From Hitler to freedom; Gisele McCurdy shares life's journey with Rotary

Jun. 7—Gisele McCurdy, when asked by Cleburne Rotarian Gary Little how she dealt with inevitable occurrences of interaction with Nazis, recalled standing in line in Berlin.

"A lady in front of me told a joke about Hitler," McCurdy said. "Her friend said, 'Don't say that too loudly. They'll come and get you.' You couldn't say anything against the government and we all knew we had to be very careful with what we said."

McCurdy, talking to former Times-Review contributor Larue Barnes in 2007, relayed how her grandfather once told her that even should Hitler manage to win Germany's war against Russia the German army would never be able to hold a country that large.

"After he told me that, he warned me not to tell anyone, not even my friends at school," McCurdy said.

Born in 1931, two years before Adolph Hitler's appointment as Germany's chancellor, McCurdy spent her early life in and around Berlin before, during and after World War II.

"My family were never Nazis," McCurdy said in a 2016 Times-Review article. "You see, people over here, they think everyone who was in the German Army was a Nazi. But, they weren't."

Her father, Adolf Schindler, served in the German Army, McCurdy added, not by choice but because he was pressed into service.

"My father was not a Nazi," McCurdy said. "He served his country, not Hitler. I remember once when he was home on leave, I asked him what would happen to us if Germany lost the war. He said, 'I'm not a Nazi. It won't matter much to us either way. I don't think we can win.'"

McCurdy, now a Cleburne resident and U.S. citizen, shared her memories of Berlin during Thursday's weekly luncheon of the Cleburne Rotary Club.

McCurdy's father was sent to France to guard rail lines, power plants and such from sabotage by Free France supporters. Captured near the end of the war on a bicycle about 25 miles from the German border by American soldiers, he was turned over to the French and shortly after died of pneumonia in prison.

"He died December 13, 1945 but we didn't get word until February," McCurdy said. "My mother put in to get orphan pay for [my two sisters and me] but then the end of the war came and there was no government. So it took 18 months until she finally got some money from the government for us."

McCurdy recalled as well a playmate from her younger days who went absent from the playground without explanation. She later learned that the girl's father killed her, the rest of his family and himself because they were Jewish and wanted to escape capture by the Nazis.

On a lighter note, McCurdy spoke of visiting a big, fancy home on the edge of Berlin when she was 2 or 3. The family, also Jewish, fled to America once Hitler gained power. McCurdy said her aunt, who had worked for the family, took her to the stately home from time to time.

"They had a little pond to feed ducks," McCurdy said. "My aunt took me to the zoo and things and took me there often."

McCurdy later told her mother she could remember the home only to be told that she would've been too young to remember that.

"So I drew her a map of the hallway, kitchen, bathroom, living room, a shelf in the corner with trains for their son who would've been 8 or 9," McCurdy said. "My mother couldn't believe that I was able to draw a picture of what it looked like."

Later as a seamstress, a craft she learned in Berlin and continued to practice once in America, McCurdy amazed employers with her ability to cut fabric by sight rather than patterns.

Food and other goods were scarce during and after the war, McCurdy said, and bombs were a constant threat.

"They said if you hear a bomb it won't hit you, but it sure was a scary sound," McCurdy said. "When my dad came home on leave for the first time in early 1941, he sent my mother and us girls to the basement and said he would stay by the front door. But, when the bombs started to fall, boy, he came into that basement pretty quick."

But even life in a war zone couldn't completely subdue the call of childhood.

"I graduated in 1945 after eight years of school," McCurdy said. "But in 1943, schools didn't open in Berlin after summer vacation because the schools had been bombed out. We thought it was great. We could play, do whatever we wanted. We had no school."

The family at points evacuated Berlin, returned and eventually McCurdy was sent to live outside of Berlin while her mother and sisters remained. Eventually she made her way back to Berlin, via freight trains, unsure whether her mother and sister were still alive. The trains would go as far as they could to the point where the tracks had been bombed out at which point she had to find another boxcar to hop.

"I finally made it home and called my mom, but she didn't come to the window," McCurdy said. "My next door neighbor looked out and said that she had gone looking to see if I was still alive. [The neighbor] told me that my sisters were with her and that my mom would be coming back tomorrow.

"Then my mom came back the next day and we were so happy that the four of us were still together."

McCurdy spoke of the interim during which Russia controlled her section of Berlin before the Americans took that part over and of the Russians penchant for rape and pillage.

She spoke of meeting her future husband, Howard McCurdy, an American soldier from Oklahoma. How, during one early date, he suggested getting a taxi back to her house but she said she'd rather walk so they could get a banana split instead.

"It was Nov. 2 when we met and by Christmas he asked my mom if he could marry me," McCurdy said.

With the war over, Howard McCurdy had to return to the states but promised McCurdy he would come back for her. Much to her relief, he remained true to his word.

Howard McCurdy subsequently hired on at the former missile base in Alvarado and later, thanks to training he received in the Army, worked for and then owned his own HVAC company.

Though she returned to Berlin for visits — her mother and sisters remained there — McCurdy said she soon came to view herself as 100 percent American.

Cleburne Rotary President Mollie Mims mentioned that McCurdy learned English in large part by watching American TV shows.

Now retired, McCurdy became an American citizen in 1964 and has lived in her Cleburne home for more than 50 years.

"A lot of girls got their citizenship, too, but they were always still German," McCurdy said. "But this is my country and Germany is just a place where I used to live."