stay put and that they were going to be taken to get dessert. They went over and the dessert was one more scoop of SPAM and potatoes. They were marched to the far end of the camp. They got things from the Red Cross. That night, they were gathered outside. Red Lewis said the bulbs were swinging on the wire and they started hearing booms. They found out later that the 8th Air Force had hit a power station nearby and the only warnings of an air raid were the 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] firing. There were no sirens working. There were two air raid shelters they went into. Red had experienced this in England, saw a target indicator floating over the camp, and told them all to get down. Baum's heart was pounding. When a bomb has your number on it, it does not whistle ala Hollywood [Annotator's Note: meaning it how does in the movies], it grunts. There was the damnedest explosion Baum had ever heard. One guy stood up and a timber hit him in the head, killing him instantly. They stayed in the shelter another two to three hours. They heard two stories. The RAF [Annotator's Note: British Royal Air Force] had bombed the area, or a bomber had been shot down and the payload exploded. Baum believed the second story because a burial detail was requested. He did not volunteer for that. They came out in the morning. Colonel Darr Alkire [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel Darr Hayes Alkire] gave a promise not to try to escape. According to the Geneva Conventions [Annotator's Note: standards for humanitarian treatment in war], every prisoner has the duty to try to escape, but if they do and are caught, they no longer fall under the Conventions. Red Lewis and Baum started walking around the perimeter. Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany] was really burning. The air raid sirens started again. A Mosquito[Annotator's Note: de Havilland DH. 98 Mosquito, multirole combat aircraft] bomber was coming over with five or six Focke-Wulfs [Annotator's Note: Focke-Wulf Fw-190 fighter aircraft] following it. They cheered it on. Baum and Red came to the original shelter where people were gathered. The tail of a British bomb was sticking up. They got out of there in case it was a live bomb. They were marched out and they got extra stuff like cigarettes, socks, and shaving equipment. They marched into Oberursel where they were cleaning up. The civilians were lobbing bricks at them. They came across a farmhouse burning. An older farmer was out there with open coffins in front of him and he was screaming and yelling about his wife and children. They were all shaken up at the sight of that regardless of the justification.

Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: a prisoner of war] left the camp [Annotator's Note: after being interrogated at Dulag Luft Prisoner of War transit camp and interrogation center at Oberursel, Germany] and got on a passenger train. They were delayed for an air raid alarm. They went through Regensburg [Annotator's Note: Regensburg, Germany] and there he realized what was going on. He could see freight cars with barbed wire and hand waving while guards slammed them with the butts of their guns. They had gotten satchels and broke them open. They had D-bars [Annotator's Note: Army Field Ration D; chocolate bar intended as snack food], water and juice. He fell asleep. About 11 o'clock at night they reached Stalag Luft III in Lower Silesia [Annotator's Note: in Sagan, Germany; now Żagań, Poland]. They were marched to the camp and then to a large room outside of the camp where the Germans were. A clerk took their information and told them to fill in their religion. Baum started to put down "J" for Jewish. The clerk put his hand on his arm and said, "nein" [Annotator's Note: German for "no"]. He took the paper back and wrote "Prot" [Annotator's Note: for Protestant] over it. Baum has that in a frame now. That man allowed an element of humanity to surface. Baum applauded him silently for that and appreciates him to this day. Stalag Luft III was an established camp with rooms and bunks. Each room had a representative. His was Harold G. Russell [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Harold G. Russell] who had gone down in June of 1943 [Annotator's Note: 22 June 1943 over Gorinchem, Holland]. They went to bed around midnight. They played Bridge [Annotator's Note: a playing card game] until lights out. The next day he got up and they had coffee, bread, and ersatz [Annotator's Note: a substitute for something else, typically inferior] jam. They had roll call. Then they had a meeting. Baum was in Block 129, Room 13. Tom Walden [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces First Lieutenant Thomas H. Walden Junior], Jerry Kleimer [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], and Jensen [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], were there. The new "kriegies", short for Kriegesgefangenen, the German word for prisoner of war, were given an orientation. The most important thing was to tell them in detail exactly what happened because they knew they were bursting with information. After that, they did not want to hear it anymore. Baum told his story. They laid out the rules. Each one had KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] for one week. They had their own cook. People have to know that, all in all, Stalag Luft III was a terrible place to be. They did not know when someone would shoot into the compound. Cities were being bombed and the people in them were angry. Food was not always there. They did not know when they would be turned on. They had mass escape plans to sacrifice their own lives and throw them over if necessary if the need came up. But when they found out what had happened in Japan [Annotator's Note: the Japanese treatment of prisoners] and later in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] and Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975], they have all agreed that comparatively they had it like living in cabins in the pines.

One of the more onerous jobs for Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany; now Żagań, Poland], was to be the stooge [Annotator's Note: nickname for new worker]. In the Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] parcels, they had G. Washington Instant Coffee [Annotator's Note: made by the G. Washington Coffee Refining Company]. Each two weeks, they got a fresh Red Cross parcel. They would pool them because they ate together. The first thing in the morning, they wanted hot coffee and toast. They had a stove in their room. The German loaf was not sliced. The stooges had the responsibility of slicing the bread. He had to spoon exactly the same amount of coffee into each cup. He had to run to get the hot water before they ran out. Each slice of bread had to be equal. If not, they dealt cards to see who got the thick slices. The stooge was not allowed to participate. Then they had roll call. They learned from the British that if they [Annotator's Note: German guards] did something bad to you, you paid them back. One way was to move around in the line to make them lose count. Once they were antagonized, they would either go along or bring in the troops with machine guns. Then they did not play games at those roll calls. There was always someone innocent who was sick or lame. Hermann Glemnitz [Annotator's Note: German Luftwaffe, or Air Force, Sergeant-Major Hermann Glemnitz] was from Austria and would attend their later reunions after the war. His assistant did not have a sense of humor. They would go back to their rooms, make their beds, or go read or something. Stalag Luft III was loaded with books. Life was routine and somewhat comfortable. They looked forward to getting out and knew what it was like to be caged. The British had been there longer and had a different attitude. They [Annotator's Note: the English] were bombed and the Americans were not. One Christmas Eve night [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944], they decided to go to each guard post and offer them coffee. The guards thanked them, and everybody was happy. No enemies on Christmas Eve. That was not the reality of things, and they would not have done it any other time. The British would take the hot drinks, drink them in front of the guards, and go to the next post. Lieutenant General Albert P. Clark [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant General Albert Patton Clark], their head of security, briefed them on the British and their different attitudes. The RAF [Annotator's Note: British Royal Air Force] did not stop their missions even in Stalag Luft III. They did everything to aggravate, agitate, and anger the Germans to the point of the Great Escape [Annotator's Note: mass escape of 76 prisoners on 24 and 25 March 1944 from Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany; now Żagań, Poland]. The American attitude was the opposite. They overtly showed they obeyed every rule no matter what. The theory was that they would then get careless. It worked and the Americans made radios, dug tunnels, and so forth.

The night when Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: as a prisoner of war] got to Stalag Luft III [Annotator's Note: in Sagan, Germany; now Żagań, Poland] was the night of the Great Escape [Annotator's Note: mass escape of 76 prisoners on 24 and 25 March 1944 from Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany; now Żagań, Poland]. They did not know it had occurred. They heard more about it later. Albert P. Clark [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant General Albert Patton Clark] was a fighter jock who went down in August 1942 or 1943. He was the first fighter pilot to be downed and was from the 31st Fighter Group [Annotator's Note: 31st Fighter Group, 8th Air Force]. The Germans were wondering about him because he was a fighter pilot but was a lieutenant colonel. The Germans put a tail on him. Clark was in the British compound then and the British put two people on the tail. Clark got together with Roger Bushell [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Roger Joyce Bushell] who was the author of the idea of the escape. Clark later explained at a reunion that it was a system engineering problem. Everybody had a specific job to do under the same rules and that is the success of the Great Escape. Davey Jones [Annotator's Note: then US Army Air Forces Captain, later US Air Force Major General, David M. Jones], an American digger, had been the third pilot off in the Doolittle Raid [Annotator's Note: bombing attack on the Japanese mainland on 18 April 1942 carried out by 16 North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) and named for the raid's commander, then US Army Air Forces Colonel, later US Air Force General, James H. Doolittle]. The British had the means of communication and had a crude radio. They would copy down the news from the BBC [Annotator's Note: British Broadcasting Corporation]. They used lead to throw the paper into the other compounds. They would all get the news that way until they got their own radio. They got parts in packs of cigarettes that were sent to them. The routine was civilized. They had libraries and great talent. The Germans called them "Luft Gangsters." They called their band the "Luft Bansters." Three of the members had been part of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra [Annotator's Note: the band of Paul Samuel Whiteman, American musician]. They established a routine that did not allow for too many idle minutes. Many people did not make it back for hidden wounds [Annotator's Note: psychological issues]. When the 8th Air Force flew over, you stayed inside. One sergeant stood in a doorway and an angry guard shot and killed him. There were several wounded, including Colonel Stevenson [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel John D. Stevenson] who got shot while playing cards and was crippled for life. It was bad to be in Stalag Luft III. In the north compound, they had a movie theater. The Americans built one too.

When tunneling Tom, Dick, and Harry [Annotator's Note: Tom, Dick, and Harry were the codenames for the tunnels being dug for the Great Escape, the mass escape of 76 prisoners on 24 and 25 March 1944 from Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany; now Żagań, Poland] in the north compound, they found there was yellow clay under the dirt. They had to hide that stuff. The British came up with the "penguin" approach. [Annotator's Note: Irving Baum stands up to demonstrate how this was done.] A person with a strap around his neck with bags filled with dirt would walk to either the garden or the parade and athletic fields and drop the dirt where everybody could trample it. Digging the tunnels required 27 tons of earth to be removed. They were running out of space to put it. One day, Squadron Leader Richards [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] in the north compound came through the theater area. The Canadian Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] parcels were wrapped in wood. The wood was used to make seats. Richards came in and saw the dead space under the seats. He devised invisible hinges for the front part of the seat to be lifted to enable the dirt to be dumped in. They then had each person who walked in carry a script and stay there as if they were rehearsing. The Americans did the same thing in their compound. That is how the majority of dirt was hidden. Harry was also a storeroom. A Canadian, Floody [Annotator's Note: Royal Canadian Air Force Flight Lieutenant Clarke Wallace Chant Floody], a mining engineer designed how the tunnels were made. The entrance to Tom, Dick, and Harry was 35 feet deep. The most marvelous thing were the forgeries by Tim Walenn [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant Gilbert William "Tim" Walenn] who could letter like a typewriter. He made a mistake and shaded an "e" incorrectly, so they made all of them look the same way. The story goes that afterwards, the Germans were always looking for that typewriter. Unfortunately he was one of the 50 who were murdered. On a nice day in June [Annotator's Note: June 1944], Baum and others were walking around the perimeter and shouting hellos back and forth with the British prisoners in their compound. Then it seemed a wind was rising. It was like a groan but not shouting. Suddenly they [Annotator's Note: the British] were gathered around two vehicles that had brought in the urns with the ashes of the 50 RAF [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force] men who had been murdered [Annotator's Note: 50 of the escapees were recaptured and murdered on 27 March 1944]. Among them were Walenn and Roger Bushell [Annotator's Note: Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Roger Joyce Bushell]. Bushell had been warned by von Lindeiner [Annotator's Note: German Luftwaffe Oberst, or Colonel, Friedrich Wilhelm von Lindeiner-Wildau, commandant of Stalag Luft III] that if he ever walked out of those gates without escort, he would never return alive as he had been known as an escape artist. A number of years later, Baum and his wife returned to that part of Poland. Things had not changed much. They stayed at a hotel in Sagan [Annotator's Note: now Żagań, Poland], and the woman took out a roll of toilet tissue and measured out the tissue for them each for each night. They went to the camp which was overgrown. They did have a museum where Stalag VIII-C had been. People should visit it. Baum thought the memorial was very weather beaten and he informed a number of people about it. Within the week, stonemasons came out and fixed it.

Winter started and around October or November [Annotator's Note: October or November 1944] and Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany, now Żagań, Poland] got winter clothing from his mother. On 27 January 1945, they had a play called "You Can't Take It with You." Colonel Goodrich [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel Charles Grant Goodrich] jumped up on stage. They called the Germans "goons" then. Goodrich said the goons had given them three hours to pack up and get out of the camp. The south compound were to be the guinea pigs [Annotator's Note: slang for first to try something experimental] and break the trail for the others to follow. There was such chaos that the Germans did not know where they were going to take them. During that day, they had heard the boom of artillery and knew the war was getting close. They had made preparations already. Their physical condition was poor for what they were going to face. They went to Spremberg [Annotator's Note: Spremberg, Germany] about 37 miles away to catch a train to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. They learned to listen to the British bombers' engine sounds. Each block had a huge bathtub of water for firefighting. They threw all of their cigarettes into the water so nobody could get them. They headed out at midnight in blowing snow and bitterly cold weather. Baum was lucky and packed everything his mother had sent him. They went down a hill to a farmhouse. A woman saw them coming, thought they were Russians, and ran in the house. There were German refugees coming from the ancient borders of Russia, Germany, and Poland. They had horse-drawn wagons. A wagon came even with Baum, and he saw a woman who was very cold. He stopped them and he gave them the boots his mother had sent him. He gave her a scarf, gloves, and a hat. She got a package from under her seat and thanked him. He was with eight of his bunk mates and they opened the package to find three pounds of bacon. They split it with their nine other bunk mates. They stopped at Muskau [Annotator's Note: Bad Muskau, Germany] overnight and went downwind of everybody to a tree stump. They sliced the bacon into three pieces for each man. They each saved one piece, so they had one more meal of it. To this day, he feels it saved their lives.

After 27 hours, Irving Baum and the other prisoners [Annotator's Note: after evacuating from Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Germany; now Żagań, Poland; on 27 January 1945] arrived at Spremberg [Annotator's Note: Spremberg, Germany]. There was a big SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] hospital there with five machine gun nests on the roof. They were put into large circles. They were given hot, barley soup in old oil cans. The oil added character. That was the good part. The bad part was going to board freight cars. There were 60 to 75 men to each car. Dysentery [Annotator's Note: infection of the intestines] and other health problems made it almost impossible to survive. They made on part of the car the bathroom. You could not get away from the stench. They rode for six hours and were allowed into the field of snow. One guy sang an Army song and others joined in. The Germans could not understand why they were singing. They could not understand the American mentality. The got back on board and traveled another day and night. The next day they went into Moosburg [Annotator's Note: Moosburg, Germany] to Stalag VII-A. It was a 1940s camp where the British from Dunkirk [Annotator's Note: Battle of Dunkirk, 26 May to 4 June 1940 in Dunkirk, France] and the French were taken. It had accommodations for maybe 5,000 prisoners. When they were liberated on 29 April [Annotator's Note: 29 April 1945], there were 108,000 prisoners there. The hygiene was at best terrible. Baum was lucky and got into a barracks. There was heavy snow. He had a worm-infested mattress there. The barracks chief was Colonel Luper [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel James Rhea "Jim" Luper, Junior] who had been the commandant of cadets at Maxwell Field [Annotator's Note: now Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama]. One day, they were watching a new group come in who were happy the goons [Annotator's Note: nickname for the Germans] had gotten Luper. Luper was strict and it was a lifesaver. Every day they took their sleeping bags out and beat them clean. They brought them in and put a blanket over them. They then took off all of their clothes. They had a spigot with the coldest water in the world. They had German soap bars and bathed with two rags. They then dressed. Someone had a bale of clothesline wire that they chewed on to keep from scratching the flea bites they were getting. On 15 April [Annotator's Note: 15 April 1945], they got a good show from the 15th and 8th Air Forces when they raided and bombed Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. It was something to see. They had never seen so many airplanes at one time. One day, and this is a rumor, an OSS type [Annotator's Note: Office of Strategic Services; pre-runner to today's Central Intelligence Agency or CIA] got into camp, and they got the word that on 28 April [Annotator's Note: 28 April 1945] a couple of P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] would come around the camp. When they started to buzz, they were to get into the barracks immediately. They came around in the morning and gave them the thumbs up. On the 29th [Annotator's Note: 29 April 1945], they gave them the buzz job. Then they heard shells going over them and explosions. Suddenly someone yelled "tanks." They all poured out and they were coming three abreast and mowing down the barbed wire. Tanks stopped right where Baum was. He got an elbow, and it was Fred Rutan [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Frederick S. Rutan, Junior], a fighter pilot who had been a classmate in high school. He had been in the British compound. A guy in the tank asked where they were from and then told them he was George Warhoftek [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], whose uncle lived three houses away from Baum [Annotator's Note: in his hometown of Monticello, New York]. They became lifelong friends. The liberators were the 14th Armored Division with the 99th Infantry Division supporting.

Irving Baum and his friends were talking and saying that their hometown newspaper would not believe that they met up. [Annotator's Note: Baum met up with hometown friends when he was liberated from Stalag Luft VII-A in Moosburg, Germany on 29 April 1945.] Warhoftek [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] asked Baum if he had ever heard of Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany]. He told them they needed someone there who could speak German and Yiddish, which Baum could do. Fred Rutan [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Frederick S. Rutan, Junior] told him they were raising the flag [Annotator's Note: the American flag]. They ran down just in time to see it. All 9,000 of the Americans were there. They put up speakers and played the Star-Spangled Banner [Annotator's Note: the national anthem of the United States] and everybody sang. It was unbelievable. [Annotator's Note: Baum gets emotional.] They all hugged, kissed, and jumped up and down. They then heard singing by the ANZACs [Annotator's Note: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps] who were singing "Waltzing Matilda" [Annotator's Note: Australian song often called their unofficial national anthem]. It went beyond being proud to be an American. It was God-given luck that they were in that position. Two things remain with them to this day. One, they were lucky, and two, no one leaves a dirty plate of food. Fred and Baum said goodbye. They met the next June [Annotator's Note: June 1945] in Monticello [Annotator's Note: Monticello, New York]. Baum met the Jewish chaplain's assistant, Rothenberger [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. It was not well-known that when the Russians went into Treblinka [Annotator's Note: Nazi extermination camp in Treblinka, Masovian Voivodeship, Poland] and other camps, most of the people were dead but there were a few still alive. That made it imperative that they make sure they were not all dead before cleaning up the bodies. Rothenberger asked Baum to come with him to Dachau. Baum just wanted to get on the other side of the wire. They drove down and the first they came across was a Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] tent where they were dosed with powder [Annotator's Note: for delousing]. Then they went to the finance office and Baum got money to get shoes and other clothes. Then he went into the medical tent. They put on a fingerless smock and went into a side entrance to the camp. The ground was covered from four to six inches in feces. They noticed it [Annotator's Note: the smell] two to three kilometers before they got to the camp. It made it hard to believe the Germans did not know what was going on. He was assigned to a medic outfit. He could only stay there a couple of hours. He went into a shed where there were piles of bodies. They were looking for anyone alive. The big piles were given up on. The bodies were emaciated and broken. They did that for two hours and Baum could not take it any longer. They had a long ditch with bags of lime set up so the men could throw up. They were serving hamburgers and Baum thought it was repulsive. Baum walked over to a photographer who was going to the railroad yards where General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] was coming in. There were rail cars with bodies in them, including children. Baum has those pictures. He was sad and angry. Later on, Baum found out that one of the pictures he has, was the scene that set Eisenhower off and the tears poured down his cheeks. Eisenhower then ordered the people of Dachau into the camp to clean it up. Everyone in Dachau with no exceptions. Baum did not see Eisenhower, but he saw the results of his actions.

Irving Baum slept, had breakfast and went back in [Annotator's Note: to the Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany]. This time the children were there and some of the ones who were not dead. The medics were passing out glucose with eye droppers. Each person got one drop only. They would be killed if they had more. The medics then came around with little chunks of white bread. He then dripped glucose on the bread and fed them two tiny little pieces. Baum did not really interact with them. They were in horrible condition and could only moan. A new band of medics came in and took over. Baum saw Rothenberger [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and told him he wanted to get out of there and get back to Stalag VII-A [Annotator's Note: his former prisoner of war camp in Moosburg, Germany]. He got in a truck, and he smelled bad. They rolled the windows down and drove him to the camp. His friends only cared about where he got his new clothes. Baum saw Red Lewis [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and told him about Dachau. The next day he went to Freising [Annotator's Note: Freising, Germany], boarded a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] and flew around to get flight time on the way to a French seaport to Camp Lucky Strike [Annotator's Note: one of the transit and rehabilitation camps in France named after popular cigarette brands; Lucky Strike was near Le Havre, France]. He was deloused again, got a good night's sleep, ate breakfast, and boarded the General William H. Gordon [Annotator's Note: USS General W. H. Gordon (AP-117)]. There were 30 or 40 nurses who were going to Trinidad on board. On 4 June [Annotator's Note: 4 June 1945], they saw the Statue of Liberty [Annotator's Note: in New York Harbor, New York]. That was an emotional time. Seeing the Statue of Liberty meant you were home. He went to Camp Shanks [Annotator's Note: in Orangeburg, New York] and got 30 seconds on the telephone. He called his mom. He got a uniform on 7 June [Annotator's Note: 7 June 1945] and left the next day on the bus. He called his mom from the bus station. She asked him if he had both of his arms and legs and then told him to get home and hung up. He then knew he was home.

Irving Baum flew seven combat missions [Annotator's Note: as a bombardier with the 407th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] and went down on his seventh. His roughest mission was on 6 March [Annotator's Note: 6 March 1944]. It was a daylight raid on Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany], where they lost about 70 bombers. He was so busy doing, looking, and firing, that he did not know about the losses until they got on the ground, and he saw empty tables at the evening meal. On 6 March, they were using a new type of incendiary bomb. Baum was a togglier [Annotator's Note: crew member responsible for arming and dropping bombs in lieu of a bombardier] at that time. They would set up the bombs to be so many feet apart. The time came and the navigator said to set the intervalometer [Annotator's Note: interval timer]. He was told to keep an eye on the bomb bays and tell the pilot they were opening. They could see the groups ahead of them and some were going down. The flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] was so close that right above him, a "v" of fire burst three in a row. They flew under it. He let the bombs loose. They had no hang-ups and the copilot quietly said, "Thank God, let's get the hell out of here." He saw his first P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] on the way back. They were then picked up by P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft]. They had one report of a night fighter flying alongside them. They also saw a captured B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] flying outside of their formation.

Before bailing out of his stricken airplane [Annotator's Note: near Brunet, France], Irving Baum [Annotator's Note: a bombardier with the 407th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] thought it was going to blow up and he needed to get out. Badder [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Edward T. Badder] came and hesitated. Baum and Starks [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Captain George W. Starks] were on their knees, and they pushed him. Badder went out, then the engineer, then Baum, and then Starks. He felt very threatened when he was captured. Now he knew what was meant by the Nazis. He was already familiar with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 [Annotator's Note: anti-Semitic laws adopted in 1935 by the German Nazi government after it came to power in 1933]. He had been exposed to it and knew nobody could do anything if they were Jewish. He read later that due to the laws, 60 percent of research had been abandoned [Annotator's Note: in pharmaceuticals] because the doctors were all Jewish. The result is that he has read, and it might not be true, that not one German soldier received antibiotic treatment for their wounds in World War 2. Hauptmann Brunemeyer [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] was a good friend of his in the United States and was an engineer at Boeing [Annotator's Note: The Boeing Company, American aerospace company]. Baum met him at Vandenberg [Annotator's Note: Vandenberg Air Force Base, now Vandenberg Space Force Base near Lompoc, California] when he was involved in Minuteman [Annotator's Note: Minuteman land-based intercontinental ballistic missile] simulators. Brunemeyer was stationed in 1935 through 1937 at the Krupp works [Annotator's Note: Friedrich Krupp AG manufacturer, now Thyssen Krupp] in Essen [Annotator's Note: Essen, Germany] developing the 88mm [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. They were going to make a Gatling-type weapon [Annotator's Note: name for a rapid-firing, multiple-barrel firearm] out of it. Engineers in those days had a couple of pencils, a slide rule, and a couple of erasers. The Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police; abbreviated Gestapo] came into Krupp and out of the 14 guys there, five were Jewish. The higher ranks told the Gestapo they could not take anything, but they took it all and the project collapsed.

Irving Baum learned the value of life [Annotator's Note: from his World War 2 experiences]. Everybody needs help someway or another. If you are in a position to help, it makes you feel good. Like giving the galoshes to the woman. [Annotator's Note: Baum tells this story in the clip titled "Evacuating the Camp" of this interview.] He told his mother about it, and she cried because it made her so happy. He had a squadron commander who said that they must remember they are responsible for one another. Baum learned that you make sure the other guy is okay. His greeting to this day is, "take care now, and you stay well, you hear?" He tries to be optimistic and tries to control his temper. He learned to appreciate. The moment they played The Star-Spangled Banner [Annotator's Note: the national anthem of the United States] he appreciated how lucky he is to know what country he is in and who he is. [Annotator's Note: Baum tells this story in the clip titled "Liberation to Dachau" of this interview.] He is lucky and thankful. He believes the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is absolutely important because human beings' memories are awfully short, especially if something does not happen to them. He cannot fathom what it must have been like to be in the trenches and others cannot fathom what it was like to bail out of a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. He gets asked if he was scared, and he does not know. All he knew was that he was happy he heard the pop of the chute [Annotator's Note: when the parachute opened]. He is glad he is able to contribute to the objectives of the museum to ensure peoples' visits are educational and not just entertainment.