Edward nació a una familia judía en Hamburgo. En 1935, las leyes de Nuremburg prohibieron el matrimonio o relaciones sexuales entre los alemanes judíos y no judíos. Edward tenía entonces alrededor de veinte años. Fue arrestado por salir con una mujer no judía. Clasificado como ofensor habitual, fue luego deportado al campo de concentración de Sachsenhausen cerca de Berlín. Hizo trabajos forzados en proyectos de construcción. Edward se había cazado poco antes de su encarcelación, y su esposa arregló su emigración de Alemania. Edward fue liberado en septiembre de 1938 y se fue de Alemania. Se quedó con parientes en Ámsterdam, Holanda, y luego emigró a los Estados Unidos.
One particular incident I recall like it was yesterday. An old gentleman with the name of Solomon, I'll never forget. He must have been well in his seventies, he simply couldn't run. He couldn't run, he had to walk. He couldn't run and he collapsed, and he laid in the road, and one of the Storm Troopers, a tall, young fellow, very slender, very tall, stepped on his throat. This is true. Unbelievable, but true, 'til the man was dead. We had to pick up his body and throw him to the side of the road, and we continued on into the camp, where we was assembled in a courtyard, and a strange incident happened at that time. We faced a barrack, a door on the right, a door on the left. People went in the left door, came out the right door, entirely different people. Their hair was shaven off, they had a prisoner's uniform on, a very wide, striped uniform. My number was 6199.
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