The TV comedy Hogan’s Heroes about a German prisoner of war camp premieres on CBS, starring Bob Crane as Col. Hogan. The show used Jewish actors to portray the Germans, several of whom had fled Nazi Germany. Some even spent time in concentration camps.
⢠Robert Clary (LeBeau) says he spent three years in a concentration camp, that his parents and other family members were killed there, and that he has an identity tattoo from the camp on his arm (“A-5714”).
⢠Werner Klemperer (Col. Klink) fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1933.
⢠John Banner (Sgt. Schultz), who was also Jewish, had been held in a pre-war concentration camp before fleeing to the U.S. His family members who remained in Vienna all perished in Nazi concentration camps.
⢠Leon Askin (German soldier Burkhalter) was in a pre-war French internment camp and his parents were killed at Treblinka.
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