The International Baccalaureate History classes have had "visits" from two guests who experienced WWII in very different ways. Both grandfathers of students in the class, Dr. Karlfried Froehlich visited in person, while Mr. Maurice Lasoen visited via Skype from South Africa.

 

Dr. Froehlich was born in 1930, the second son of a Lutheran pastor in Saxony who was sympathetic to the Confessing Church during the war. Dr. Froehlich was 9 when the war began and 15 when it ended. He regaled the class with his fascinating memories of Hitler's propaganda and youth organization, of the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945, and of the harrowing invasion of the Russians in Meissen. Shortly after the war, Froehlich's family could no longer feed the five children, so he and his older brother were sent to the West (part of his journey by foot) to stay with their relatives, who were merchants in Mettmann (the Ruhr area). He finished his secondary schooling there and went on to earn a doctorate in theology from Basel University in Switzerland. He first visited America for one year as a student in 1959 and later, with his wife. He accepted a position in the U.S. and has been teaching ever since (now emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary).

Mr. Maurice Lasoen was a teenager during WWII, living in an area in Belgium where German troops would often come for lodging. He recalled sitting on the roof of his family's home to watch the bomber aircraft fly overhead. During the war, the Allied Forces began dropping lanterns attached to parachutes from planes during the night to discover German U-boats in the water. Mr. Lasoen, always the entrepreneur, began collecting the parachutes, made of silk, to sell in a side business. The food shortages caused by the war reached Belgium and his family's monthly allowance of food was quite limited including just one loaf of bread each month. Still a business man, Mr. Lasoen is now based in Cape Town, South Africa.