Eugene Clarence Polson

POLSON, Eugene Clarence

Eugene Clarence Polson was born on June 17th 1927 to Bernard Henry & Jessie Tressa [Wojtczak] Polson in Duluth, Minnesota.

Mr. Polson served as a Private in the U.S. Army during World War II. He enlisted at Ft. Snelling in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 11th 1945. He served guard duty for nine months for prisoners who were on trial at the Nuremberg Trials.

At times he guarded the prisoners in the “coop,” a cell block (each cell having a bathroom and a washbowl) that held 30-40 prisoners; Mr. Polson and the other guards took them out for walks and exercise about two times a day.

Sometimes he had duty on the wall of the prison, which was dangerous because infrequently, people outside the wall would take shots at the guards. At other times he accompanied prisoners to stand trial in the courtroom of the Palace of Justice, where he and the other guards had to stand at attention the entire time.

PVT Polson guarded Hermann Göring (cell five) and Rudolf Hess (cell four), among others. Göring, who spoke English well, often sought him out to talk to him, although Mr. Polson did not want to speak with him. In the courtroom, the head of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach, had to be protected, sometimes at gunpoint, from angry citizens, some of whom carried knives in order to kill him.

After the war he returned home and he married Lorna [Bujold] on September 18th 1948 and they started a family.

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Source: Oral interview with Veterans’ Memorial Hall staff (see below)

Oral History Interview with: Eugene Polson (WWII Vet)

Interviewed by:
Daniel Hartman
Program Director of Veterans Memorial Hall

Transcribed by:
Karin Swor
Program Assistant of Veterans Memorial Hall

Interview Date: September 17, 2008

D.H. Daniel Hartman
G.P. Gene Polson

D.H. Today we are doing an interview on June 25, 2008 with Gene Polson, correct?
If you want to say and spell your last name.

G.P. My first name is Eugene and my last name is Polson, P-O-L-S-O-N.

D.H. You live in Duluth now correct?

G.P. I have always lived in Duluth.

D.H. And you as a veteran of World War II, served during the Nuremberg Trials, correct? Do you want to start talking a little bit about that?

G.P. I was there nine months, and the part I hated the worst was in court. Some people would come with daggers and everything. They wanted to kill this Schirach. Have you ever heard of the Schirach? He was the head of the German youth and all the people must of hated him because of what he did with the kids and that.

D.H. People were coming with knives and things?

G.P. Oh, with daggers and everything, so we doubled the guard, in places.

D.H. What ever happened to Schirach, was he?

G.P. He was executed, hung.

D.H. OK

G.P. And Goering, they sent two of the guards to get him and I think he had a shoulder that was half shot out, and then he had a German doctor, I think the Doctor gave him some poison. I think he hid it in that shoulder, they couldn’t hang him he was already gone.

D.H. But he was planned to be hung?

G.P. Oh, he was planned to be hung too, I didn’t see the hanging but I didn’t want to. I don’t think I would care for that. I heard that some of the heads come right off the body. They hung the two German Generals, Jodl, and Keitel. Schirach he was hung too.

D.H. Were you in the courtrooms when they got sentenced?

G.P. Yeah, off and on. You know, one day I would have and one day I wouldn’t and one day I would be in the coup watching them, and one day up on the wall. We kept changing off all the time.

D.H. OK, lets talk about these different positions. Like the wall, describe the wall to me, what was guard duty there?

G.P. Yeah, well it was just a guard duty, a prison a wall.

D.H. OK, did you see a lot of people that were trying to climb the wall or go through it?

G.P. No, but when they were going to hang them, they had guards, extra guards every place.

D.H. How many guards were there do you think?

G.P. Oh, there must have been one hundred-fifty guards altogether. Then when you go in the courthouse you had to stand at attention all the time. I just hated that.

D.H. So you actually didn’t like being in the courthouse?

G.P. No, no I liked the coops the best. The walls were dangerous, you never knew when people were going to come shooting at you on the walls and that. But I think the German people, they realized after awhile.

D.H. Describe the coop scenario.

G.P. It was just a little cell, like they had bathrooms and washbowl and we would take them out for walks and that would be about twice a day.

D.H. So that is where the prisoners were held?

G.P. Yeah, that is where the prisoners were held. But they must have had about thirty or forty of them. I didn’t even get to know them all.

D.H. So there was thirty to forty prisoners?

G.P. Yeah, we had Goering Hess, Jodl, Keitel, Schirac and Fisher; I don’t know what he was.

D.H. Did you meet quite a few of them?

G.P. Oh yeah, but Goering I couldn’t get away from him. He wanted me to come and sit and talk with him always. Boy, I didn’t care for that.

D.H. What did he want to talk to you about?

G.P. I don’t know, just sit around and talk just to have somebody to talk to. I suppose it is a long lonely day life in that place.

D.H. Did he speak English?

G.P. Oh, real good English, yeah.

D.H. And you don’t remember what he tried to talk to you about, conversation wise?

G.P. No, no I didn’t want anything to do with it.

D.H. Did some of the other Germans try to contact you as well like, Schirach?

G.P. Oh yeah, like Hess he never talked, he was a little bit of looney bird, I think.

D.H. Was he just quiet in his cell all the time?

G.P. Oh yeah, just sat quiet in his cell all the time.

D.H. Can you, I guess describe the personality of these people a little bit, like what was Goering like?

G.P. He had the best personality of all of them. He was so friendly and nice, talked good English.

D.H. Was that kind of odd for you after all the awful things you heard about the guy?

G.P. Oh yeah, yeah, kind of odd for everything and it come up so fast.

D.H. Oh yeah, what were you doing before you were put on this guard duty?

G.P. Well I landed in LaHarbe, and then we made our way to, we went to Heidelberg for a while.

D.H. How big of a complex was it?

G.P. Oh, we stayed where the SS Troopers stayed.

D.H. Describe this complex you guys were in, I mean was it a pretty big complex?

G.P. Well, underneath, it was all underground a lot of it, and it would hold maybe five or six hundred and then they had underground. I don’t know where all the underground places were; they went all over Nuremberg, all the underground stuff.

D.H. Really?

G.P. That must be in case they were bombing they could just go in the underground place.

D.H. Yeah, was that pretty amazing to you when you first saw that?

G.P. Oh yeah, everything was amazing when we saw the prison too.

D.H. Well, I mean describe the prison a little bit; I mean what was it like? Was it a pretty basic prison?

G.P. Oh, just a basic prison that is where they put all the Jewish people, I think and then they send them to the camps to get rid of them.

D.H. So, this was actually the place where these prisoners were staying and was the place that the Jewish population had been in for a while?

G.P. Oh, yeah

D.H. So this is another way of kind of getting back at the Germans a little bit?

G.P. Yeah

D.H. Describe the courtroom scene, was it a pretty loud?

G.P. It was loud and every person was there, Russian, French and every different
Country.

D.H. Did the process seem fair to you at all?

G.P. Oh, I think it did, yeah.

D.H. I mean, did the Germans get time to give an equal say? I mean, did it move along pretty good.

G.P. Oh yeah, they all. Goering thought he was going to go free.

D.H. Really?

G.P. He had that in his mind, I think, until the doctor gave him the poison, I suppose.
I know the darn doctor, he is the one that gave him the poison I think, he had that shoulder shot off and there was a place to hide stuff in there.

D.H. Yeah, was the doctor a German then?

G.P. He was a German doctor, yeah.

D.H. Why did Goering think he was going to be free?

G.P. I don’t know, the way he talked to me I thought no way.

D.H. That ain’t going to happen.

G.P. Nobody ever talked to Hess I think. He was a looney bird.

D.H. Just kind of a scary guy too?

G.P. Yeah, well he never talked and I don’t know what. You could never make him out.

D.H. Were you in the courtroom for any of the trials that you remember?

G.P. Not really, we would go in there and then the next day we would get on the wall or something else. There was always something different.

D.H. So you always saw just little chunks of it?

G.P. Yeah, little chunks of it. They would go through each one separately and then find all the faults about him and all whatever he had done.

D.H. Yeah, and I imagine quite a few of these guys had quite a few faults?

G.P. Yeah, oh yeah.

D.H. How did you feel being there, I mean you had to realize this is a monumentious event to be at?

G.P. Oh yeah, yeah.

D.H. I mean, what were you feeling at the time?

G.P. Well, I was kind of shaky and everything.

D.H. The courtroom scene I am trying to figure how big it was?

G.P. Oh, that is a big courtroom here, whoa.

D.H. Big courtroom?

G.P. Oh yeah

D.H. How did the other countries, you know the allies, how did they cooperate?

G.P. They had certain spots for them and then they would translate and I would know what they were talking about.

D.H. But, all the different countries participated?

G.P. Oh yeah, all the countries participated.

D.H. Were there certain countries that were over bearing? Like were the Russian’s really trying to be outspoken?

G.P. They thought they were the leader of everything. They are hard people to get along with, we seen them on the streets and that.

D.H. I mean, describe that a little bit?

G.P. I don’t know, they just thought they were a different kind of an animal.

D.H. Yeah, and they always thought they were leading the charge and things?

G.P. Yeah, yeah.

D.H. Was there any certain thing that happened during these trials that you thought was?

G.P. Oh they get pretty angry, some of the prisoners.

D.H. Give me an example of one situation that you remember.

G.P. Well they talk in German.

D.H. And they would just be yelling in German?

G.P. Yeah, yeah.

D.H. OK, did anything really interesting happen one time while you were in the courtroom that you would like to have down for history? That you thought was an interesting thing to see?

G.P. Well we kept a close watch on Schirach because the people were coming in and they must have hated him pretty bad.

D.H. So Schirac more than the other prisoners?

G.P. More than the other prisoners, yup. I don’t know what he was or with the German youth or whatever it was.

D.H. And you were obviously fairly close to Schirac I imagine?

G.P. Yeah, they were in different cells.

D.H. Yeah, and how was Schirac, was he?

G.P. He was maybe down across the hall and then there is a hallway and four was Hess and five was Goering and I think eight and nine were the two German Generals, and then on the other side was Schirac on the other side was Fischer and.

D.H. Boy, you remember this pretty good.

G.P. Yeah, yeah well, it was a long time ago. It is about seventy years ago maybe, sixty seventy years ago.

D.H. Still you remember the cell numbers.

G.P. Oh yeah, yeah

D.H. Did Schirac know English well too?

G.P. He knew everything, but he wouldn’t talk.

D.H. He wouldn’t talk?

G.P. No.

D.H. OK, was he kind of a scary guy like Hess too?

G.P. Yes, another one just like Hess. Well, I guess he got all these orders from that, he must have been an awful guy. He took care of the kids and I don’t know what he had done to all the kids.

D.H. So, did you hear a lot of the threats from people in the community, who wanted to kill this guy? Like you said people were angry.

G.P. They come in there with their purse, ready to stab him, but they couldn’t get near him.

D.H. So as a guard, did you ever have to push anyone away yourself?

G.P. Oh, I had to push them away to keep them away from him.

D.H. I imagine you had to do that at gunpoint sometimes?

G.P. Oh yeah.

D.H. Was there ever a time where the crowd got kind of overwhelming and you had to really do anything about it?

G.P. There was quite a few, quite a few people but now that is what they ever thought about is getting Schirach or something.

D.H. They never took down a guard or anything like that?

G.P. No, No.

D.H. OK, and why were they wanting to get Schirach so bad did they think that he was going to get away?

G.P. I don’t know, what he did, had done to their kids or something.

D.H. Man, is there anything about your experience in Nuremberg that you want to talk about that hasn’t really been brought up? You talked earlier about the vine trees on the walls and things like that.

G.P. Oh yeah, they had grapes growing up all the walls. Then they had about four or five apple trees and I think there was one pear tree because I saw pears laying on the ground wherever when I went out there with prisoners, but they wouldn’t try eating none of it the prisoners, apples or pears or nothing.

D.H. They wouldn’t, they thought they were poisoned?

G.P. They didn’t want nothing to do with it.

D.H. Did you guys ever eat any of the fruit?

G.P. No, I never ate any of it.

D.H. So, were people generally sacred to eat it?

G.P. They were beautiful, some of the apples they were real big.

DH. Were the people scared that something would happen to them?

G.P. Yeah, I suppose.

D.H. Is that why you wouldn’t eat them either?

G.P. No, I never ate them. I didn’t get much to eat over there from the Americans, so I had the keys for around there and I went in the officer’s mess and ate all the time. They ate good but I couldn’t eat a thing. It is all canned stuff like canned potatoes and that, ohhh rotten.

D.H. So the food was just awful.

G.P. Just awful, yeah. So I, there was no money you were spending anyway with all those German Franks and you could just as well burn a ton and get another ton of it. Then after a while there were changes to keep American currency, or what ever they call it, and then it was different.

D.H. So you actually went into the officer’s mess to get food though?

G.P. Yup, we got food over there, boy they ate nice.

D.H. A little different? What do the prisoners eat? What were you guys feeding them?

G.P. They got little dishes and whatever they had.

D.H. I imagine you didn’t feed them?

G.P. Not very much.

D.H. OK, but what type of food were they getting fed? Just like a little can of potatoes?

G.P. Little canned stuff, yeah.

D.H. Did they eat it or did they refuse it sometimes?

G.P. They refused it sometimes and sometimes they would eat if some of it. I suppose they get starved too.

D.H. Yeah

G.P. Funny they wouldn’t eat all that food out in the gardens like that?

D.H. Yeah, it is weird. But that is how scared they were.

G.P. Yeah, scarred of us.

D.H. How often were these guys actually let out of their cells to walk around?

G.P. Oh, twice a day we would take them out.

D.H. What was that for? Just to make sure?

G.P. Exercise out in the yard. But they would really go when they got outside.

D.H. What do you mean?

G.P. Really. Almost running, yeah so fast.

D.H. Like you go outside and you see Goering running around?

G.P. Oh yeah, to me he was a good egg. I don’t know why. That’s the only one I ever talked to.

D.H. Yeah

G.P. The rest.

D.H. The rest you kind of understood, but Goering was kind of?

G.P. Yeah.

D.H. Were you always kind of curious as to why he got into it in the first place?

G.P. I don’t know, he sounds like he was a good Catholic man or something like that, and then turn to that and junk what he got out of.

D.H. Now, Goering is a unique guy because several interviews that I have done, locally, a lot of people have items from Goering. Did you come back with anything from Goering like a patch or a name?

G.P. I got one of those little buttons that have a swastika, I have one of them, one of the German guys gave me that. I don’t know who but one of them in the prison, I don’t know which one. They were bringing in more and more prisoners all the time from other places.

D.H. How long were you there, nine months you said?

G.P. Nine months in Nuremberg.

D.H. Do you remember the dates exactly? What was it?

G.P. I think they hung them around the middle of November. I don’t know when I got there.

D.H. Were you there when they were being hung? Do you remember?

G.P. No, I didn’t want nothing to do with that.

D.H. But I mean were you in the complex when it was going on?

G.P. Oh, yeah I was in the complex.

D.H. Was there a lot of talk about what was going on?

G.P. Oh, there was talk, that is why they doubled the guards up on the walls and every other place.

D.H. Yeah.

G.P. If you had your time off you were out there, then for that night.

D.H. Were there a lot of people that you felt were relieved to know that a lot of these guys were hung?

G.P. I think so. A lot of the German people were happy. And I think they are happy right now, because my daughter had a student from Hermantown and she’s crying she wanted to come and visit my granddaughter and just stay over here. So my daughter said you can come whenever you want to come. So she brought her over here and now my daughter is going to go visit her, my granddaughter. She is where the wall is, where they tore the wall down.

D.H. Yeah, was she on the eastern side then?

G.P. The eastern side.

D.H. Interesting.

G.P. And she went to Hermantown, her name was Sandra, I don’t know the last name. I forgot, but my granddaughter is going to go visit her and she just loves to go shopping here. Ohh God, when she was going home she was going home like Santa Clause.

D.H. So we have it pretty good here.

G.P. Yup.

D.H. Is there any story that you remember, like an event that you thought was entertaining that you would want to have for the record? Like did someone try to escape?

G.P. No, no one ever tried to escape. Oh, there was so many guards you could never escape.

D.H. Did you guys as guards, did you guys talk about, and hey this is weird that we are here? I mean did you guys ever; realize where, how big of an event you were at?

G.P. Not really, no, it was every day routine for me, that is all it was.

D.H. OK, how long did it take for you to realize that you were at a really important?

G.P. A prison, yeah.

D.H. Now, you have seen I’m sure, a lot of these movies that have come out on the Nuremberg Trials, have you watched any of them?

G.P. No.

D.H. I was just curious to see what you thought of them.

G.P. People I think can really get into what to watch. They are standing up every place around the courtroom.

D.H. So these courtrooms were just filled with people?

G.P. Oh yeah, and then you stand at attention all the time. Oh God, for four hours at a time standing at attention.

D.H. I guess is there anything else that I am forgetting to ask you that you want to have, that you want to talk about?

G.P. No, not really. I am surprised at the way I took going into this

D.H. I am too, but still it is an interesting story. Not many people can say they were at the Nuremberg Trials and met Goering.

G.P. Yeah

D.H. Now is your family pretty familiar that you served at Nuremberg too?

G.P. Oh yeah, yup, oh I lost my voice about five years ago, six years ago, and then I saved that book and I showed it to everybody.

D.H. Yeah, it is an amazing piece. I mean. Is there anything else you want to mention? I don’t want to cut you short.

G.P. No, no, no.

 

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