Pvt. Carl W. Kirchenhausen, the first American released in the prisoner exchange at Panmunjom, Korea, is a Jewish refugee from Germany who experienced all the tortures of the Nazi regime before coming to the United States where he was inducted in the Army in 1950.
His father was a passenger on the ill-fated boat “St. Louis” which left Germany in 1939 for South America but had to return after several countries refused to accept the refugee passengers. Pvt. Kirchenhausen and his father landed in England where they were interned during World War II. His father died there. One of Pvt. Kirchenhausen’s relatives was killed in a Nazi concentration camp. His mother, who is not Jewish, lives in Berlin, Germany. He was brought up in the Jewish religion.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
