Imagine hiding in plain sight among a contingent of people who hate your religion, your people and everything you stand for. For most, this would be a daunting challenge, and for some it might be impossible. But during the Nazi regime, it was the only option Jochen “Jack” Wurfl and his brother, Peter, had if they wanted to survive.
At ages 7 and 8, the Jewish brothers joined the Hitler Youth, using their father’s Catholic identity to disguise themselves, because it was the only way for them to escape being sent to a concentration camp. Now, 91-year-old Jack Wurfl is telling his story in print form, in his memoir “My Two Lives.”
“I lived in Europe until I was 17 years old. I call that my first life,” Wurfl explained in an interview with the JT. “My second life was when I came to the U.S. … as I wrote the book, I was amazed by how suddenly things I thought I had forgotten came back to me.”
Wurfl now lives in Lutherville and serves as the chairman of the board of Diversified Insurance Industries, having worked in insurance for 60 years after he and his brother immigrated to America. His daughter, Dana Carroll, and her husband, Tom, now run the company and encouraged Wurfl to write a memoir two years ago.
Initially, Wurfl declined, stating that “There are many people who lived a similar life during the Holocaust, and I’m sure they could write a better book than I could.” But he later relented, wanting to chronicle his family’s history for his grandchildren and their descendants.
Born in Austria in 1932, Jack Wurfl was later sent to Berlin along with Peter because his parents anticipated that Hitler would soon invade Austria. Their mother would later come to Germany as well, but would be arrested and sent to Auschwitz. The boys’ grandfather, whom they lived with, soon paid for them to attend a children’s camp north of Berlin so they would not be found out and captured.
“The Hitler Youth was like Boy Scouts over here,” Wurfl recalled. “But when I came out of first grade classes, we had to learn to march and do the Heil Hitler salute. Then, as we got older, we had to learn to use weapons. Grenades and bazookas and things like that.”
He added that he still has a certificate he was awarded for throwing a grenade the second-farthest out of all his peers, in a track-and-field-like competition the Hitler Youth held.
“Even though we were kids, we knew that we didn’t want any part of what was going on,” he said. “But we had to play the game in order to stay alive.”
When they later left Berlin and arrived at the children’s camp, the brothers were taken in by the camp’s owner, Irma Franzen-Heinrichsdorff, whom they called Tante (aunt) Irma. Strangely, they were also taught by a Nazi officer they called Herr Pille.
“He knew who we were, that we were Jewish,” Wurfl said. “There are certain people who are just good people who help others, even if they are putting themselves in danger.”
When the war finally ended, Jack and Peter Wurfl immigrated to the United States in an arrangement by the U.S. Army. Jack Wurfl would later serve in the Army for two years during the Korean War. He wanted to move to San Francisco, but he didn’t have enough money to make the bus trip.
“I said, ‘Well, how far can I go with the money I have?’ and they said ‘You can go to Baltimore,’” Wurfl recalled. “I asked if that was in the direction of San Francisco, and they said, ‘More or less.’”
It was here that Wurfl would start his new life, taking night classes to study English and founding Diversified Insurance Industries when he returned from his Korean War service. In 1955, he married Zonia Nusen, who had once been crowned Miss El Salvador. They had three children before Nusen died in 2018.
Wurfl’s goal in writing and publishing “My Two Lives” is to educate young people about the history of the Holocaust, the dangers of antisemitism and the horrors that even ordinary people can commit. He notes that many young people are not properly educated on the Holocaust, something he hopes to help by telling his story.
“I hope my story will help those growing up in difficult circumstances, like I did, to overcome their obstacles and succeed,” he said. “While I had a terrible beginning, all in all, I lived a good life and I am thankful for it. People don’t have to feel sorry for me.”
