I had an infection in my foot. It turned out to be blood poisoning. So I was delayed, and the delay saved my life, really.
I started to talk to some of my comrades - guys that I had been in the Army with and who I'd been friends with. I said, "What happened to so-and-so?" and they said he died in a German salt mine.
I think he was explicit that it was a slave labor situation, but I was not alarmed at that point, because there were so many tragedies involved in that war. That was the first time I had any indication that something was sort of strange.
The majority were not Jewish. 80 out of 350 were Jewish. The Germans figured if his name is Rigerio or Zaccaria... they said, That's a strange name - it must be a Jew, you know.
Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.
There was a war crimes trial because an American prisoner had been shot trying to escape. He had obviously been recaptured and shot, and that violated the Geneva Convention.
There would be a paragraph about some veteran digging tunnels for the Germans in a slave labor camp, or something like that. Finally I decided to look it up and go further into it.
Father of Davis Guggenheim, Grace Guggenheim and Jonathan Guggenheim.
At the time of his death, he held the record for most Academy Award nominations for documentaries (10 + 1 credited to his company, Charles Guggenheim and Associates), including 8 (a record) for documentary short subjects; and most Oscars for documentary short subjects (3 + 1 credited to his company, Charles Guggenheim and Associates). (His Oscar for Robert Kennedy Remembered (1968) in the live action short subject category.)
Father-in-law of Elisabeth Shue.
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