| Henry Schwab | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1922 Bavaria, Germany |
| Died | 2015 |
| Nativity | Germany |
| Religion | Jewish |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Army |
| ASN | 32681038 |
| Rank | Staff Sergeant |
| Rank at Ritchie | Private |
| Camp Ritchie | Class 12 (27 September – 25 November 1943) |
| Section | 5D |
| Enlisted | New York City, New York |
| Unit / division | Third Army |
| Team | IPW 57 |
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Henry Schwab (1922–2015) was a Bavaria-born Jewish refugee and Ritchie Boy who trained at Camp Ritchie with Class 12 and served as a full-time interrogator (and team scribe) with IPW Team 57 under XX Corps of the Third Army from Normandy into Austria.
Biography
Henry Schwab was born in Bavaria in 1922, in one of the more bitterly antisemitic parts of Germany. His father—a World War I German soldier—was arrested in 1933. At fourteen Schwab left Germany alone, lived with relatives on Long Island, and finished high school there. Many relatives were later killed in the Holocaust. He tried to volunteer but was classed as an enemy alien; he asked for immediate induction and entered service in December 1942, first at Fort Jay, then—unexpectedly—at Camp Ritchie.
Before the intelligence course he had trained with an infantry division at Camp Blanding, Florida, and became a U.S. Citizen on 25 June 1943 in Ocala, Florida. At Ritchie he entered Class 12 as a private in Company E-108, Second Training Battalion, and trained as an interrogator of prisoners of war. In the winter of 1944 his unit took part in about six weeks of California–Arizona desert maneuvers out of Camp Young, practicing POW handling and enemy operations while future IPW teams took shape.
Promoted to staff sergeant in March 1944, he sailed from New York for Glasgow on 10 April 1944 aboard the Queen Mary. In England he was stationed at Broadway, near Stratford-upon-Avon, with XX Corps Headquarters of the Third Army under Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker—posting situation maps, working aerial photos, translating German documents—and attended a British document school in London. The unit moved to the coastal town of Marlboro before the Normandy invasion.
Schwab landed in Normandy about a month after D-Day. His first assignment, a POW compound in Brittany, he later called the most dangerous stretch of his war. With IPW Team 57 attached to XX Corps under Gen. George S. Patton Jr., he moved through France, Luxembourg, Germany, and Austria—Normandy, Brittany, Chartres, Metz, Trier, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Weimar, and Ried—writing the team’s daily Corps-level interrogation reports as full-time interrogator and scribe, including during the Battle of the Bulge. He remembered Patton barking at naked soldiers in a shower to clean up and get back to killing the enemy. On 14 April 1945, two days after Buchenwald’s liberation, he visited the camp searching for relatives later known to have been murdered. Near the end of the fighting he also returned to Uehlfeld, Germany, with his cousin Fred Fields of the 69th IPW Team. After the armistice in May 1945 the team billeted at Tutzing in southern Germany to help identify suspected war criminals among surrendered troops and hospital patients.
Schwab left Marseilles on the USS Admiral Capps on 3 October 1945, arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, on 10 October, and was discharged at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on 28 January 1946. He kept the letters he had written home throughout the war. In later life he lived in West Hyannisport, Massachusetts, and wrote on Holocaust postal history; in 2005 he published a firsthand Camp Ritchie account in The Israel Philatelist. He died in 2015.
Research notes
- Joint NPS Fort Hunt oral history with Werner Gans and Werner Herbert Gumpertz.
Gallery
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Technical record
| Field | Imported value |
|---|---|
| Approx Age at Death | 93 |
| Nara ASN | 32681038 |
| Nara Name | SCHWAB HENRY |
| Nara State | 23 |
| Nara County | 61 |
| Nara POE | 2364 |
| Nara DOE | 111242 |
| Nara Grade Alpha | PVT |
| Nara Grade Code | 8 |
| Nara Branch Alpha | BI |
| Nara Branch Code | 0 |
| Branch | Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA |
| Nara Term or Enlistment | 5 |
| Term of enlistment | Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law |
| Defer. Date | 0 |
| Nara Source | 0 |
| Nara Nativity | N1 |
| Nara Year of Birth | 22 |
| Nara Race | J |
| Nara Race Description | White not yet a citizen |
| Nara Education | 5 |
| Nara Civilian Occupation | 1 |
| Nara Marital Status | 1 |
| Nara Height (inches) | 66 |
| Nara Weight (lbs) | 142 |
| Class_ASN | 32681038 |
| Class_Name | SCHWAB, Henry |
| match_method | asn_exact_name_exact |
| row_source | both |
Timeline
- 1922 — Born in Bavaria, Germany; father arrested 1933; left alone at 14 for relatives on Long Island.
- December 1942 — Entered service after enemy-alien delays (Fort Jay, then Camp Ritchie).
- 25 June 1943 — Naturalized in Ocala, Florida (after Camp Blanding infantry training).
- Class 12 — Camp Ritchie IPW training; winter 1944 California–Arizona desert maneuvers (Camp Young).
- March 1944 — Promoted staff sergeant.
- 10 April 1944 — Sailed on Queen Mary to Scotland; Broadway (XX Corps / Third Army); British document school in London.
- ~July 1944 onward — Normandy (about a month after D-Day); Brittany POW compound; IPW Team 57 through France, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria; Battle of the Bulge; team scribe.
- 14 April 1945 — Visited Buchenwald two days after liberation.
- May 1945 onward — Tutzing: identifying suspected war criminals in hospitals / among POWs.
- 28 January 1946 — Discharged at Fort Dix.
- 2015 — Died.
Sources
- NPS Fort Hunt Oral History — joint interview with Werner Gans, Werner Gumpertz, and Henry Schwab (formerly published on the NPS Fort Hunt oral-history exhibit)
- Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
- Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
- NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
- 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)
- Dan Gross, Timeline of Henry Schwab for Camp Ritchie (private research document; 1 source documents reviewed)
- Dan Gross, Timeline of Schwab, Henry for Camp Ritchie (private research files; selected non-private narrative findings; 1 source files: HENRY SCHWAB.docx)
- The Stories/The Enemy I Knew/Fred Fields (cousin Uehlfeld episode)
- Article in The Israel Philatelist by Henry Schwab, W. Hyannisport, MA — © The Israel Philatelist - April, 2005