Jack Bornstein was born in Brooklyn [Annotator’s Note: Brooklyn, New York City, New York] in January 1921. He grew up with five siblings. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], his father was a salesman and his mother stayed home raising the children. His parents always had a happy demeanor even though times were tough. Sometimes food was hard to come by and they would have to come up with creative ways to make dinner. His parents never let their children know the difficulties they faced every day. His parents were also firm believers in education, which was something that stuck with him and his siblings throughout their entire lives. Bornstein was listening to a football game over the radio with his brother when there was an interruption, and it was announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Bornstein did not fully understand how the event would impact him, but his mother immediately cried. He had two brothers that served in World War 2. Bornstein was in college at the time the war broke out, and was given a deferment for nine months. In December 1942, he became active in the Army and was sent to basic training. He was accepted into the ASTP program [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] at Boston University [Annotator’s Note: in Boston, Massachusetts] and trained in French and French government. When he completed his training with the ASTP, he received orders to report to Camp Pickett, Virginia and was assigned to the Service Battery of the 308th Field Artillery Battalion, 78th Infantry Division and served as a radio operator and forward observer. He became good friends with one soldier, who they called Dismal, and trained together. With the help of his mother, he was able to receive his college degree and graduate before he was sent overseas. Bornstein grew up on a street that was ethnically diverse. He grew up Jewish with a father who was an orthodox Jew.

[Annotator’s Note: The video glitches and the video and sound are sometimes not synchronized throughout the segment.] Jack Bornstein served in the Army as a radio operator and forward observer in the Service Battery of the 308th Field Artillery Battalion, 78th Infantry Division. He boarded a ship with his unit at Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey] and they left in a convoy in September 1944. He disembarked in England. During his last trip home, he brought a couple of his fellow G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] for the weekend. On his third day in the Army, he was almost court martialed after he was put on KP [Annotator’s Note: Kitchen Patrol] duty. As he was giving out meat to the soldiers, he told one to come back because he was given a smaller piece of meat. When the soldier came back and Bornstein served him some more meat, he heard a voice behind him say, “Jews always want more.” Bornstein went after the soldier that said that and beat him up. There were two other instances where he had altercations while in the military. He met a guy from Kentucky that told Bornstein that he always thought the Jews had horns and a tail. Bornstein asked where he heard that, and the guy said he heard it from his church, and he saw that they were wrong. They became good friends. The function of the forward observer was to locate enemy lines and give orders to fire upon them. They moved along high grounds and tried to move quickly, not staying in any one area for very long. Bornstein was aware of the discrimination that European Jews were experiencing by the Germans because his extended family in Russia mailed letters to his parents with updates. His father begged his family to come to America. Many of his family did not survive the Holocaust [Annotator's Note: also called the Shoah; the genocide of European Jews during World War 2].

[Annotator’s Note: The video glitches and the video and sound are sometimes not synchronized throughout the segment.] Jack Bornstein served in the Army as a radio operator and forward observer in the Service Battery of the 308th Field Artillery Battalion, 78th Infantry Division. His unit was ordered to Hosselt, Belgium to relieve another division. His unit came under combat and soldiers were being killed all around him, but he kept doing his job. His unit was able to push the Germans back and took two towns. He had no problem killing Germans because that meant it was one less enemy and one more American saved. On 16 December 1944, the Germans began their offensive in the Ardennes [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], and his unit had to hold their position. He remembered when the Germans broke through the 106th Infantry Regiment and rounded up prisoners. He heard that the Germans lined up the prisoners in a field and shot them dead. His unit from then on did not take any more prisoners until they received word from their superiors to interrogate captured prisoners. They never took SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] prisoners alive. They knew they were SS by their insignia or by a tattoo that they had near their armpits. When they found dead SS soldiers, they always emptied their canteens because they had schnapps in it. During the night, many soldiers were trigger happy, but did their best to hold their fire. They used passwords that only Americans were familiar with.

[Annotator’s Note: The video glitches and the video and sound are sometimes not synchronized throughout the segment.] Jack Bornstein served in the army as a radio operator and forward observer in Service Battery, 308th Field Artillery Battalion, 78th Infantry Division. In late January 1945, he was seriously wounded near the spine by shrapnel from a German artillery round while he was in a foxhole. He was transferred by ambulance to a hospital near the coast. The weather was rainy and cold. He spent about a month in a hospital in Cambridge, England and underwent an operation. He turned 23 years old while in the hospital. He returned to his unit in March 1945 near the Remagen Bridgehead in Germany. As he crossed into Germany, he knew the war was coming to an end. His unit was sent to Berlin [Annotator’s Note: Berlin, Germany] to guard Spandau Prison which held members of the SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] commanders. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 0:56:31.000.] His unit was then sent to Wuppertal [Annotator’s Note: Wuppertal, Germany].

After the war in Europe ended, Jack Bornstein was sent to the Dora-Nordhausen forced labor camp [Annotator’s Note: Mittelbau-Dora was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany] where he worked as a translator for a short time. He learned that the prisoners killed one of the German guards when they heard he was in the infirmary. Bornstein accidentally gave one of the prisoners some chocolate and his body could not handle it and he died. They helped the prisoners by allowing them to bathe, feeding them soup, and giving them fresh clothes. The townspeople insisted they knew nothing about the concentration camps. When Bornstein first entered the camp, he remembered how horrible the stench was. Bornstein knew about concentration camps before he was sent overseas because his father received letters from his extended family in Russia. The prisoners were so glad to see the Americans. They begged for cigarettes and soap. Bornstein had a strong sense of anger towards the Germans in general for doing this to people. He returned to his unit and was forced to go into a peacetime situation with the Germans. He began to accept the Germans as individuals. He noticed that many of the German men had Hitler-looking [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] mustaches. He forged his captain’s name on an order and made the men to shave their mustaches. Bornstein transferred to the 84th Infantry Division and shipped home in January 1946. He was told that he would be retrained to go over to the Pacific, but the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] ended the war with the Japanese. Bornstein was discharged from the service at Fort Dix, [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey] in January 1946 with the rank of technician fifth grade, or corporal.

[Annotator’s Note: The video glitches and the video and sound are sometimes not synchronized throughout the segment.] Jack Bornstein took advantage of the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and went to law school. The G.I. Bill was a great benefit for many veterans and it was the greatest thing in the world because it lifted people out of poverty. He did not have trouble adjusting back into civilian life, except that he had to get his bad language under control. Bornstein did suffer from post-traumatic stress [Annotator's Note: post traumatic stress disorder; a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event either experienced or witnessed] and had trouble sleeping for some time. He figured out how to accept his past and to get through the bad dreams. Bornstein’s most memorable experience of World War 2 was being with the infantry because there were so many in the military. The best award an infantryman could receive was the combat infantry badge [Annotator's Note: the Combat Infantryman Badge or CIB is awarded to infantrymen and Special Forces soldiers in the rank of Colonel and below, who personally fought in active ground combat while assigned as members of either an infantry, Ranger or Special Forces unit, of brigade size or smaller, any time after 6 December 1941]. Bornstein fought because he was drafted and did not want to go. He wanted to finish his education. The war changed his life by making him realize that material things are not important, but people are important. He is glad that he served and lived through his World War 2 experience. He feels fortunate that he has a family and hopes that his values live through them. Bornstein is afraid for America today because in World War 2, the people fought for freedom of religion and humanity. Bornstein believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations.