DALLETT:

My name is Nancy Dallett and I'm here with Mr. Andre Heymann for the Ellis Island Oral History Project. This is interview number 386 [DP-12]. And I'm with Mr. Heymann at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Martinez, California. Today is Thursday, I think, Thursday -

HEYMANN:

Thursday.

DALLETT:

April 6th.

HEYMANN:

April 6th or 7th.

DALLETT:

We've both lost track of time here.

HEYMANN:

April 6.

DALLETT:

April 6, 1989. And we are beginning this interview at about 2:30 in the afternoon. And we're going to talk about Mr. Heymann's experience coming through Ellis Island in 1924 from France. So, take me back to the beginning of your story, and tell me where and when you were born.

HEYMANN:

I was born in San Francisco, California. I then was sent to France when I was ten months old to live with my grandmother because at that time there was a kind of a depression in California. My dad was out of work. And my brother was coming along. So my grandmother took me to France and I was supposed to come back four years later, but World War One broke out and I was stuck over there. I couldn't get over. And we lived in Billancourt, which was a - a suburb of, uh, Paris. In 1921, we tried coming over when they start letting the people come, but the American consul thought we were German on account of my -- our name.

DALLETT:

Which was what?

HEYMANN:

Heymann.

DALLETT:

Heymann.

HEYMANN:

Heymann. And my -- that time my name was Adolph Heymann, and they took us for German. S-- it wasn't until 1924, when we finally got permission to come.

DALLETT:

But, in fact, you were an American citizen.

HEYMANN:

In fact I was, yeah.

DALLETT:

You were born in San Francisco...

HEYMANN:

Yup.

DALLETT:

Had grown up in France. Tell me a bit about that, what you remember, where you, obviously you don't remember your ten months in San Francisco, but any memories of what it was like in France where you lived with your grandmother?

HEYMANN:

Yeah, yeah. We lived in Billancourt first, which was towards the German lines. As a matter of fact, from our second floor, second story, we could see the trenches. And I remember the, uh, when they had a -- at Christmastime, they had a peace time - a peace quiet and they all jumped the trenches and had a good time. And when the Whistle blew they went back to fighting again.

DALLETT:

What kind of, which soldiers could you see in the trenches?

HEYMANN:

The French and German. We refused to leave because our home was at stake. But we finally had to. Then we moved...

DALLETT:

The soldiers took over your home?

HEYMANN:

Yes. They con--s--

DALLETT:

Do you remember that happening?

HEYMANN:

Confiscated it.

DALLETT:

Do you actually remember that happening?

HEYMANN:

Oh, yeah.

DALLETT:

Could you tell us a little bit about that?

HEYMANN:

Yeah. I was five, six years old then. Yeah, I remember we had some horses. As I recall, we had about six horses and, uh, Germans, I mean the French took them. As, you know, like they, it was their own, harness and all. They even took a chuck wagon we had.

DALLETT:

I'm sorry, what kind of wagon?

HEYMANN:

Chuck wagon.

DALLETT:

Chuck wagon.

HEYMANN:

You see, in those days, we didn't have the automobile.

DALLETT:

Right. Now, you lived with your grandmother and your grandfather?

HEYMANN:

Right.

DALLETT:

And was it on a farm?

HEYMANN:

Yes, ma'am.

DALLETT:

What did you, what did your grandmother and grandfather grow?

HEYMANN:

Where did they grow? They both came, were born in France. So was my mother and father.

DALLETT:

And what was their farm like where you grew up?

HEYMANN:

It was just a family farm where we'd grow vegetables for ourselves and the neighbors. I had the job of going out on the street with a wheelbarrow. I was about six years old then. And, uh, I had to pick up the manure from the horses on the street to fertilize the farm. That's the only fertilizer we had in those days.

DALLETT:

You mean you'd go through the streets and pick up manure?

HEYMANN:

(laughs) Yeah. And then from there we moved to Paris to get away from the German. When they surround Paris we managed to get out. I was sent to a school in the southern part of France in Normandy, which is garlic country. I remember smell of garlic, and then when we moved back after the war was over, we moved back to a little town that was close to Paris again, by the name of Chennieviere. That's C-H-E-N-N-I-E-V-I-E-R- E. And that was on a -- it was just a small town on top of a hill. But, uh, then we, that's when we started going to the, uh, to the consulate to try to get papers to come back, because we had lost them when the - when they took possession of our home. Lost everything.

DALLETT:

So when the German soldiers took over your first home, you...

HEYMANN:

The German soldiers took, after they pushed the French. The French took our soldiers, I mean, our home, originally, and then they got so far back then the German got it.

DALLETT:

And everything was lost then, at your grandfather's.

HEYMANN:

Oh, yeah. Everything was --. Well, by that time my grandfather had been killed by a runaway team, the team just took off and he got thrown off the wagon. It was a small - a four wheel wagon. And, uh, he got thrown off. And he died of gangrene. We didn't have no medicine for it in those days. We didn't even know what it was, much less treat it. [pause]

DALLETT:

You want me to hold your--?

HEYMANN:

No, that's OK.

DALLETT:

OK.

HEYMANN:

All that bad noise—

DALLETT:

No. No. No. I just didn't know if you'd want to go --.

HEYMANN:

So then we left our house. Sometime in September, I don't remember the date we left. It was sometime September.

DALLETT:

Now, had your grandfather planned to come --

HEYMANN:

Yeah, he was coming.

DALLETT:

-- to this country, too?

HEYMANN:

Yes, he was planning on coming.

DALLETT:

And who else? Your grandfather...

HEYMANN:

My grandmother and myself.

DALLETT:

The three of you had planned to come.

HEYMANN:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

What did your grandmother do, then, after your grandfather was killed?

HEYMANN:

She th—she - she went house working, housekeeping. We didn't have much money in those days. (he laughs) But anyway, we came over on the Savoie, the uh, there was a transatlantic liner. That's spell S-A-V- O-I-E. And uh, we landed, uh, no, we didn't land. We came up to the harbor, the East River, and a boat came alongside, to b-- like a tug, to pick us up, and they took us to Ellis Island. That's what I remember by that boat trip. We could see New York, but we didn't get there right away. (he laughs) And then, uh, there was a little kid there about my age. And the first thing we did, we noticed those big, long tables that they had in the dining room hall. God, they looked like they were a mile long. (he laughs) And we started running up and down on them, and somebody, I couldn't speak English, somebody came down and told us to get off. But we didn't know what they were saying. (he laughs) We even tried to, uh, buy a French newspaper, we couldn't do it. So we finally got a letter off to my dad who was waitin' for us in San Francisco and, uh, we had a good, pretty good time for, you know, kids. We had a pretty good time on Ellis, but my grandmother didn't like it. (he laughs) And then, that was at the time of the flu epidemic so they held us over for so—for that reason. We spent a total - total of almost three weeks there before they let us free.

DALLETT:

And why did they detain you for the three weeks?

HEYMANN:

The - from the - the flu epidemic, influenza.

DALLETT:

It was like a quarantine to keep you there.

HEYMANN:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

You didn't have the flu?

HEYMANN:

No, we didn't have it.

DALLETT:

Your grandmother didn't.

HEYMANN:

But everybody had mask on. With us it was just a piece of cloth, it wasn't a real mask.

DALLETT:

Had someone on your boat had it? I mean, I don't understand why you were quarantined?

HEYMANN:

I guess it was the law over here. But we s—we stayed on Ellis almost twenty-one days. We could see New York and the Statue of Liberty, but we couldn't get any further. (he laughs)

DALLETT:

Now, how did your grandmother understand that you were just being kept there for some time, or was there a fear that...

HEYMANN:

I believe she did.

DALLETT:

She didn't think you were going to be sent back.

HEYMANN:

No. We had the mo—the necessary money to get into the country. We had to have a certain amount of money.

DALLETT:

Do you remember what that amount was?

HEYMANN:

I believe it was five hundred.

DALLETT:

Five hundred dollars.

HEYMANN:

Five hundred dollars.

DALLETT:

For the two of you to come through.

HEYMANN:

Right. To make sure we could make our own way.

DALLETT:

Do you remember her having to show that to anyone, or being questioned about whether she had it?

HEYMANN:

I th-- I believe she showed it. 'Cause when we went to New York, when we landed in New York finally, we went through the Immigration again, and that -- that's when this happened. [not understood] The funny part about it, we were - we were hungry, so we went to a restaurant. I don't know which one it was or where. I imagine it was some place around Broadway there, and we ordered steaks. We were hungry. And the salt on there, I couldn't believe it. The saltiest food, it was awfully salty. So we got some oranges and we saw the 10 "C." We thought it meant ten centimes, so that was pretty cheap for us, turn out to be it was ten cents. (he laughs) The - the dealer, this guy that would served the, uh, oranges kept saying, "More, more, more." (he laughs) Finally it was ten cents.

DALLETT:

Now, your, uh, your relatives, this is your mother and father in San Francisco. You corresponded with them?

HEYMANN:

Oh, yeah.

DALLETT:

You hadn't lost touch with them through the war?

HEYMANN:

Uh, we couldn't during the war. Once in a great while my dad could send maybe five dollars or twenty dollars, but a lot of it was lost, a lot of it was lost. But once in a while some of it got through. But it was difficult to, see, all our mail was censored, every bit of it. As a matter of fact, it was more censored that it was in World War Two.

DALLETT:

Hmm. Now, at what point was it, you talked a little before about, uh, not being able to get into the country because they thought you were German, because of your name.

HEYMANN:

Right.

DALLETT:

At what point was that? That wasn't when you came through Ellis Island?

HEYMANN:

No, that was where the American consul in France, in Paris. That was the American consul himself.

DALLETT:

When you were much younger.

HEYMANN:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

Okay. So what else can you tell me about Ellis Island, the voyage over or Ellis Island?

HEYMANN:

The thing I remember most is the dining room. The, uh, the sleeping quarters, I don't remember too much about those. I remember they had a big bathrooms, way big bathroom, they were huge. To me they were. (he laughs)

DALLETT:

Were you separated from your grandmother?

HEYMANN:

No. No, we stayed together. See, it was 1924, I was sixteen then.

DALLETT:

And do you, can you tell me anything you remember about the food in the dining room?

HEYMANN:

The food was pretty good, as I recall. It wasn't seasoned like we were used to, but we ate it. (he laughs) We had to eat it so we got by with that.

DALLETT:

And how did you pass the time if you had three weeks there?

HEYMANN:

You just, us guys would play ball or something, play catch. We didn't know how play baseball then. Then...

DALLETT:

And there were other children.

HEYMANN:

Yeah. There was a big yard that was fenced in with, oh, like cyclone wire.

DALLETT:

And how did you, how did you, uh, how were you understood if you were, you were speaking French?

HEYMANN:

By, uh, motions. We made ourselves understood. Yeah, it was quite an experience. We didn't have translators like we have today, and we didn't have a -- now, when I came here, the way I learned English was by going to school and learning the ABC all over again. I had already graduated in France when we left. I was -- my high school and everything. So I had -- went back her. And then another thing that helped me quite a bit, too, was the sound movies. I would sit there for better a day, sit there by the day, and by the end of the day, I would not -- know just about what they were saying, you know point to what they were doing in the picture.

DALLETT:

You mean you'd watch it over and over.

HEYMANN:

Yeah, right. Yeah. And then we had the, uh, oh, what do they call that, the Hippodrome. And, uh, that helped me quite a bit.

DALLETT:

Tell me about that.

HEYMANN:

Hippodrome?

DALLETT:

Uh-huh. The Hippodrome.

HEYMANN:

That was a, where they had the stage show, usually it was comics, and they and some dancers and different things, acrobats. And then they'd show a movie, then we'd go back to the Hippodrome. (he laughs) And then they'd give the kids balloons. Everybody got a balloon. It's funny, I can't remember some of the things. It's been so long ago, you know. It's over sixty years ago.

DALLETT:

Do you remember, you came off of Ellis Island, you remember going into a restaurant on Broadway.

HEYMANN:

I don't know if it was Broadway. It was close to the waterfront, and that's where we got that salty steak. And then another thing, it was put on one plate, the vegetables. And another thing, it was all on one plate which we don't do. Everything's on a separate plate. (he laughs)

DALLETT:

And then how did you get out to, uh, did you go immediately out to San Francisco.

HEYMANN:

Well, uh, no. From there, at that time, I don't know if they still do it or not, we caught the train to San Francisco, the Chicago Express, and landed near the stockyards in Chicago. I remember those stockyards because they smelled, and noisy. And we stayed there overnight, and then we got on a train, the San Pacific, to go to, uh, Oakland. And when we got to Oakland, we had to get on a ferryboat. And I thought to myself, another boat again. By that time I was getting pretty sick of them. But anyway, we went across on a boat. I don't remember which one it was. And when I got to, uh, San Francisco, I went right by my mother and father. We had pictures of each others, because we hadn't seen one another for a long time. And, uh, we had pictures of one another and we went right by them without recognizing. And then my mother had a friend that we called Aunt Bertha, she was also French, way down at the other end of the wharf, and she's the one that stopped us. She called my name out, Andre. And that stopped. That's for that - that's how we got together. And it was hot, it was August the 7th when we - when we got here. It was a hot day, I remember that. And then while in Chicago there was a little girl, a little black girl that had a piece of watermelon, which I had never seen before. And when she got through with it, she threw it on the ground, and the thing broke in a million pieces. So we told my dad about it and he said, "That's watermelon." I didn't know, I still didn't know what watermelon was. So he got one and, uh, at that time our home was in San Jose. So when we got to San Jose we had a piece of watermelon. I believe it was still warm when we ate the thing.

DALLETT:

Did you like it?

HEYMANN:

I didn't, uh, I wasn't quite sure if I liked it or not. Then I saw that, uh, that corn - corn on the -- corn on the cob. And people eating that. We th-- that's one thing we didn't eat. That was for the hogs.

DALLETT:

Did you begin to eat that, corn?

HEYMANN:

Yeah, we started to eat it, but it took us a little while. (he laughs) And then we found the butter salty over here because in - when in France we don't put salt. We made our own butter, even made our own cow's cheese.

DALLETT:

Your own?

HEYMANN:

Cows cheese. It was quite an experience.

DALLETT:

So what was that like when you were reunited, then, with your father and your mother?

HEYMANN:

Oh, it was great. I hadn't seen them all those years.

DALLETT:

You thought it, they thought it would just be a short separation, and it turned out to be...

HEYMANN:

Longer.

DALLETT:

Sixteen years.

HEYMANN:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

You were a young infant.

HEYMANN:

Ten months, right, when I left San Francisco. My dad came here at a bad time. There was a, uh, a fellow that had come from France before, Thomas Sonalac]ph]. And at that time he had a - a cleaning plant in, uh, San Francisco, a big one.

DALLETT:

Cleaning? A cleaning plant?

HEYMANN:

A cleaning plant, yes. And dyeing. And, uh, he had, uh, my dad was working for somebody over there, taking his apprenticeship. So when this Tomas Sonalac came over, they wanted my dad to go back with him. And it happened just when the Depression broke out, in the earthquake, 1906. As a matter of fact the, uh, the earthquake, he we-- he got here just a little bit before the earthquake. He got so scared he sneaked under the bed and the bed rolled away from him and he didn't know what to do. He was living on Church Street then and, uh, he, they put him to work when he went outside. He could speak very little English yet. They put him, he went to work outside on the Golden Gate burying the dead. This -- and, I think part about this, my mother and father, my father got here first without knowing my mother, on o—on one boat. And the boat went back to France and on the second load my mother came. And they met on a ferryboat in San Francisco during the earthquake time while they were burying, at that time they were bringing them back to Oakland from San Francisco.

DALLETT:

I'm sorry, they were bringing back...

HEYMANN:

My mother and dad. They still didn't know it, but they met on the ferryboat coming back to Oakland from San Francisco. (he laughs) Oh, man, I should have written a book.

DALLETT:

I think so. One thing I'm not sure I understood what you said. Your father, your father told you stories about the, the earthquake in 1906, about the fire in 1906. And did you say he was burying bodies?

HEYMANN:

No, no. They were burying. Burying.

DALLETT:

Burying.

HEYMANN:

Burying them, not burning.

DALLETT:

Yeah.

HEYMANN:

They put them in the ground.

DALLETT:

Right, right. B-U-R-Y-I-N-G. Burying, yeah.

HEYMANN:

So I was born in 1909.

DALLETT:

Right.

HEYMANN:

So that was three years after the earthquake.

DALLETT:

And where were they burying the bodies?

HEYMANN:

Some are buried, according to what my dad told me, some are buried right there in the Golden Gate Park.

DALLETT:

Golden Gate Park.

HEYMANN:

Some of them were.

DALLETT:

So he wasn't hurt, really.

HEYMANN:

No. He didn't get hurt, he just got scared. But he was coming back to, after he got out of there and the earthquake settled down, he was gong to come back and get some of his clothes, you know, stuff like that, and he couldn't get in -- back in. They wouldn't let him. They almost shot him, I guess on account of the robbing and all that, you know. After a catastrophe like that you always get that.

DALLETT:

So when you arrived, you were sixteen, and your father, was he living in San Jose then?

HEYMANN:

Yeah, at that time.

DALLETT:

And what was he doing? What did he do?

HEYMANN:

He had his own plant then.

DALLETT:

He had a plant.

HEYMANN:

Yeah, his own dry cleaning.

DALLETT:

And what did, uh, what did you begin to do when you got here?

HEYMANN:

Well, first I had to learn English.

DALLETT:

Right.

HEYMANN:

And then after that I went to work for my father.

DALLETT:

How did you begin to learn English?

HEYMANN:

By going to different things, shows, like I was telling you in the beginning.

DALLETT:

Like in movies, and...

HEYMANN:

Yeah.

DALLETT:

So just, informally, you picked it up.

HEYMANN:

Yeah, because we didn't have no teachers for it. (he laughs)

DALLETT:

And you weren't going back to school because you had finished school.

HEYMANN:

Well, I went back to school because I wanted a English diploma. I had my French diploma but I wanted an English. But I went through grammar school and high school real fast here. Inside of four years I was all finished.

DALLETT:

Four years.

HEYMANN:

Just about four years, yeah.

DALLETT:

So you learned some English.

HEYMANN:

Yeah. I - I went through, right through kindergarten. I started from kindergarten.

DALLETT:

Really?

HEYMANN:

At sixteen. That ws—that made me feel about this high. (He gestures)

DALLETT:

Now, were there other kinds in your boat that were just coming over and...

HEYMANN:

Oh, yeah, definitely.

DALLETT:

So you weren't alone in San Jose.

HEYMANN:

Yeah, but I was alone in San Jose.

DALLETT:

That must have been really difficult.

HEYMANN:

In San Jose there were some French people, but not too many. There was a lot of Italians.

DALLETT:

So you went through, you went through all those years of school in four years?

HEYMANN:

You see, over there, like the arithmetic and the teacher would write down the, uh, the problem on the blackboard and I'd figure it in my head with the metric system. So they get mad at me. (he laughs) Because I'd give the answer before she finished, practically. I don't know why they don't use it here. It's so easy.

DALLETT:

Right, They've never been able to bring that into this country, no.

HEYMANN:

They try -- they're trying now.

DALLETT:

Yeah. Little by little, yeah.

HEYMANN:

Yeah. Like your cars right now, all the parts are in millimeters and centimeters.

DALLETT:

Okay. We're going to flip the tape over. That's the end of interview number 386 [DP-12] or side one of interview number 386 [DP-12] with Andre Heymann. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

DALLETT:

So tell me a bit more about your father, then. He had the dry cleaning plant, and this was in San Jose. And, uh, what did your mother do?

HEYMANN:

My mother used to curl the - the feathers, ostrich feathers for the Masonic hats. The Masonic hats, in those days, they were like a old English captain's, uh, old English, you know, pirate-like. And then there was a big white plume on it. And uh, my father would wash them and dye them and then she would curl them with a knife.

DALLETT:

Did she do that at home, or did -

HEYMANN:

Yes Ma'am

DALLETT:

--she do that in the plant?

HEYMANN:

Yes, Ma'am. Yeah. She did that at home. It was side money for her because in those days the wife doesn't work.

DALLETT:

So she was working, but it was out the home so that was okay. And these were, these were hats that the Masonic Temple members...

HEYMANN:

Yeah, right.

DALLETT:

Did you help her with that?

HEYMANN:

No. No, at the time I was working with my dad, too, see.

DALLETT:

Tell me about that. You worked in his plant?

HEYMANN:

Yes, I did. And I did maintenance work first. No, first I did the, uh, janitor work. I got four dollars a week. And then I, uh, I got graduated to doing the maintenance.

DALLETT:

Of the drying, of the machines?

HEYMANN:

The machines, yeah. I got pretty good at that. And then from that I went on to doing the dry cleaning little by little. And then I went over in, uh, afterwards I went over to do the dyeing, the dyeing of the clothes, garments, which they did quite a bit in those days. I just learned little by little.

DALLETT:

At what age was this? Sorry. Because you came when you were sixteen. You were in school and working for those first four years?

HEYMANN:

Well, when I was sixteen, when I was sixteen I was going to school there, I would only work part time with my dad doing the janitorial work. We kept the plant open ten hours a day seven days a week in those days, and that went on until Roosevelt came out and changed to the NRA and went for eight hours, five days, and that was beautiful. (he laughs)

DALLETT:

So he cut you back from, uh, let's see, that would have been seventy hours a week...

HEYMANN:

To eighty -- to forty. Yup. That was quite a difference.

DALLETT:

And tell me about, a little bit about San Jose at that point. You said there weren't very many French people in the community, more Italians.

HEYMANN:

At that time? No, there weren't. Well, San Jose was a small, uh, burg, only had about twenty-four thousand people at that time. Streetcars rid--, as a matter of fact, we lived on 10th Street, and that was the last street going east that was paved. That was the last street. Now you go for miles and miles. And streetcars riding all over the place. We had what we called the Red Devil. They used to ride from San Jose to Los Gatos. There was a park there and, uh, we used to go there on weekends and play around, play horseshoes.

DALLETT:

And how did you grandmother fare when she came?

HEYMANN:

She did pretty good, but she never did learn the English language. She died, uh, we got here in '26 and she died in '33.

DALLETT:

But your mother, your mother spoke English when you came?

HEYMANN:

Oh, yeah. They both did. And my -- broken English, but they spoke it.

DALLETT:

So in your home, what language would you speak?

HEYMANN:

French. That's normal. Like the Italians, they spoke, uh, Italian.

DALLETT:

And when did you become a citizen? I'm sorry you were born a citizen. So you didn't go through that.

HEYMANN:

No, I didn't have to. The only one that had to become a citizen was my grandmother, because she hadn't been a citizen. So she's the only one that had to take it.

DALLETT:

So how many years did it take before you felt comfortable in this country?

HEYMANN:

I felt pretty comfortable after about, oh, it took me about five years, I'd say. You see, I left home, I had friends over there. I didn't know anybody here. It took about five, maybe six years.

DALLETT:

Did anything happen after the five or six years to make you feel that, or was it just the amount of time that had gone by.

HEYMANN:

Oh, by that time I had made friends, you know. It took time, but I finally made it.

DALLETT:

Did you every think about going back to live in France, or did you never want to go back?

HEYMANN:

No, not to live, never. I'd like to go back for a visit maybe, but not to live.

DALLETT:

So tell me a bit about what happened after that. Let's see, we're up to about nineteen, we're up to the thirties. What about in the Depression?

HEYMANN:

We went through that -- the all overtime .

DALLETT:

Did that affect your father's business and your work?

HEYMANN:

Oh, bound to. It was bound to. Actually, we didn't come out of the, uh, the bad time until Roosevelt came in, around '32, when he took off the Prohibition, the 18th Amendment, that helped the country quite a bit. Then the war effort came, that brought us back out.

DALLETT:

And how did, how did you feel the Depression where you were, in your business and in your family?

HEYMANN:

It was, couldn't get any money. There was no money. It was all barter, a lot of it.

DALLETT:

So would you barter services for cleaning, for other services?

HEYMANN:

Yeah, yeah. Or food.

DALLETT:

And your mother, she couldn't then, probably, continue to curl the ostrich feathers. What did she do to make ends meet in the Depression?

HEYMANN:

She had problems there, too. Everybody had problems in those days. There wasn't -- they said California wasn't hurt too bad, but as far as I'm concerned it was.

DALLETT:

And then the war came along.

HEYMANN:

That's when I went in the army.

DALLETT:

Can you tell me about that a bit?

HEYMANN:

(he laughs) You know you -- my wife used to ask me about it and I - I wouldn't tell her. I wouldn't talk about it. But, I went to the Atlantic first, on the Atlantic side, and I -- I was - When I first - - for, to be an interpreter, you know, to translate, and they told me I couldn't be there because I hadn't gone to school yet for that, which was okay by me. So I chose the submarine service. They all, practically all in the Pacific, I mean, the Atlantic, and then when we got the Krauts on the run, I went to the Atl-- Pacific, because the war was just about over here, too.

DALLETT:

Uh-huh. So you were on both sides, then.

HEYMANN:

Yeah. I got to go to New Caledonia, which is a French possession and, uh, it was part of our base there. I got to speak French there, I guess. So the guys would come along with me for their f- - what to buy, what to get. It was fun.

DALLETT:

We're going to conclude this now, so we don't tire out, Mr. Heymann, after his physical therapy here, and it's, uh, it's about 3:15. That's the end of interview number 386 [DP-12]. DP-12/HEYMANN