The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Alan Pilot. Pilot joined the Army in January 1943 and received basic training at Camp Howze. He received further training in Louisiana for the European Theater and then in California for the Pacific Theater. In January he left for Camp Old Gold at La Havre, where he served as a combat medic, supporting Companies E, G, and H of the 343rd Infantry, 86th Division. His unit relieved the 8th Division and fought in Cologne, where he was stationed at the top of the cathedral while it was being shelled. In the Ruhr Pocket a defective shell landed 10 feet away from him. He recalls seeing 100,000 Germans surrender there. He describes the Bavarian people as friendly as he passed through Austria on VE Day. He was then sent to the Pacific as part of Operation Coronet. VJ Day came while he was still crossing the Pacific. He spent the last five months of his service in the Philippines at a quiet outpost while the rest of his unit prepared the Philippines for independence. Pilot returned home and was discharged in January 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Alan Pilot. Pilot joined the Army in January 1943 and received basic training at Camp Howze. He received further training in Louisiana for the European Theater and then in California for the Pacific Theater. In January he left for Camp Old Gold at La Havre, where he served as a combat medic, supporting Companies E, G, and H of the 343rd Infantry, 86th Division. His unit relieved the 8th Division and fought in Cologne, where he was stationed at the top of the cathedral while it was being shelled. In the Ruhr Pocket a defective shell landed 10 feet away from him. He recalls seeing 100,000 Germans surrender there. He describes the Bavarian people as friendly as he passed through Austria on VE Day. He was then sent to the Pacific as part of Operation Coronet. VJ Day came while he was still crossing the Pacific. He spent the last five months of his service in the Philippines at a quiet outpost while the rest of his unit prepared the Philippines for independence. Pilot returned home and was discharged in January 1946.

Biography of Marie Antoinette, starting with the death of Charles VI, emperor of Austria, in 1770. It includes a description of her childhood, her life as queen, and her trial and execution. Each chapter heading includes a short summary of events.

Interview with Mike Jacobs, a Holocaust survivor from Konin, Poland. Jacobs discusses his family background and growing up in Konin's Jewish community, the growth of antisemitism, attending an integrated school, the German invasion and occupation, moving to the ghetto and life inside, collaborators and Jewish police, hostages, moving to a smaller ghetto, losing his family to Treblinka, working with Polish partisans, escaping the ghetto and working from Ostrowiec concentration camp, engaging in sabotage, life in the camp, transfer to Birkenau, the gas chambers, the attempted Auschwitz-Birkenau uprising, survival there, being evacuated to Vienna, labor in an aircraft factory, liberation, and life afterwards.

Interview with Edith Molner, a Holocaust survivor from Szeged, Hungary. Molner discusses her education, her family background, being Jewish, increasing persecution by the Hungarian government during the war, the German invasion, relocation to the ghetto and life there, conversions and suicides, liquidation, experiences in internment at Auschwitz, labor, the hospital, losing her family, transfer to Mauthausen-Gusen, liberation, recovery, returning to Hungary, and moving to Israel.

Autobiographical text describing Joe Nations' early memories of the 1920s and 1930s, and his time in the military during World War II.

Franz Schreker (1878-1934) was a Jewish-Austrian composer of great success during the first decades of the twentieth century. Schreker’s reputation diminished after 1933 when Hitler came to power and, in 1938, his compositions were labeled Entartete Musik (“degenerate music”) by the Nazis in a public display in Düsseldorf. The Third Reich and post-war Germany saw Schreker as a decadent outcast, misunderstanding his unique style that combined elements of romanticism, expressionism, impressionism, symbolism, and atonality. This study of Schreker’s Lieder will pursue two goals. First, it will analyze the Mutterlieder (before 1898), the Fünf Gesänge (1909), and the first piece from Vom ewigen Leben (1923) stylistically. Schreker composed nearly four dozen Lieder, incorporating a wide range of styles and ideas. By studying and performing these songs written at various points in his career (including early songs, songs written after he met Schoenberg, and his last songs during the height of his fame), I hope to develop a clearer understanding of how Schreker synthesized the many cultural forces and artistic movements that seem to have influenced his compositional style. Second, this study will consider the sociopolitical circumstances that fueled the disintegration of his reputation. This disintegration occurred not just during the Third …

Interview with Eugene Cronin, a US Army Air Corps WWII veteran and POW from Kansas City, Missouri. Cronin discusses his time as a B-24 crewmember stationed at Cerignola, Italy, the kinds of missions flown, his being shot down over Hungary and captured by the German Army, and his experiences in captivity at Vienna, Frankfurt, and Stalag Luft #1 near Barth in Western Pommerania.

Interview with Bertha (Mrs. Herman) Rosenzweig concerning her experiences as co-founder (with her husband, Herman, deceased) of Tex Glass, Inc. in Decatur, Texas. Rosenzweig discusses her family background, her education in Brooklyn, N.Y., and her teaching career. She also speaks of her husband's family background and his life in Europe during the Hitler era, her husband's technical training and his work in glass factories, starting his own glass factory in Vienna, fleeing the Nazis and migrating to Greece, working for the underground getting Jews out of Central Europe, fleeing to Egypt and Palestine, and migrating to the United States. Rosenzweig also talks of meeting her husband and their marriage, working in Canada and Mexico, opening a glass factory in Athens, Texas, their move to Decatur, as well as their employee relations, products and the production process, the distribution system, financing methods, her managing the business, the sale of the business, and reparations from the Austrian government.

Interview with Bertha Rosenzweig, co-founder of Tex-Glass, Inc. in Decatur, Texas. The interview includes Rosenzweig's personal experiences about her education in New York, and having a teaching career. Rosenzweig talks about her family background, her knowledge of her husband's family background and his life in Europe during the Hitler era, his technical training, work in glass factories, starting his own glass factory in Vienna, fleeing Nazis and migrating to Greece, the Jewish underground in Central Europe, fleeing to Egypt, Palestine, and his migration to the U.S. Additionally, Rosenzweig talks about their meeting and marriage, work in Canada and Mexico, opening a glass factory in Athens, Texas, moving to Decatur, employee relations, products and the production process, the distribution system, financing methods, her managing the business, sale of the business, and reparations from the Austrian government.

According to the most recent National Threat Assessment, the global financial crisis and its geopolitical implications pose the primary near-term security concern of the United States. Over the short run, both the EU and the United States are attempting to resolve the financial crisis while stimulating domestic demand to stem the economic downturn. These efforts have born little progress so far as the economic recession and the financial crisis have become reinforcing events, causing EU governments to forge policy responses to both crises. This report discusses this situation in detail and also discusses individual efforts by both the U.S. and EU to combat the effects of the crisis.

Interview with Robert Seidel, a Army Air Force WWII veteran from Elkhart, Indiana, who served in the 763rd Bomb Squadron in the European Theater. Accompanied by his wife Helen, Seidel discusses his family, the start of the war and joining the Air Corps, training as a flight engineer, assignment to the B-24 and deployment to Spinazzola, Italy, flying combat missions, life at the base, ditching his aircraft near Salzburg and getting captured, being interrogated, internment at Stalag Luft IV, liberation, and returning to the US. In appendix are three photos of Seidel, his B-24 crew, and their aircraft, Seidel's papers from when he was a German prisoner, his POW log book, the official narrative report of the mission he was lost on, and a letter from his family while he was in Italy.